Dane Dances, a longtime Madison summertime favorite event, will kick off its 26th season on Friday, Aug. 1, with the East Indian band Sangamam at 6 p.m., followed by the popular Madison disco/funk group VO5 at 8 p.m.
For five Fridays in August at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center Rooftop, Dane Dances 2025 will celebrate diverse music from Madison and beyond. The theme for season 26 is “A Celebration of Cultures.”
Longtime Dane Dances Board of Directors President Al Cooper tells Madison365 that “there’s nothing like Dane Dances.”
(Photo: Facebook)
“The way we mix music is a little different than most organizations. We try to bring two different, diverse music genres together every week, and we try to bring different parts of the community together,” Cooper says. “The end result, hopefully, is that the whole community will be able to enjoy all aspects of the music and the program that is put together. We have incredible ethnic food and great, diverse music. We try to keep the scenery and the vibe conducive and welcoming to everybody.”
Cooper says that five of the 10 bands performing this year are first-time performers at Dane Dances, including their first East Indian band, Sangamam, who will be playing tomorrow night at the Dane Dances kickoff. “They will be a great cultural experience for most of our audience because generally you don’t get to see that type of band,” Cooper says.
Dane Dances will feature a different lineup of musical guests each week on the Monona Terrace Convention Center rooftop, including Orquesta Salsoul del Mad (Latin/Fusion) and The Bone (R&B) on Friday, Aug. 8; Rebulu Group (Latin) and Love Monkeys (rock/reggae on Aug. 15; La Obra (Latin) and S.O.S. Motown Revue (Soul/R&B) on Aug. 22; and V-FUnk (funk/R&B) and Montage (R&B/pop) on Aug. 29.
“We appreciate the support of our sponsors and the community and the foundations that help us to be able to keep it free,” Cooper says.
Delicious food will be available each Friday at Dane Dances throughout the summer from the Lake Vista Café, La Taguara, Melly Mells Catering, and Kipps Kitchen
“We have a great choice of cuisines at Dane Dances. Or people can bring their own food. They can bring a picnic basket, and they can bring their own juice or water, but no alcohol,” Cooper says.
DJ Francis Medrano will engage the audience at 5:30 p.m. each week, and there will be free dance lessons for attendees. Wheels & Heels Inc. will present a brief adaptive/aerial dance performance before the first band on August 1. Lee M. Acker, of Lee Acker Enterprises, LLC, and Jason Ilstrup, president of Downtown Madison Inc., will serve as hosts on Friday.
“We try to do something a little different every year and invite new folks – I think it will be refreshing for people to see new bands and new sounds each year – along with keeping some of the Madison favorites. We try to make it a truly community event.”
The rain backup for all five Dane Dances events is inside at Monona Terrace. Being a volunteer for Dane Dances can be a fun way to meet new people, Cooper says. “We are unique in that we are community-operated. We’re 100% volunteers,” he says.
For those interested in volunteering at Dane Dances, they can sign up here.
“We always need volunteers. We can use committee members and board members, too. A lot of people don’t know this, but everybody in the community owns as much of Dane Dances as the next person,” Cooper says. “So it’s a community-owned organization, and if people want to be a part of it, they automatically become a member, just by participating in any way. So they can have a voice in what’s going on in their community if they choose to.”
Cooper says that it’s important to introduce Dane Dances to the younger generations who may have heard of the event but never attended.
“I’ll say that Dane Dances is the most diverse event in Madison. We put a lot of work into making it so. We go into the neighborhoods for Dane Dances. A lot of people might just do a commercial or something, but we actually go to the neighborhood centers and go out and talk to people and drop off literature, offer them opportunities to come out, and get their feedback. We are engaged in all the neighborhoods,” Cooper says. “We try to get our volunteers to go out into all of the neighborhoods and make sure people know firsthand about Dane Dances.”
