Calendar
Upcoming STEAM! events
Unfortunately, COVID-19 has cancelled everything live. We hope to play and dance with you again soon.
Note: we do our best to post accurate information, but we encourage you to double check times and addresses with the hosting organization for last-minute changes.
Weekends and Festivals
Future:
Past:
5-6 April 2019: Big Muddy Festival, Boonville, MO. Cathy Barton and Dave Para always hire a mix of folk musicians who are either quirky, fun, skilled, or all of the above. This 28th annual Big Muddy festival was special because of Cathy Barton. Cathy has been battling cancer. Cathy was a remarkable banjo player and a remarkable person. She and Dave put on a tremendous performance on Friday night and 12 days later, she was gone. If we get tears in our eyes, it’s probably because a tune or a song reminds us of Cathy. The problem is, everything reminds us of Cathy.
29-31 March 2019: Spring Meltdown, Jefferson City, MO featuring lots of great callers. This is the dance that used to be held in Columbia, MO. Jeff City is a great home for it!
8-10 February 2019: Cabin Fever, Knoxville, TN Featuring the calling of Seth Tepfer
27-29 October 2017: SoleFest 2017 Featured the calling of Erik Hoffman
9-11 June 2017: Flamingo Fling, Oklahoma City, OK
24-26 Feb 2017: Dancing with the Gods, Gainesville, FL
18-20 Nov 2016: Pilgrim’s Progression, Lawrence, KS with caller Adina Gordon
27-30 May 2016: FolkMADness, Socorro, NM with callers Mary Wesley and Frannie Marr
31 October-2 November 2014: Boo Camp Contra, Jemez Springs, NM
17-19 October 2014: Solefest, Springfield, MO
4-5 April 2014: Big Muddy Folk Festival, Booneville, MO
10 November 2013: Dance in the Desert, Oracle, AZ
2-3 November 2013: Celtic Festival, Tucson, AZ
May 2013: Catapult, Atlanta, GA contra dance showcase
Other places we’ve been…
June 2018:
June 8-10 2017. Flamingo Fling in Oklahoma City. These people really know how to party. Lots of music, food, drink and fun.
Feb. 24-26 2017. Dancing with the GODS in Gainesville, FL. We were treated like gods and we got on the lake and saw alligators.
December 2016. We toured with the great caller Kathy Anderson. Kathy had taken some time off from calling and so it was a special series of dances and lots of great callers and dancers came to hear her again. Thursday night was in Philadelphia, Friday and Saturday were in Manhattan (New York; not Kansas where Robert and Alice live) and Sunday at the ballroom in Glen Echo, MD.
Nov. 18-20. Pilgrim’s Progression dance weekend in Lawrence, KS. Adina Gordon called. This is kinda the local dance for Robert and Alice but when the sound was great, they forgot about being nervous.
Oct. 28, 29, 30. San Diego with JoAnn Koppany, Pasadena and Santa Barbara with Susan Michaels.
September. Winfield. It was 10 days of hanging out but you need the rest of the month to prepare and wind down afterwards.
21-23 July 2016. Ashland, OR & Emerald City Seattle, WA & Portland, OR. This was the trip which we call “Livin’ the Dream”. Dave had to miss it because of a faulty gallbladder so Mike Black played mandolin however…remember the day that SouthWest Airlines computers went down? Yeah! Mike spent the night in LAX sleeping on a bench. He waited in line for 3 hours to book his next flight- WHICH WAS ALSO CANCELLED. He ended up going straight to Portland missing the Ashland dance. Our luck changed when Kevin Carr played the dance and hosted us superbly. Also, the Emerald City Dance with Rick Mohr and the Portland dance with Ric Goldman were amazing.
Memorial Day Weekend 2016. Folkmadness with Frannie Marr and Mary Wesley. Lots of jamming, lots of dances, lots of fun.
15-16 April 2016 in Colorado. We played the wonderful Boulder dance with Rick Smith on Friday and Ft. Collins on Saturday evening. It snowed in the mountains…lots. We were scheduled to stay in the mountains above Jamestown but we never would have made it there on Friday night. Rodney Sauer and Nancy came to our rescue. The dance on Saturday was called by Pat Danscen who was the caller to my first dance…ever. Pat waltzed with me once just to make sure I hadn’t gotten any worse.
25-29 Feb 2016: Southern Piedmont. Asheville, NC and Greenville, SC and Atlanta, GA. WOW! These vibrant dance communities hosted us for a series of great dances. Keith Cornett Eustis, Cis Hinkle, and Robin Marcus called these great dances. Lots of energy.
8-10 Oct 2015: Upstate New York: Rochester with Chuck Abell , Albany, with Peter Stix, and Woodstock with Donna Hunt. We all wanted to say we played Woodstock.
September 2015: Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, KS where great things happen and lots of musicians gather together to have fun.
28-29 Aug 2015: Phoenix and Tucson, AZ
20-22 Aug 2015: The Bay area! Hayward, Palo Alto, and Santa Rosa, CA
9-12 Jul 2015: New England… the contra mecca.Concord Scout House, and Greenfield, MA, and Brattleboro, VT contra dance held in Guilford with Mary Wesley calling. We like New England. Especially in the summer. The dancers were amazing and thanks to Cecile for hosting us and cooking such a great quiche
3-4 Jul 2015: Colorado. Private gigs and then Boulder, CO contra with caller Pat Danscen. Pat Japenga and Sam Broyles hosted us in their mountain home above Jamestown.
19 & 21 Jun 2015: Glen Echo, MD in the Spanish Ballroom and the Bumper Car Pavilion. It was hot but fun with Gay Fifer and our friend Jerome Grisanti calling.
18-June 2015 Philadelphia (formerly in Glenside, PA but now held at the Irish club in Mt. Airy). This is the neighborhood where Robert grew up and left 40 years ago! Jim Kitch called.
17-Jun 2015: BFMS Baltimore, MD Contra Dance. Our friend Jerome called.
5-Apr 2015: St. Louis, MO. It was great to be part of the amazing St. Louis dance community. They had a tag team of callers.
4-Apr 2015: Lafayette, IN. We were part of the Purdue University 100 year celebration of Alan Lomax, the musicologist who recorded and collected tunes before they were lost. We gave a dance workshop in the afternoon, a concert in the evening followed by a dance with Tamara Lowenthal calling.
3-April 2015: Champaign/Urbana, IL with Neal Schlein calling
8-20 September 2014: Walnut Valley Festival; Winfield, KS. The mecca where we decided to form a band in 2010. Winfield is the yardstick by which all other fun is measured. It is a gathering of 15,000 people who love to play music. We can be found at Carp Camp playing tunes for hours and hours, every year for most of September.
March 2014: Southern California. Dances in Santa Barbara, Pasadena, and San Diego
24 & 26 January 2014: Glen Echo Friday and Sunday Dances; Washington, DC. We were thrilled to go back to Glen Echo when it wasn’t 105 degrees (as it was in 2011) when the amps overheated. Instead it was 26 degrees and we played in down coats.
25 January 2014: TADAMS Contra Dance, Richmond, VA
July 2013: we spent a week recording in Manhattan, KS, finished off with a bang playing a dance in Kansas City, MO and joined by many of our musical friends.
September 2013; Winfield (of course)
April 2013: Tennessee. Contra dances in Nashville (“as if Nashville needed any more musicians…” We are honored to play in a town where there are so many great musicians), Jonesborough, and Knoxville, plus a concert in Chattanooga.
February 2013: Arizona. Contra dances in Phoenix and Prescott, plus a concert at Harlow Gardens in Tucson.
April 2012: Colorado. Concert at the Black Rose Acoustic Music Society in Colorado Springs, Zesty Dance in Denver and a house concert outside of Boulder.
August 2012: Vancouver, BC. We played some dances, went sailing, and ate Poutine (French fries with gravy and cheese curds).
visit the museum!
February 2012: San Francisco Bay Area. We played dances in Palo Alto, Hayward, and San Francisco, saw big trees, wild surf, Dave’s boyhood home (now a museum), and met Dave’s brother…he looks so normal.
July 2011: Dances in Washington DC, Baltimore, Richmond, VA
There were other events before this, but really… who would read to the bottom of this page?
What a great band! STEAM really knows how to heat up the hall! They were a treat to work with as a caller, with lots of great tunes and an excellent sense of the feel for the dances. Don't miss your opportunity to have them at your dance!