(Submitted/Miguel Fenrich)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Polkafest

Inaugural Biggar Old Time Music Festival revives dancing tradition

Jun 6, 2025 | 6:00 AM

Miguel Fenrich remembers the first time he went to a traditional country dance in Biggar.

“I asked my grandparents those 10 or 12 years ago and I said, ‘you guys always go to these dances, can I come with you?’”

A decade later, the waltzes, foxtrots and polkas are back with the inaugural Biggar Old Time Music Festival.

The event runs from June 6 to 8 at the Biggar Community Hall and everyone, young and old, is welcome to kick up their heels and enjoy the music of yesteryear.

“I feel like there’s this connection for me,” said the Chair of the Biggar Old Time Music Festival Committee.

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Alongside his grandparents, he learned the steps to old-time dances with other members of the Saturday Night Dance Club.

“We have family and some friends there as well, so it felt like a natural thing to do,” said Fenrich of the decision to host it in the community. I’m quite thankful and fortunate that we did because the outpouring of support from Biggar specifically has just been truly phenomenal.”

Over the three-day festival, Saskatchewan-based performers Leon Ochs, Sylvia ‘n’ Dean, Dennis Ficor, Tom Reinhard, and Norm & the Golden Aces, who hail from Landis to Prince Albert, Humboldt and beyond, will keep the toe-tapping energy going. On Sunday, the JJ Lavallee Band will take the stage as the headliner.

“It’s really a century’s worth of experience is being brought to the stage this summer, and that’s so exciting,” he said, referring to the musician’s combined careers playing in Legion and community halls and church basements.

“I feel like it’s honestly like…a little…historic.”

According to the festival’s website, it is in an effort to preserve that history that the committee wishes to reintroduce the Polkafest and Old Time Dance Clubs back into the collective culture of the province.

To help with the efforts, it has become a community endeavour to make sure the festival is a hit.

“A Masonic Lodge is running a cash bar, a local theatre is running a ‘50’s diner canteen, we have 50/50 style auction, dance lessons,” he said, adding the Biggar Museum and Gallery will also host a music-themed display.

“What was really exciting for me as a former youth in these events, now bringing this to the public again, was a free kids’ programming,” said Fenrich of the face painting, colouring contest, balloon animals, and bouncy castle.

Youth who are 15 and under are also able to get into the festival free with a parent or guardian.

“We get the best of both worlds. We get that core of that old-time music that’s been around for decades and decades and decades,” he said.

“We also get really I think, a modern festival experience that people can really look forward to.”

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: juleslovett.bsky.social