Residents from across the state converged on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia in early August for “Together for ’21,” part of the state’s bicentennial celebration leading up to Missouri’s Statehood Day on Tuesday, August 10.
Dancers and musicians, artisans and historians took center stage – both indoors and outdoors – throughout the weekend.
"We have a really rich tradition with a lot of different styles in Missouri – everything from some really prominent black jazz fiddlers in Kansas City all the way to the “hoedown-iest” of square dance fiddlers down in the Ozarks."Amber Gaddy
Amber Gaddy
I've played hundreds and hundreds of square dances all over the state and around the Midwest. Traditional musicians – we don't play a lot of shows. We play a lot of dances, and we play for each other and with each other. It's sort of a community-building thing.
Missouri is super lucky because we have an unbroken tradition. There was no time when no one was playing this music and there’s no gap where people had to go back and just learn things from recordings. It's all sort of been passed person-to-person throughout the state.
We have a really rich tradition with a lot of different styles in Missouri – everything from some really prominent black jazz fiddlers in Kansas City all the way to the “hoedown-iest” of square dance fiddlers down in the Ozarks.
Bernie Tappel
Right now, I'm making a fire striker: a steel that's used for starting a fire. Flint and steel – used especially in colonial times – it was their main method of fire-starting when they needed a fire.
You have to consider 200 years ago, there was no Walmart. So, basically any iron-made object – all the different crafts, from the woodworkers, their tools were made by the blacksmith – down to even ladies’ sewing needles.
I mean, the whole gamut: utensils, household utensils, everything [that was] made out of iron, at that time, was made by a local blacksmith.
Merle Hall
Square dancing actually came over after the colonists. They developed it here in the United States, but in Missouri it started out as – back… I don't know how long ago, I'd say the 1800s – they made it the state dance.
And so, it's been called all over Missouri from the Boot Hill all the way up to the northwestern corner. There are clubs of square dancers all over Missouri.
We dance. We enjoy. We have fun. We do exercise. When we dance, of course, it's social. But we also then help out the communities, too.
It’s easy to learn. If you can walk, you can square dance. It's easy to learn to call too, if you want to call, and there is a surplus need for – we don't have enough callers, we don't have enough dancers right now, partly because of the virus.
