New Hampshire Folk and Traditional Arts Lesson Plans

Granite State Arts Academy students performing a Traditional Indian Dance during the culmination of an Artist in Residence Program with Master Artist Jasmine Shah.

Deeply rooted within the New Hampshire landscape, traditional arts have been passed on and preserved beginning with our indigenous communities through European settlement to the newly emerging New American and ethnic communities of today. All of us belong to communities or groups that have something in common--a language, a geographic area, an ethnic heritage, a religion, an occupation, or a way of life. Each group, both old and new, express their own traditions, arts, music, crafts, stories, and values that are a vital piece of New Hampshire’s living cultural heritage. Traditional arts connect us to our past, encourage respect and appreciation for diverse cultures and traditions, build strong communities, and cultivate cultural assets. As society and communities continue to evolve, it becomes more and more important to celebrate and learn about our traditions.


Nelson Elementary School Students learning about Albert Quigley and his impact in Nelson by Master Artists Allison and Hunt Smith and Harvey Tolman.

To help our youngest residents learn about a wide range of traditional arts that are practiced in the Granite State, the N.H. State Council on the Arts’ Heritage and Traditional Arts Program developed the Folk and Traditional Arts Lesson Plans to increase the awareness and appreciation of local art forms and cultural traditions through K-12 connections. Designed for 4th and 5th grade classroom teachers who have no prior experience in the arts, the lessons focus on a wide range of traditional art forms including French-Canadian Music and Culture, Contra Dancing, Fly Tying, Abenaki Beadwork, Bhutanese Folk Arts and much more.

Master Artist Alice Ogden teaching basket weaving to students at Holderness Central School.

Sharing the cultural and artistic traditions of a community offers opportunities for youth to engage in hands on learning, make connections to their own culture as well as others, develop empathy and understanding for diverse cultural expressions and affirms what makes their own community and New Hampshire a distinct place to live. These interdisciplinary connections and skills can be used to support the curriculum of other subjects including social studies, language arts, geography, earth science, mathematics and - of course - visual arts, music, dance and theatre, thus providing a more meaningful and successful foundation for engaged citizens. 

Students working together to spin wool during a lesson at Weston Elementary School in Manchester.



To access the NHSCA’s Folk and Traditional Arts lesson plans, please visit the NH Folklife website and click on the Learning Center. We welcome your feedback as you implement these lessons!

Live Free and Dance, Blog Salon week 6: Evolving Traditions

What is one thing that remains constant in the world? Change.

There is a long tradition of contra dancing in New Hampshire and like many traditions, things change. Today, you can swing and pulse at techno contras under black lights to loud electronic renditions of traditional music. You can attend hot contras that spin dancers so fast that it rivals the toughest gym workouts. And most likely, the dance that you attend will be run a little differently than the dance that took place in your town 20, 30, or 50 years ago.

 Techno Contra in Peterborough, NH. Organized by Monadnock Folklore Society.

New generations of community members want to partake in local traditions, but also want to evolve practices so they are fun and relevant among friends. There's a balance between wanting to participate in activities of our parents and grandparents, and helping to shape a new form of community entertainment.

Most dances in New Hampshire have seen attendance highs and lows with organizers changing hands every few years. Eighteen dances are featured on the NH Folklife website, all with their own unique history and place within the cultural fabric of their communities. Some dances have been taking place regularly for over 100 years, some have just started up when a neighboring town dance failed to attract an audience. The stories of these dances, and the stories of eighteen New Hampshire communities can be found on the Folklife website through interviews Elizabeth Faiella conducted with local dance organizers in the spring of 2015.

After 35 years Northern Spy, an Upper Valley contra dance band has decided to stop being the lead organizer for contras at Tracy Hall in Norwich, VT. David Millstone, Northern Spy's dance caller,  recently wrote on his blog,

"Last spring, when Cuckoo's Nest announced the end of its dances and when Northern Spy decided that it, too, was tired or organizing its own series, we were concerned that this might spell the end of Norwich dances. As we had hoped, though, many community members stepped forward and the dancing will go forward. There's now a new website promoting dances on 2nd and 4th Saturdays, as well as an active Facebook page. The organizers are interested in presenting a mix of programs, some featuring local musicians and callers and some the bigger-name traveling bands and callers. I'll still be calling locally from time to time, including some summer dances at the Pavilion, and the various musicians from Northern Spy may appear in different configurations. In the meantime, support your local dances!"

Video highlights of Northern Spy's 35th anniversary party at Tracy Hall in Norwich, VT. 

November 14, 2015.

The tradition of social dancing in NH has been vibrant since the colonial era with different styles of dancing coming into fashion. In the mid 1800s English Country Dancing was popular, the first 4 decades of the 20th century fancied square dancing with young couples courting each other at dances. Contra dancing has only been the social dance flavor of choice since the 1960s. Styles change, musicians add slight variations to tunes, venues rotate. The dance goes on.

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The Live Free and Dance Blog Salon is published weekly from October 12- November 25, 2015. Each week a different NH Traditional Dance will be highlighted. The Blog Salon is in conjunction with the exhibit: Traditional Dance in New Hampshire 1750-present, at the NH State Library.  To read more about traditional dances across the state, visit the NH Folklife website.