From the banks of Chautauqua Lake to the banks of the Matanuska River

PALMER — They say the movies killed vaudeville, but don’t tell that to New Old Time Chautauqua, a group of performers set to barnstorm through town this weekend.

Though the group puts on a vaudeville show Saturday in the Palmer High School gym, Chautauqua touring groups are about more than that.

“In every community we really try to connect and partner with a nonprofit community organization,” said juggler Harry Levine.

On the group’s Alaska tour, that has meant teaming with senior centers, school programs for low-income kids and food programs. In Palmer, the performers partnered with fledgling community radio station, Radio Free Palmer.

“We are close to going on the air,” said Lee Henrickson of Radio Free Palmer. “We were hoping that we could do our first on-air test during the Chautauqua event, but that didn’t work out.”

She said Chautauqua and Radio Free Palmer are a good fit.

“We want to promote community” through entertainment, news and broadcasting, she said, and “they want to promote community through fun and play.”

Chautauqua as a phenomenon refers to groups of performers, artists and lecturers who toured the country from the 1870s until the mid-1920s. The name of the movement comes from a lake in upstate New York where the first Chautauqua was held.

President Theodore Roosevelt once described Chautauquas as “the most American thing in America.”

The groups would spend time in each city teaching locals various skills. It’s believed that Chautauquas gave rise to the adult education movement. The current incarnation in New Old Time Chautauqua has kept that tradition alive with the troupe hosting workshops wherever it goes, Levine said.

Topics range from quilting to how to play the ukelele to juggling and acrobatics.

“From the workshops today I saw three or four people sitting around in a creative writing workshop,” Levine said by phone from Talkeetna. “I saw the guy coming back from the ukulele workshop. He said he taught a bunch of people three different songs.”

Now and then workshops will unearth some local talent that can take the stage with performers. It’s hard, though, to produce a juggler who can perform in a show after just one workshop.

“You never know what will happen,” Levine said. “We look for local talent that we can connect with that will be a good fit with our vaudeville show.”

Movies all but killed the movement, but a revival of sorts has sprung up. New Old Time Chautauqua is not the only such group doing this kind of outreach, he said.

The Palmer appearance, like a lot of Chautauqua gigs, starts with teaser shows at local events. The performers will be at the Palmer Pride picnic and the Friday Fling farmer’s market. Free workshops are scheduled for Saturday at the Mat-Su Borough gym, followed with the vaudeville show at 7 p.m.

For the uninitiated, vaudeville usually refers to a variety show presenting various types of performances.

“What they should expect is a number of musical and physical circus acts and some comedy acts,” Levine said. “Usually short pieces, three to seven minutes long, with an emcee and a marching band.”

Vaudeville, it turns out, is kind of a hard word to define.

“Some of it’s improvised, some of it is set and you just go, ‘OK, here’s the juggler, here’s the stilt walker now here’s the aerialist, here’s the magician,’” Levine said. “Just lots of different ways to experience art and performance and joyfulness and creativity that emerges through the ebbs and flows of a vaudeville show.”

IF YOU GO

What: New Old Time Chautauqua workshops and vaudeville show.

Workshops: Saturday, 1 to 3 p.m., at the Mat-Su Borough gym and 3 p.m. at the Palmer Train Depot.

Vaudeville show: Saturday at 7 p.m., Palmer High School gymnasium.

How much: Workshops are free. The show is $5 for children, $10 for adults and $25 for families.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.