Experience You Can Dance With
Bringing communities together through barn dances, weddings, and events for over four decades.
Inspiring Dance for Generations
Carl Ballou, AKA CBDanceman, has been a dance leader for over 40 years, as MC/instructor of Folk and Square Dance programs for Churches, Schools, Scout Troupes, YMCA groups, youth organizations, and other functions from California to Missouri. Carl’s specialty is introducing a group with limited dance experience to the joys of dancing. His Family Barn Dance programs consist of fun, easy dances from America’s Heritage that everyone can do – with brief instruction from the floor.
Carl has worked with groups of all ages, from school kids to seniors, a wide range of abilities, including troubled youth and handicapped, and even a young adult church group where half the dancers were deaf.
Carl also creates customized “Sparkle on Your Wedding Day” First Dance choreography for Bridal Couples, conducts private and small group instruction in Basic Ballroom Dances, and provides professional DJ services for Special Events and Weddings.
Let Carl show the fun he can bring to your group/organization/event.
Your Leader, Carl Ballou
Carl grew up in a folk dancing family. Born & raised in San Jose, California, he was dragged out onto the floor at a YMCA family folk dance camp at age 5 and introduced to fun dances such as Hokey Pokey and the Virginia Reel. Returning to the camp each Labor Day Weekend with his family, by 14 he had learned waltzes, polkas, schottisches, contras, quadrilles, and square dances, as well as other folk dances from around the world.
In high school, Carl and his family were taking weekly classes and attending folk and square dance festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area. By college, he was a popular square dance caller. His love of dance and his enthusiasm for fun, inter-generational activities led him to develop his Family Barn Dance programs for groups that have no previous dance experience.
Over the next two decades, Carl was a Dance Leader / Emcee for schools, churches, YMCA, company parties, and youth and senior citizen groups throughout the Bay Area, and featured Square Dance Caller for California State Folk Dance Festivals.
When he moved to the Midwest, he briefly opened the Branson Dance Barn in Branson, MO. In early 2010, he started CBDanceman in NW Arkansas, expanding his services to include Basic Ballroom Dance Instruction and Professional DJ Services for Weddings & Special Events.
Returning to the West Coast in 2019. Carl’s goal continues to be introducing everyone in Southern Oregon and Northern California to social dancing - a fun, old-time, family-oriented experience that America grew up with.
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