Oklahoma City hosted an English Country dance weekend in February of 2008 that was the first full weekend of ECD held in Oklahoma or Texas in many years. That very successful weekend, with Jacqueline Schwab teaching the dances and playing with her bandmates in Bare Necessities, showed the Oklahoma and Texas ECD communities that a weekend event was viable.
Later that same year, Joseph Pimentel traveled to Austin and saw the beautiful grand ballroom of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs building. He insisted that we hold an English Country dance weekend in "The Fed" sometime in the spring when fields in central Texas are covered with wildflowers. He volunteered to call and asked his friends in Goldcrest to play. The Austin ECD community stepped up to organize it, and the first weekend called Set for Spring was held in April 2009.
It was decided that Set for Spring should rotate between the Texas and Oklahoma ECD communities. The group in each city is relatively small; rotating Set for Spring reduces the work and risk of burnout for the organizers as well as the financial risk. Because of this rotation, each Set for Spring is unique, although graphics, decorations, and files are often shared among the cities.
Dallas hosted the second Set for Spring. Since they hold their contra dance festival in April, they held Set for Spring in March of 2010. It has been in March every year since then although it is not tied to a specific weekend.
Set for Spring by Year
Date
Location
Band
Caller
April 3-5, 2009
Austin
Goldcrest
Joseph Pimentel
March 19-21, 2010
Dallas
Foxfire
Joseph Pimentel
March 11-13, 2011
OKC
Childgrove
Sharon Green
March 23-25, 2012
Austin
Foxfire
Scott Higgs
March 8-10, 2013
Dallas
A Joyful Noise
Gene Murrow
March 14-16, 2014
OKC
3rd String Trio
Joanna Reiner
March 13-15, 2015
Houston
Goldcrest
Joseph Pimentel
March 11-13, 2016
Dallas
Foxfire
Brad Foster
March 24-26, 2017
Austin
Persons of Quality
Joanna Reiner
March 9-11, 2018
San Antonio
Goldcrest
Joseph Pimentel
March 15-17, 2019
OKC
Alchemy
Graham Christian
March 20-22, 2020
Houston
Cancelled, rescheduled for 2022.
March 12-14, 2021
Dallas
Cancelled, rescheduled for 2023.
March 18-20, 2022
Houston
Anna Patton, Daron Douglas, Karen Axelrod
Joanna Reiner
March 24-26, 2023
Dallas
Rachel Bell, Susan Kevra, Dave Wiesler
David Millstone
March 29-31, 2024
Austin
Audrey Jaber, Jacqueline Schwab, Ben Schreiber
Susan Kevra
April 4-6, 2025
OKC
Anna Patton, Eric Martin, Karen Axelrod
Joanna Reiner
Dance and Tune
For the 2015 event in Houston, Joseph Pimentel wrote a celebratory dance to a tune by Dave Wiesler, both called Set for Spring. Instructions for the dance with teaching notes and background information and a PDF of Dave's tune can be found on Joseph's website.
A video of the inaugural dancing can be found here on YouTube.
Dave made a "solo piano, quick-and-dirty with no editing" recording of the tune played 8 times through. He's graciously allowed it to be distributed for those groups needing to dance to recorded music.
The Odd Sundays Garage Band (Judy Linsenberg, Shira Kammen, Patti Cobb) recorded Set for Spring 5 times through for the Odd Sundays English Zoom dances led by Sharon Green and Kalia Kliban. The recording is made available under the CC Attribution-ShareAlike license.
Hear and download more recordings by the Odd Sundays Garage Band on their web page.
