Voulez-vous Danser?

"It's like Riverdance unplugged," says DartLmouth music professor Ted Levin, ethnographer and proud producer of a CD that showcases Franco-American music from the New England borderlands. Released on the Smithsonian Folkways label in the spring of this year (www.si.edu/folkways), Mademoiselle, Voulez Vons Danser is the culmination of three separate terms' worth of Music 40, or Ethnomusicology," and is therefore largely the product of Dartmouth undergrads. Levin says students contributed at every stage of production, from recording each soiree to composing the liner notes.

As a veteran of the bustling ethnomusicology scene (he has recorded and produced more than 20 albums from Central Asia to Queens, N.Y.), Levin says the CD is the first of its stature to be produced by undergrads and is an accurate representation of the music that moves people out of their chairs. As a homegrown quality control, Levin periodically submitted the album to the mill communities where the initial recordings were made.

Many of the musicians featured on the CD were invited last summer to play at the Washington, D.C., Folk Festival, where New Flampshire was the featured state. And Levin hopes to invite the performers to Dartmouth for a soiree next year. Voulez-vous danser? It beats the "Salty Dog."