Diana Saverin

Folk dancing spins connections.

Bill Buford plays music and calls dances at Bethany Music and Dance. Photo by Cuchulain Kelly. Four years after I hold Bill Fischer’s hand for the first time, he learns my name. “Dana? Diane?” He asks. Bill’s hand grips a microphone. He is calling a contra dance—a style of group folk dance—in the barn attached to his house. It is one of his monthly parties, which require no invitation, called “Bethany Music and Dance”—BMAD for short. His fuzzy blond dreadlocks, dotted and decorated with beads. . . Read more

The fish may lie deep beneath cold water in winter, but fishermen still gather on New Haven’s shore.

I go to the shore whenever I can. I like to watch the light fall in tinselly strips on the rippled waves and hear it slosh against bridges or beaches. Over these past few years in New Haven, I have often found company there. In seaside parks and industrial lots where New Haven’s rivers converge, I have watched fishermen as they wait for the bend at the ends of their rods, hoping for a bite on the hook hanging into the sea. But in late. . . Read more