Mike and Nancee Micham
Mike and Nancee Micham will be on stage in the next Humanities Project performance on Sept. 17th. The duo will perform at the Coffeyville Community College Spencer/Rounds Performing Arts Theatre at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, September 17th. The performance is free and open to the public.
The Michams will present a performance piece celebrating the tenacity, fortitude and driving spirit of the Dust Bowl refugees. It is a quilt with blocks interwoven through narratives in first person, personal stories, songs from the era, and passages from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
Included is the story of Nancee Walker-Micham’s paternal grandmother, Dorothy Walker, who as a little girl went door to door selling white cloverine salve to make enough money to buy a fiddle. The story will follow Dorothy through growing up, and making the decision to pack up and leave her beloved southwest corner of Oklahoma to head for California like so many others in the 30’s and 40’s. Along the way, Dorothy stops for work in the fields and camps and playing for dances in the evening with her fiddle.
The piece includes personal memories and music that tells its own story in the lyrics; it is a story of one of many from the depression and Dust Bowl, but all its own in loving memory of an “Okie” Dorothy Walker.
The Michams have been entertaining through stories and song for over 25 years in the Ozarks region. The couple met in Arizona while performing as street characters of an old 1880’s western town, and their love of folk and traditional Irish music began. In 1992, they moved to Branson, Missouri, and began their careers at Silver Dollar City performing for 13 years as pioneers of the McHaffie’s Homestead. Both were featured musicians of the group, The Homestead Pickers, and told stories on the front porch of the of the 1843 cabin.
In 2007, the Michams bid a fond farewell to Silver Dollar City, and began touring on their own performing for folk festivals, Renaissance faires, libraries, schools and storytelling celebrations. They have a love of traditional songs and tales, Irish traditional music, and legends and real-life stories of living on an Ozark farmstead. The couple blends humor and fun into each and every performance as well as education, always hoping everyone comes away with a smile and wondering when Mike and Nancee will visit again.
For more information about the humanities project at CCC, please call 620-251-7700, ext. 2166.