BOWDOINHAM — Thermometer readings may dip well below freezing by Sunday night, but it will nonetheless feel toasty inside the old Bowdoinham Town Hall as the Maine Country Dance Orchestra presents an old-fashioned evening of dancing to jigs, reels, polkas and waltzes.

The all-ages event will kick off at 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 30, with a pot luck supper, followed at 7 p.m. by an hour of beginner-level contra dancing. The pace will pick up at 8 p.m. with slightly more challenging contras, squares and other social dances, as well as polkas, schottisches and fox trots until the last waltz rolls around at 11 p.m. Admission is $8, with children 12 and younger admitted free.

The festive, family-oriented event culminates a yearlong celebration commemorating the founding of the town of Bowdoinham 250 years ago in 1762.

When Belgrade fiddler Ellen Gawler learned of the town’s anniversary plans, she contacted friend David Berry, a former Bowdoinham selectman who is solid-waste manager for the town and operates his family farm. She suggested that the Maine Country Dance Orchestra come out of retirement for a  reunion dance at the original town hall, the vintage plumbing-less building on School Street — where various members of the orchestra played every first Saturday night of the month for 25 years straight starting in 1975. Berry brought that suggestion to the anniversary-year planning committee, which gave its seal of approval.

Berry was central to the founding of the orchestra, which evolved from the participants he recruited for a fiddle contest organized to liven up the town’s Fourth of July barbecue back in 1975.

Berry played mandolin and the contest turned into a fun social affair, with several  musicians commenting that it would be even more fun if they got together regularly to play for dances. Berry remembered dancing the classic contra “Lady of the Lake” as a teen at old-time dances held at the town hall in the 1950s. So, he obtained permission for this new generation of musicians to use the hall and the monthly town hall dances were resurrected. The Maine Country Dance Orchestra was officially formed not long thereafter.

Along with Berry and Gawler, the MCDO included banjo player John Gawler (Ellen’s eventual husband), pianist and accordionist Doug Protsik, guitarist Jeff McKeen and fiddlers Elaine Malkin, Bob Childs, Carter and Kaity Newell, and Greg Boardman, as well as frequent sit-ins.

Most of these individuals — young, free-spirited back-to-the-landers interested in simply having a good time playing the music they enjoyed — have since settled down and made names for themselves on the Maine music scene.

Ellen Gawler is a fiddle and violin teacher with the Augusta-based Pineland Suzuki School, where she also coaches the Pineland Fiddlers youth ensemble. Childs is a noted violin maker in the Boston area and director of the Childsplay orchestra. McKeen is a folklorist who served for several years as a commissioner with the Maine Arts Commission. Kaity Newell teaches strings to students in the Damariscotta school system.

Boardman went on to get a music degree from the University of Southern Maine and has directed the string music program for Lewiston’s public schools for many years. In 1994, he founded the Maine Fiddle Camp, now directed by Doug Protsik,  where Boardman, McKeen, Malkin, the Gawlers and the Newells are on the teaching staff. 

Many of these people credit the monthly MCDO dances at Bowdoinham as a catalyst for their varied careers as professional musicians. While the dances weren’t money-making ventures, they enriched their creative spirits. And the dance community responded. Before long, dancers were flocking to Bowdoinham from all over the southern half of the state, and elsewhere in New England, to attend the legendary events.

Don Cunningham of Lewiston remembers that the musicians took turns calling the dances — “They needed good lungs since there was no sound system” —  and often ended up on the dance floor themselves. Sometimes, they grabbed a band mate to dance a polka or waltz, and other times they danced with their instruments in hand.

It wasn’t uncommon for them to switch tunes in the middle of a contra dance from a French-Canadian reel or Irish jig to a Beatles song, with dancers joining in the singing. And occasionally, band members would (without skipping a musical note)   dismount from the stage, form a procession that circulated a time or two around the dance floor, exit into the night and proceed around the building and eventually parade back inside and onto the stage.

At Sunday’s reunion dance, there will be a cake walk, with dancers invited to “strut their stuff” as they parade around the hall in a circle, with band members selecting a winning couple. There will also be door prizes and a display of old photos and scrapbooks showing the orchestra’s two-plus decades of music-making in Bowdoinham.

The Gawlers’ three daughters – fiddlers Molly and Edith and cellist Elsie – will join their parents on stage, along with two Newell sisters, fiddlers Maisy and Helen. 

The old Bowdoinham Town Hall is on School Street in the center of town. People planning to attend the potluck supper are asked to bring their own plates and utensils in addition to a casserole, salad, dessert or other contribution to the meal. While there is no kitchen, there are electrical receptacles for crockpots or hot plates. For more information, call the Gawlers at 495-2928 or Berry at 751-2809.

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