Dane Dances

Whether noun (as in The Dane Dances) or verb (as in Dane shakes its booty), it is fun either way! [What about “Dane”, you say?  No. not a visitor from a foreign country, nor even a Wisconsinite of that extraction – though there are many of those in the state!  No, Dane is not a man’s name in this context either…Dane here refers to Dane County, location of Madison, WI.]

Every Friday in August, you can enjoy the summer evening at Monona Terrace in Madison, just like we did last weekend.  Don your dancing shoes or just sit and enjoy the music and watch the dancers.  What a venue for an outdoor dance! Frank Lloyd Wright’s  beautiful outdoor space overlooks the lake on one side and the majestic, if currently controversial, Wisconsin state capitol on the other.

The crowd is out for a good time!  Smiles and laughter abound. You’ll see lots of friends greeting one another and lots of new friendships in the making.   The crowd is diverse, heavy on people of a “certain age” and young families, but literally all ages are represented.  And everybody dances!

There is food and drink for sale, but we arrived after having dinner at Sardine, just a bit further down the lake shore (recommended).

When we arrived there were people already dancing to to a DJ while the band was setting up.  An enthusiastic crowd was gathered around an impromptu break dancing session. If you caught the tossed baseball cap, you were on deck!

For our evening, the band was Primitive Culture; four guys and a drummer playing, over an hour and a half, an eclectic selection of rock, reggae, folk and Latin. The Terrace was shaking, literally and figuratively.

With the sun setting, the Capitol back drop became ever more dramatic, and spectacular when it was finally lit.

Definitely a wonderful evening. And FREE!  (Got to love it!)

Dane Dances – Details and Schedule