IN STEP WITH FUN
Dancers enjoy 32nd annual Flurry Festival
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. >> All dancers and music lovers of all ages have been enjoying the 2019 Flurry Festival at the Saratoga Hilton Inn and City Center.
Those participating in the three- day event can engage in more than 200 events, including dances, workshops, singing, concerts, jamming, performances, family events, storytelling, along with frequenting various vendors.
This marks the 32nd year the event has taken place in Saratoga Springs and the 25th at the City Center.
Festival Administrative Director Tamara Flanders talked about how the three- day weekend event was taking shape.
“The event’s going great we opened [Friday] night with our first event at 7 p.m. It’s jampacked with really happy people which we kind of build a small city here every weekend that we’re here, 5,000 people that are happy and co-existing,” Flanders said of the turnout.
“[Saturday] there’s tons of family events, barn dances, family dances, we just did a Balkin children’s dance. There’s nonstop concert dancing, swing dancing, tango and waltz dancing and Scottish dancing and English, country dancing and hip hop, Indian dancing, Israeli folk dancing, Native American dancing and then there’s jamming happening everywhere, all kinds of international influences on that, instrument workshops and storytelling,” Flanders noted of the variety of dances throughout the weekend.
According to Flanders, the event also brings in people from all corners of the globe, “I’ve met people from Germany, who specifically came here for this festival. I danced last night with a guy from California, who’s like yeah I come here every year from California!”
In addition to the City Center, folks were also partaking in concerts at the Putnam Den and Parting Glass Pub, where they could eat, grab a beer and listen
to live music.
Among the most popular draws are the contra dancing and swing dancing, along with a fairly new techno contra dance that started up about five years ago.
“Our contra dancing and swing dancing is probably the biggest draw, so that’s happening all the time all weekend. There’s always a contra, there’s always a swing. Over the last few years we’ve evolved to doing techno contra dances, last night we had a techno contra dance until two in the morning, so you’re taking the traditional contra dancing which is very old style of barn dances with fiddles andsowebringit into a dark room with black lights and strobes and electronic music and up the pace and speed it up and everyone’s wearing the glowing things and it’s super fun,” Flanders added.
Perhaps the best part of the event is that there’s no shortage of entertainment
Identity theft: that anyone can enjoy.
“There’s something for everybody, just come as you are, you don’t need to know how to dance, play an instrument, have a dance partner, it’s very community-based and everything goes. It’s just a really, really welcoming community and people are really ready to help you learn how to do what you’re trying to learn to do and there’s no judgment and it’s just a really happy comfortable place,” Flanders said.
The event runs through Sunday.