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Nokesville dance helps unite the community
As if summer couldn't get any hotter, residents saw Nokesville heating up again last Saturday night with the second quarterly Nokesville Community Social Dance.
About 90 people came out to the Nokesville Volunteer Fire Department on July 17 for the event, which featured the 15-piece big band music of the St. Thom Cats Big Band.
“They ranged from the late teens to the 80s,” organizer John Hinkle said of the attendees, who included local high school students, college students, swing club members and elderly residents who can no longer dance but who “were kind of reliving their memories,” while tapping their feet to the oldies.
Hinkle said people came from as far away as Front Royal and Maryland. A contingent from the University of Virginia Swing Club -- local students home for the summer -- showed up, as did a group of ballroom enthusiasts and a half-dozen experienced swing dancers from inside the Beltway.
This was the second community dance for Friends Uniting Nokesville, a nonprofit that grew out of the Nokesville Business Association with a mission of creating a sense of community.
“We want to build a more tight-knit community,” Hinkle said.
The quarterly dances are part of that strategy.
Attendees paid $12 at the door ($10 for anyone who RSVPed online in advance) for an hour-long dance lesson, followed by three hours of open dancing and refreshments.
Hinkle and JJ Rodriguez taught basic dance lessons, including East Coast swing and waltz, before the band started up, with help from dance professionals Royce and Jodi White.
During band breaks, Hinkle and Maryanne Sacco taught Argentine tango and polka and throughout the night, Pablo Teodoro of Great Harvest Bread Company in Warrenton provided baked goods for the dancers.
All in all, the evening was a success, Hinkle said, noting that 10 volunteers signed up to help set up and break down, which helped make everything run more smoothly. Volunteers who signed up to work for an hour got in free.
The only downside, he said, was that turnout wasn't as good as last time because a lot of people were on vacation.
“We sort of learned our lesson,” he said, noting that in the future, dances won't be held in July or August.
Hinkle said that at the first dance a few months ago, the organization ended up with a little money left over after they had paid for the band and the fire hall. This time, he said, they came up a little short but that the group isn't really trying to make money.
“We're just trying to pay our expenses,” he said.
And since Friends Uniting Nokesville is primarily concerned with bringing the community together, the dance was a major coup in any case.
The St. Thom Cats Big Band is a nonprofit volunteer group from St. Thomas United Methodist Church in Manassas, so they provided music at a much lower rate than commercial bands, Hinkle said.
And rather than charging rent, the Nokesville Volunteer Fire Department has agreed to hold the dance in exchange for a share of the profit. Hinkle said the fire chief only asked that the group share whatever was left after the band had been paid.
That kind of goodwill and community-building is what the organization is really aiming for, he said.
A date has not yet been set for the next dance but Hinkle said it will be sometime in mid-September.
Residents can keep an eye on www.mynokesville.org for updates and once the next date is announced, they can RSVP there to get $2 off the $12 cover charge. Volunteers can also sign up there to help out. Anyone who volunteers for an hour before or after the dance gets free admission.
Future dances will be held in early December, March and late May or early June.
All dances will be held at the Nokesville Volunteer Fire Department on Saturday nights, with lessons from 7 to 8 p.m. and dancing from 8 to 11 p.m.
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