Lark In The Morning! Lark Camp! Anyone going? Anyone gone?

[WSmac]

There is a folk music camp every year around this time near Mendocino, California.

It is a week-long camp in the woods with all manner of friendly folks playing all manner of instruments from around the world, dancing, singing, drinking and whatever else

It's quite a fun event and a very family friendly gathering also.
I saw my first-ever Utilikilt there several years ago which led to the historically significant event known as "You're not going to waste your time sewing yourself a kilt! We'll get you one of those utility kilts for Father's Day!"

Oh HAPPY HAPPY DAYS!

I'm going again after missing out on last year ( the divorce and all ), but I will only be attending half-camp.

I play the fiddle, mandoline (slightly worse than the fiddle), autoharp (sometimes better than the fiddle but generally not to bad), and any other instrument I can lay my hands on for 5 minutes

This year I will be weaing only skirts at camp. Heck, I won't even bring a pair of bifurcated lower torso cover-ups.
I am guessing this camp is quite similar to the dance camps over on the east coast... lots of music, plenty of rekindled friendship, LOTS of dancing, music, secluded from the rest of the world... and ... MUSIC!
(you'll notice I said NOTHING about sleep!

We have North & South American music (including Quebec fiddling!) and dancing (Contra -ry to popular belief), Middle Eastern music & dancing, music from the British Isles & dancing (Morris anyone? CLASH go the swords!), Didjeridoo(have a go with that spell-checker mate), Samba drumming, and whatever new thing someone brings to camp.

Okay, I've gone on long enough. Need to get to sleep for the drive down there tomorrow!
See you all Saturday!
http://www.larkcamp.com/information.html

Click that linky thingy up above if you want to know more!

YEEHAW, I'm on my way to summer camp! (sung to that snotty, I got sum-thin you ain't got! tone )

[Skirt Chaser]

I saw my first-ever Utilikilt there several years ago which led to the historically significant event known as "You're not going to waste your time sewing yourself a kilt! We'll get you one of those utility kilts for Father's Day!"

That is a memorable day indeed. That should be celebrated every year with a new purchase.

I guess you can't write us a letter home from camp, but tell us about it when you get back, WSmac!

Quiet Mouse

[AMM]

It sounds like fun, but it's a bit far for me to drive.

However, there are dance & music camps on my side of the continent, and I'll be going to one for a week starting this Saturday. (My boss is muttering about how he'd like me to stay and finish up some work, but I've been waiting 6 months for this!) I've been practicing my instruments in the hopes that maybe this year I get up to tempo with some of the tunes.

I went last year and went skirted for all but part of one morning. I was pretty much the only one for most of the time, but people didn't have a problem with it. I'm in the process of making some new skirts to bring. Maybe a half-slip or two as well.

-- AMM

[WSmac]

I'm back!

Short but sweet!
I took my fiddle and banjo - old time fiddle, frailing banjo

I wandered in and out of a couple other classes and spent time watching my daughter learn to play the Gaita!
She's such an interesting person... really marches to her own beat.

I have an admission to make here and I'm not particularly proud nor ashamed...

I did take two sets of bifurcated garments... swim trunks for swimming and lightweight sweat pants for sleeping.

I wore my Mountain Skirt....oops, sorry that's a mountain KILT... I forgot, the day I drove down and the day I drove back.

In between, I wore my UK workman (saw one other workman and one mocker), my sarong, and a lady's off-white cotton skirt for one evening.

I got a few looks, several nice comments but most of all... I WAS SO COMFORTABLE!

There is always a bit of clouds or fog in the early morning, blowing off by 8 or 9 am.
The rest of the day usually gets hot.
The evenings cool down again.

I saw lots of ladies in skirts, but only one other guy in a plain skirt of some sort who was not in a dance troop.
There was a Hawaiian Dance one night and the guy wore a sarong.

I had one guy comment, "Another guy in a sarong!", or something like that.
He was on his way to catch one of the buses between camps, but I had a moment to talk with him about skirt wearing and he took down this website address.

Hope he makes it here someday!

For all you prim & proper lads... ... I did have my shirts tucked in most times.
It was only in the hot afternoons that I would wear a tank shirt with a short-sleeved shirt hanging over it loosely.

I'm actually getting much more comfortable in the Mountain Kilt.
This is a nice skirt and I would recommend anyone who likes above-the-knee skirts, to look into getting one... whenever they are available.

AMM, there's Ashokan near you isn't there? I forget exactly where it is at.
I do know there are more camps for Morris Dancing, Folk Dancing and Contra Dancing on the Eastern side of the U.S., as well as a few here on the West coast.

Fairbanks, Alaska actually had a thriving Contra Dance scene in the winter.
That's where we'd spend our Saturday nights with our young daughter.
You'd get so hot and sweaty from dancing that going out in -20F/-29C felt really good!

[Since1982]

Isn't it amazing that when we started wearing gosh darn genuine skirts we got conscious of how they looked and started thinking about getting more of them to almost being a skirt wardrobe? With only trousers, it seemed like it was "pull them on in the morning, don't look in the mirror(which I bet we do all the time now)and wear the same colors and styles until they fell off in pieces". Boy it sure is nicer to actually care how I look before I go even to the grocery store.

[WSmac]

LOL, Skip, I have to agree with you

The lady who taught the old time fiddle class I went to commented two days in-a-row about how she liked my selection of clothing.
She was pleasant and hands-on checking out my skirt and shirt combos.

Wearing pants, or more specifically blue jeans, I never felt like I had to 'match' anything. Just slop on something to cover me-self with and go about my business.

Whenever I have put a skirt on, it's all about... "Is this the skirt I really want to wear to this function?",
"Hmmm, I'm not sure this shirt works with this skirt, better try another."

[crfriend]

Isn't it amazing that when we started wearing gosh darn genuine skirts we got conscious of how they looked and started thinking about getting more of them to almost being a skirt wardrobe?

My wife noticed the same thing with me after I started wearing skirts -- I actually took time and care to work out which colours, fabrics, and shapes actually went together well instead of just shoving on the shirt-and-tr*users and wandering out the door.

Certainly from Skip's and WSmac's perspectives that seems to be the case with them as well. How many other guys found the same thing happening to them?

[ChrisM]

Yes, absolutely the case. I was going to reply to Skip to this effect. I now have the problem of insufficient closet space, which is a problem that I used to tease my wife about...how my clothes would all fit in a small space, how I could pack for three weeks in a small carry-on bag... Now, gosh darn it, I've got seven pairs of shoes! (Never had more than two in the past) Not to mention the dozens of skirts, shirts to coordinate with them, etc., etc.

C

[Since1982]

I have no more closet space, went out in the shed and brought 2 large suitcases into the house, folded up the skirts I don't wear as often, packed them in the cases, but didn't put them in the shed just in case I decided to wear one. I like colorful but still try to match patterns in shirt and skirt, if the shirt is a hawaiian style with fishes etc. I make sure the skirt is too. My footwear is more like the old pants style, I have 2 pairs, an olllllddddd pair of vinyl loafers and my black birkenstocks, socks with the loafers and bare feet with the sandals.

I've not cut my hair length now for 3 years, just a split ends trim every now and again. It's still mostly blond with some really small streaks of gray at the temples and sideburns. I wish I knew how to add a picture with this new system like I could with the old system.

[SkirtDude]

deleted

[AMM]

... there are dance & music camps on my side of the continent, and I'll be going to one for a week starting this Saturday. ...

-- AMM

Just got back from Camp. I was skirted the whole time, including the drive both ways. (I even work my skirt walking into the post office in my home town.) There was also a young man who wore skirts continuously the last few days, and one of my neighbors in my cabin wore skirts every evening. Maybe I'm starting a trend .

I had a great time dancing (mostly contra and English -- where else can you go and have one beautiful woman after another throw herself into your arms?) and playing music. The musicians were quite tolerant and even encouraging of an "amateur" (to be generous) musician who hits the right note maybe 30% of the time. One class was really neat: we sat down, the "instructor" said nothing, but went through one tune once, then did the first two bars very slowly, waited for us to repeat it, then played them again, waited, etc. We learned something like 4-5 tunes in an hour, once a day.

One thing about being skirted all the time, not just for particular occasions, is that I got a feeling for what works and what doesn't in different situations -- and different weather.

Usually, I wore a long skirt for breakfast, since it was cool and I wasn't warmed up yet. Then a fuller, shorter skirt for the morning dance activities. Then a longer skirt (unless it was really hot) for music activities in the afternoon. After a day or so, I found I needed knee socks all the time because my calves were aching (6--8 hours a day of dancing will do that to you.) And during the day, I wanted a less conspicuous skirt, but for the evening dance parties, I wanted something that people would notice -- bright colors, petticoats, lace, etc. In particular, my rainbow skirt got a lot of compliments. (But no dates ) As a result of some dinner-time discussions with women who sew, one of them proposed a skirt-sewing workshop for next year.

I also realized that I need more half-slips, especially the ones with the extra fold in the front so you don't "flash" folks when you're wearing a knee-length skirt and sit down.

The thing is, you end up sweating a lot at these camps. People typically go through several shirts per day, and I found that my half-slips get pretty damp, too. There's no laundromat, so we mostly rinse out the wet clothes in the sink, hang them up, and hope they dry out before we run out of dry clothes. It was damp most of the week this year, so two slips were definitely not enough.

I find that my skirt-wearing is evolving. There are a number of skirts that I wore last year that I wouldn't wear any more, and others that I was not brave enough to wear last year that didn't bother me this year. I also see what sorts of skirts I would have worn if I had made them in time. I think (hope?) that I'm developing a "look" -- an idea of how I want to look and be seen wearing. But I'm nowhere near settling on anything.

-- AMM

[WSmac]

GREAT write-up AMM!

I do miss contra-dancing! Haven't done it in years, even though there's a group that holds dances in Arcata, California, close to me.

I have to say that your camp sounds much more like heavy physical activity than what I do at Lark. LOL

The only dancing at Lark is either 1 hr classes during the days, or any one of several dances held in the evenings during the week.
Nothing like your camp.

What instrument do you play? Does your music class play for any of the dances?

At Lark for example, the contra band classes practice during the day and play for one contra dance during the week.

The folks who are taking the morris dance class usually have a dance demo one night, also.

And so on...

When my daughter was 11, she stepped into a Gypsy dance class, which looks so much like belly dancing.

It was so cute to see this little round girl intensely watching and copying the older, skinny, hippie-chicks. I thought she would be immensely shy, but she even danced with the troupe at their evening demo dance.

I was (am) very proud of her!

Since you mentioned cabins, I suppose the attendees stay the whole week there?
How do you manage meals?
Have you attended other camps in other places before?

Any pictures of the skirts you wore to camp?

Thanks again for the update.

[AMM]

The place I was is called Pinewoods. It's basically a summer camp, but one where the programs are all music and dance, instead of archery and swimming and the like.

There are cabins of various types, some are just one room with two beds, others have multiple rooms. A few have running water, but mostly you have to walk through the woods to one of the buildings with a toilet and/or shower. There's a dining hall and several open-sided pavillions with wooden floors for dancing. There's also a pond with a dock and canoes and kayaks and a "camphouse" (the only fully-enclosed gathering space) where hardier souls will hang out and jam until the wee hours of the morning.

Cell phones are discouraged, and they ended last year's experiment with supplying WiFi in one corner of the camp (you now have to drive into town if you can't live without E-mail for a week.)

Most of the programs are 1 week long; the one I'm familiar with (organized by CDSS) has three hours of dancing every evening and 5 class periods during the day, with 3 or 4 activities during each period. There are also family-oriented programs with more unscheduled time and activities for kids. The CDSS programs tend to focus on English and American and, to a lesser extent, Irish music and dance.

I play guitar, pennywhistle, and fife/flute. I also play piano, but there's too much competition for the pianos for me to have much opportunity to play as part of a group (or even by myself.) I don't play any of them all that well. The program I was at had "professional" musicians (ones who can get money for playing at dances ) to provide music for classes and evening dances, but there are times when we amateurs provide the music, with mixed success. (One particular disaster comes to mind, when there were about six of us playing, when we all lost track of what bar we were on and were all playing different places in the tune! But we just kept sawing and blowing and banging away until someone shouted "top of the tune!" and we started over. I'm glad I wasn't dancing to that!)

No pictures of me in skirts from there (well, maybe someone else who was there has posted their pictures, and maybe I'm in there somewhere.) I plan to get a digital camera someday (first I need to get a round tuit, though.) I brought about 5 dancing skirts -- quite full, in bright colors, in various lengths -- which I wore for the evening dances. Some here might consider them too "feminine," although I just consider them, uh, "conspicuous." I also brought 3 long plain skirts, not so full, for breakfast time, when the weather and I were both cold. I also brought several knee-length, moderately full, plainer skirts for the daytime dancing sessions. I'm still a little nervous about the short skirts: I'm afraid I'll look stupid, or, worse, will unknowingly "flash" people.

No one complained about my skirts, and some people (mostly women) complimented me on the more colorful ones. I guess I need to have the courage to wear even brighter ones. As they say, you may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.

-- AMM