News For March 14 - 20, 2005

Contents

• Dance of the week: Bakersfield Fiesta
• Round dance of the week: Bakersfield Fiesta
• Challenge dance of the week: Bakersfield Fiesta
• More Features ...

Dance of the week: Bakersfield Fiesta

Bakersfield Fiesta is one of the liveliest festivals we have attended. This festival takes place every March in Bakersfield. They always have a full schedule of Mainstream, Plus, Advanced, Challenge, and Round Dancing, in five separate halls. The callers and cuers are always top-notch and the festival is always well-attended.

The 2005 festival takes place March 18-20. Featured callers include Tony Oxendine and Johnny Preston. Saundra Bryant is featured in the Challenge hall and also calls Advanced sessions. Wayne and Barbara Blackford head up the round dancing program.

A fun part of this festival is their photo scrapbooks that go back 40 years. Check them out in the Plus hall / registration area.

It takes about four to five hours to travel from the San Francisco bay area to Bakersfield, depending on your exact location in northern California and the weight of your foot. If you're coming from the south, I think it takes only about two hours to get to Bakersfield from the San Fernando Valley, longer if you're in Pasadena or Orange County.

Don't forget to leave extra early if you dance rounds. A super early session of round dancing starts at 5:00 pm on Friday.

http://www.bakersfieldfiesta.com/

Round dance of the week: Bakersfield Fiesta

Bakersfield Fiesta is also our featured Challenge dance of the week. Internationally-known Saundra Bryant will call C1 and C2 tips, and maybe a C3A star tip? She also calls a session in the A2 hall, and Johnny Preston calls one session in the challenge hall.

Past challenge callers at Fiesta have included Mike Jacobs, Ben Rubright, and Lee Kopman.

Fiesta's challenge hall is always well attended by southern California's Trailblazers and northern California's Interlocked Squares. We've seen as many as seven or eight squares in the challenge hall. The callers are always the best, the dancing is good, and the squares are friendly.

Fiesta also has a super busy A1-A2 hall. Featured callers include Bronc Wise, Tony Oxendine, Tim Marriner, and Saundra Bryant.

http://www.bakersfieldfiesta.com/

Challenge dance of the week: Bakersfield Fiesta

Bakersfield Fiesta is also our featured Round dance of the week. They have a full round dance program that this year features cuers Mary Ann Callahan & Brian Wyatt, T.J. & Bruce Chadd, and Wayne & Barbara Blackford.

Don't forget to leave extra early if you dance rounds. Super early sessions of round dancing start at 5:00 pm on Friday. There are two separate halls of early rounds: Phase 2-4 and Phase 4-6. For many of us, this session is the best session of the weekend. There are three solid hours of rounds before any square dancing starts. Each cuer gets one hour in each hall. The Phase 4-6 hall has plenty of dances at each level. Some of the dances are programmed but there is room for some requests also.

This year, Wayne and Barbara Blackford substitute at the last minute for the ailing Joy Read, who broke her wrist just yesterday. Wayne and Barbara will teach a Phase 4 dance and a Phase 5 dance on Saturday morning. T.J. & Bruce Chadd will teach a Phase 3 dance on Sunday morning.

http://www.bakersfieldfiesta.com/

Last updated Saturday 8 December 2007