Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation, then moving to Bozeman where she owned a downtown retail anchor for eighteen years. These days she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Energetic Healthcare, hosts a monthly movie night, teaches and writes about many topics. 

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I’ve been an international folk dancer for 44 years. Or so.

In that time I’ve worn sandals, slick-soled shoes and boots for dancing. But for my 60th birthday in December, a friend gave me a pair of the real-thing shoes, Opanki.

I was pretty excited about taking them to the 31st (and counting) Steam and Stomp gathering at Boulder Hotsprings this last month. Somehow having “real thing” shoes made me feel more like a real-thing dancer. Dances seemed to come more easily, my body slipping in to muscle memory coordinated with beloved music.

Some dancers love the precision of steps, the patterning, and can count out a dance with the name of steps and clear direction of movement. Those types of dancers are essential to enrolling new dancers because they can teach.

I am not one of those.

Once you have a certain skill level with dancing, you can fake it in some dances, following along, letting strong dancers lead, sometimes as part of a line of dancers, sometimes trailing behind and mimicking them. That I can do.

I began dancing in the San Francisco Bay Area as a teenager. At the time, you could dance somewhere nearby most any night of the week. The best of the best was on warmer Friday nights when a hundred plus would dance at Stanford University, sometimes in front of the Memorial Chapel, with live music. When I think of that, I see the moon full, and hear the coordinated rhthym of all those feet, mine a subnote to a larger melody.

Some of the music was traditional and old, ancient even. Some newer.

That remains true.

The music that most lifts my heart is Eastern European, Balkan, especially music woven from the high, nasal intonations of women’s voices.

Hosting a folkdancing event used to mean hauling a portable stero and loads of 45 records. I did that when I taught dancing in High School. Then it transitioned to CDs, probably with an incarnation of cassettes that I don’t remember well. Now, it’s iTunes. But as I said, the best of the best is live music.

There’s a group of dancers who do a set of live music at Steam and Stomp with whatever instruments they play, and sometimes with someone’s strong singing voice weaving in and out, guiding us.

Steam and Stomp dancers gather from all over Western Montana — Missoula, Dillon, Butte, Helena, Bozeman, Kalispel and points in between. There is a solid core of that group that began dancing in other places, at about the same time and in more or less the same way that I did. Over the decades, they have brought their passion and skill to Montana with them. Some have continued to attend workshops. Some come from a heritage of dance — Israeli, Balkan, Scottish and others. These dancers are essential to keeping international folk dancing alive in Montana. Community dance groups wax and wane, dependent on strong leaders, folks generous with their time and their patience.

I don’t dance often. Somehow I always give other things priority on Bozeman Tuesday nights, often working late in to the evening. But the core of that dance group is people I’ve known for literally decades. I appreciate their commitment. And there’s a strange connection to having greyed together, yet stayed on our feet.

After hours of Steam and Stomp dancing and a couple good long soaks in the Boulder hot springs, I slept ten hours. Two days later, on a Bozeman Tuesday evening, I packed up my shoes and made it to dancing. Before I went, I slipped Birkenstock insoles in to my Opanki.

It seems that when you have a pair of real-thing shoes, you need to give them proper exercise.

~ Learn more about International Folkdancing in Montana, at www.montanafolkdance.org

The group Opanki are by Cecilia Notess, 2014

The single Opanki (my preferred image) is mine and those are my shoes. Just wasn’t sure if it’s large enough resolution.