The Bay Area Country Dance Society Website

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The BACDS English Dance and Music Week offers another wonderful camp at the historic Mendocino Woodlands Camp, near the Northern California coast. Come join us for a week of dancing, music-making, singing, feasting, and merry abandon.

We offer classes in historic and contemporary English country dance, display dance, music, and song. We promise a program that will challenge and delight both new and experienced campers, complete with the time-honored Morris tour and pub sing in Mendocino, campers night, singing by the steps, and a daily gathering for campers and staff to share hidden talents. This year we offer a special Scottish sub-plot—Scottish country and step dance, Cape Breton dance, Scottish songs, and highland games in the meadow.

Come prepared to participate in a camp experience that has been exhilarating dancers and musicians for more than 20 years! Spend your days going from class to class beneath the soaring redwoods, learning new skills and polishing old, and spend your nights dancing to glorious music in a hall full of friends. The 2008 staff includes:

English Country Dance

• Bruce Hamilton, internationally recognized English country dance teacher, will lead an ECD Basics Class, ECD: Becoming A Dancer, and a Callers’ Workshop
  
  
• Joanna Reiner, from Philadelphia, will teach an ECD performance class, and teach Scottish (country dance) as a Second Language
  
  
• Program director Brooke Friendly will teach Advanced ECD: Impropriety

Display Dance

• Judy Erickson, of Orion Longsword, will teach Longsword and a traditional Scottish hard shoe step dance
  
  
• Alistair Brown, from the UK, will teach Rapper Sword and Border Morris
  
  

Musicians

• Peter Barnes (piano, winds)
• Jon Berger (fiddle, melodeon)
• Doug Creighton (concertina, flute)
• Earl Gaddis (violin, viola)
• Debbie Jackson (piano)
• Shira Kammen (fiddle, singing)
• Jim Oakden (winds, strings, and more)
• Lisa Scott (piano)

Music workshops

• Band class with Peter Barnes
  
• Playing melody and harmony with Jon Berger
• Playing Backup with Debbie Jackson
• Music Grab Bag including coached camper band practice
  
• Voice Capers: Rounds, Ballads and Madrigals with Shira Kammen
• Scottish Sing-a-Long with Alistair Brown
  

Special Workshops and Events

• Callers' workshop with Bruce Hamilton
• Scottish as a Second Language with Joanna Reiner
• Morris Tour and Morris Grab Bag
• Cape Breton dance with Doug Creighton
• Gathering before lunch for staff and camper performances
• Evening after-dance parties including pub night, ceilidh dance, auction and more
• Singing after lunch, at tea time…wherever voices are gathered