We’re recently back from sunny California and our first “on the road” performances of Banjo Dance. The new show, which premiered at home in Dayton last September, is a tribute the traditional arts and culture of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

watch video excerpts from Banjo Dance

Our return to the lovely Napa Valley Opera House was a resounding success and Pappy (pictured above) was the star of the show. We also enjoyed plenty of local color - both red and white.

Driving down the I-5 to the 101, we bid farewell to Napa Valley and set up camp in Oxnard for a week of school shows, some precious free time at the beach and one more performance of Banjo Dance, this time at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Center.

Our ten days in California also included the first performances of ShoeFly for a couple of small but enthusiastic audiences in a couple of small but very enjoyable venues.

Since then, our new lean & mean “spin-off” group has gone to and returned from a very successful Merlefest, 2008, in Wilkesboro, N.C. It was ShoeFly’s first big festival and our weekend was packed full of clogging workshops, harmony singing, square dances, concerts sets and more enthusiastic audiences.

photo by Andy Snow

As for our local debut, we had been all ready for a March appearance at the Canal Street Tavern but at the time the weatherman said snow and, lo and behold, he was right. ShoeFly’s local debut is now scheduled to take place on Friday, June 27th. We’ll be playing two sets of oldtime song and dance, starting at 9:30pm, followed by a late night square dance. The music and dance are guaranteed to be hot and we promise there’ll be no snow.

You can always go to our Calendar page for information on future Rhythm in Shoes appearances.

Check our Classes page for details on our current sessions of tap and clogging classes.

Our annual home concert at the Victoria Theatre was a return to a more serious side of our work. The February 16th program included new works: Playground, and Others by Sharon Leahy, an expansion of Gina Burgei’s …so below, and a reprise of Leahy’s expansive, Streets of the Capitol.

It was Streets’ stark look at civil war that set the serious tone by speaking outright to our world’s most recent expressions of human cruelty and folly. Commissioned fifteen years ago by Jacob’s Pillow, along with the Flynn Theater and Cityfolk, Streets was created during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina but was no less relevant or powerful this time around.

Writing about the concert, Terry Morris of the Dayton Daily News said:

Rhythm in Shoes loves to play in and explore the universe between what the eyes see and what that might mean… life from an unexpected perspective… a story the eyes could know but words couldn’t specify.

To help celebrate our twentieth anniversary season, we’ve released two new CDs: TrueBlue and intentional Music. Check Merchandise for more information about these two very different, and very listenable recordings.

In the tradition of the pub sessions of Ireland, musicians from Rhythm in Shoes and the Ohio Corndaddys are hosting a weekly jam session at the Trolley Stop, on East 5th Street near Wayne Ave. in the Oregon District of downtown Dayton, Ohio. The sessions run every Wednesday night from 9:00 pm to midnight.

In addition to the usual guitars, banjos and fiddles that most commonly play traditional American tunes, we extend the invitation to basses, mandolins, ukeleles, and harmonicas, AND we always play unplugged.

Pickers of all levels are welcome, so bring your instrument and join in the musical merrymaking. For more information about playing in jam sessions we recommend a very nice site hosted by banjoist Pete Wernick, aka Doctor Banjo. It is more Bluegrass than Old Time oriented but contains a lot of useful information.

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