Guest Spots at our August 16th Spark in the Dark

There's a tricky dynamic around electronic contra dance (sometimes called 'technocontra'), where the only opportunities to play are special events. This makes it hard to get started, because then organizers are only looking for people who are ready to carry a whole evening. How can we help make this situation better?

For the next Spark in the Dark, our livetronica series, we're thinking of trying something new: guest spots. We're looking for people who want to play electronic music for contra dancing, but don't have a whole evening of material worked up. We'd run a longer event than usual, with Kingfisher as an "anchor" band and 2-4 other acts doing two-set slots.

We're happy to see a wide range of approaches to combining live and electronic music into something that is really fun to contra dance to. The most common lineup we've had has been duos with one person on loops and samples and another person playing live melodies, but solo performers and fully-live groups can also work well. We're planning $75/person, up to a max of $300/band.

We have the Somerville Armory booked for the evening of Friday August 16th; please reach out to musician-booking@bidadance.org if you'd be interested in playing.

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