MC 107

4 boxes (1.5 cu.ft.)

About Dudley Laufman:

Dudley Laufman was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1930 and grew up in Arlington, Massachusetts. He first came to New Hampshire in 1947 to work at Mistwold Farm dairy in Fremont, where he stayed a few years before returning to Arlington. In 1952, he moved to Walpole, New Hampshire and then finally, in 1959, to Canterbury, where he still lives in a house named “Wind in the Timothy.”

Laufman has been actively involved in contradance for over 50 years as caller, musician, composer, band leader, teacher, and latterly, documenter of the work of older musicians. Ever since first being “bitten” by the dance bug in 1947 while living in Fremont and calling his first dance in Walpole, Massachusetts the following year, he has made contradancing a central part of his life, with the result that his name, like that of Ralph Page before him (see The Ralph Page Collection), has become inextricably linked with contradancing in New Hampshire. Peter Yarensky, editor of the Seacoast Country Dance Newsletter, and himself a dance caller, has said of Laufman that “at times [he] was the only one anywhere calling contradancing to live music; it is fair to say that if it weren’t for Dudley we wouldn’t be dancing now.” Others have called him “the Johnny Appleseed of contradancing.”

Laufman plays fiddle, accordion, concertina, melodeon, and harmonica, and has led the Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra, a changing conglomeration of musicians, since 1965. In that year, what later became the core group of the Orchestra appeared at the Newport Folk Festival (though without a name). Later they appeared at the Fox Hollow Festival and the Club 47 and it was then that the name was adopted. It was at Fox Hollow in 1967 that the first of the Orchestra’s many recordings was made. “Chorus Jig”, the result of that recording session, was included on an anthology album called Clitter Clatter (see Appendix: Cassette Recordings, Odds and Ends.) Nowadays, the Orchestra performs only on an occasional basis. Since the late 1980s, Laufman has performed regularly for dances with Jacqueline Laufman (formerly Gilman) under the name “Two Fiddles“, both calling and playing music.

Dudley Laufman has been on the roster of the New Hampshire Artists- in-the-Schools program since 1978-79, teaching the state’s children contradancing. He has also lately begun to record for posterity the playing and reminiscences of older contradance musicians. Most recently, he has himself been the subject of recorded interviews (see Appendix).

Laufman has performed all over the United States and in Canada and has travelled to the British Isles and to Greece and Turkey with the Vermont Folkids. He is the author of a book on teaching dance, Okay, Let’s Try a Contra, and has written numerous books of poetry.

Sources:
Liner notes from various Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra albums and “Balance and Swing” by Kathy Maddock, New Hampshire Profiles, September/October 1990.

About the Laufman collection:

The Dudley Laufman Manuscript Collection consists of correspondence, poetry and prose, dance books and notations by Laufman, flyers and materials from dances and pertaining to various Laufman and Canterbury Dance Orchestra recordings, clippings, and photographs.

Note:

A listing of recordings in the Dudley Laufman Collection, including LPs, 45s, cassettes, and videotapes of performances by the Canterbury Country Orchestra, Dudley Laufman solo, Two Fiddles, Ed Dauphinais, Don Braley, and Edson Cole can be found in an appendix to this finding aid.