Dances for kids, teens, & families
Watch this space for 2026 offerings!
Old-time music at Fiddlesticks, 2022
April 27, 2025: Old-time square dance for kids, teens, and families
3pm-3:45 at Maple Leaf Lutheran Church
10005 32nd Ave NE, Seattle 98125: Enter downstairs on the 100th St side.
Come dance with us! Popular Seattle dance caller Amy Carroll teaches group dance for children, teens, and their families. An old-time band of skilled Fiddlesticks students in elementary through high school grades plays for the dancing, accompanied by special guest Kate Lichtenstein (guitar & fiddle) and Fiddlesticks director Shulamit Kleinerman (fiddle).
How to participate:
- Dancing is free, drop-in, no signup required! Adults must be accompanied by kids and vice versa. Teens are welcome with or without accompanying adults.
- Young musicians can register in advance to learn the rep and attend the afternoon workshop that concludes with the dance. Beginners will dance in the dance; experienced students can choose to learn the dance-band tunes to play in the band.
Faculty
Amy Carroll has been folk dancing longer than she can remember and has been leading traditional American dances since 1987. She has called at public square and contra dances, preschools, elementary schools, weddings, bars, grange halls, auctions, birthday parties, festivals and workshops. Having taught music to thousands of K-5 students all over Seattle for a decade, Amy has a vast repertoire of singing games and dance activities suited to even the youngest or most reluctant of dancers. Given eight people, five minutes, and a few dozen square feet, Amy can create a dance.
Kate Lichtenstein is a fiddler, guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Trained in classical piano, she discovered old-time in her early thirties and was totally hooked. Kate has learned fiddle through a mixture of self-study, lessons, workshops and jamming, and her teaching style flows from this organic approach. She loves sharing tools, tricks, and tunes that can help people of all ages and abilities make music for their own joy and as part of a thriving old-time music community.
Shulamit Kleinerman teaches violin in Seattle, using a Suzuki approach in method but taking a wide view on repertoire. She's passionate about exploring lesser-known musical styles with students, both to build community in the journey and to create opportunities for young people to discover their individual artistic voices and interests. Shula is the founder and director of Seattle Fiddlesticks, which emerged from her own studio's beloved annual summer fiddle-tunes immersion project, and of Seattle Historical Arts for Kids, where students gain community and hands-on skill in music and related arts of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras.