Becky Hill (OH)
known for her smooth dances, friendly style with quick, clear, and clean walkthroughs has been a caller since 1986, leading dances extensively throughout the Midwest. In the past few years she has been featured at events from Florida to Alaska. She performed as the caller in George Balanchine's “Square Dance” with the Cleveland/San Jose Ballet in both of those cities—calling old time square dance patter calls to Vivaldi and Corelli. (Yes! It worked!)
She is the author and editor of two dance books, “Twirling Dervish” and “Twirling Dervish Returns”, and the new “Rosen-Hill Collection,” dances by Sue Rosen and Becky Hill. Becky worked as a special education teacher for 19 years before leaving to devote full time to dance.
Erik Weberg (OR)
has been calling dances, festivals and weekends around the Pacific Northwest from Seattle to Minneapolis, from Monterey to Fairbanks and most places in between for 17 years. Additionally, in the last several years, he's been teaching and leading English Country dances in Portland with initial guidance from Nan Evans.
He believes that flow, interesting figures, and connection with the music are what make dancing sublime. Whether it's smooth like butter or driving like a freight train, it's got to make sense and feel good. Those are the dances he chooses to call. He teaches efficiently and clearly with a playful approach and a good sense of community cooperation.
In recent years he's become more involved with the musical end of the dance world, playing flute, harmonica, bombarde, and Scottish small pipes. He is currently part of the Portland contradance band “Joyride” (with Sue Songer, Kathleen Towers, and Jeff Kerssen-Griep) which has toured internationally (yep, they've played in Vancouver, B.C.) as well as around Oregon, Washington, and California.
Valerie Williams (IA)
loves to dance! She dances for a living, but also for fun. Social dancing has been a part of all her life, starting with waltz and polka in her native Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since then, Valerie has danced and taught most forms of ballroom and social dances, folk dances, contra and round dances, and most lately, Argentine tango.
Co-founder of the ISU Ballroom Dance Club in 1976, she has danced around the world. She now teaches all skill levels for that club as well as other clubs and organizations. Since 1996, Valerie has conducted Argentine Tango Salons on a regular basis in Ames, and classes and workshops elsewhere in North America and New Zealand.
Valerie Williams has worked in musical theater, modern dance, and opera. Her energy and sensitivity to the audience let her dance in a way that is highly expressive and delightfully clear. A much sought after residency artist, she communicates not only the discipline but the joy of dance as well. Valerie's credits include work as rehearsal director for Bill T. Jones, New York City; \international rehearsal director for Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land; director and choreographer for Co'Motion Dance Theater, Ames, Iowa; musical theater choreography for more than 60 productions (professional, community theater, high school); Artist In Schools/Communities for over 20 years. She has performed with Musica Antiqua since 1976, reconstructing and performing dances of the Renaissance and Middle Ages. She was commissioned by Teatro Studio in Rome, Italy to set her choreography of Divine Liturgy; performed in The Promised Land in Spoleto, Italy; and, was rehearsal director for the Lyon Opera Ballet in Lyon, France: Love Defined (1992), 24 Images/Seconde (1995). Currently, she is investigating using real-time human/computer technology in \performances that allow dancers more control over their performing environment.
Kalia Kliban (CA)
graduate of Berkeley Morris and founder of Sebastopol's Apple Tree Morris, brings many years of experience in Cotswold Morris, sword dancing, and American and English step dancing (clog) to dance camps. An exemplary dancer and an excellent teacher, her classes in display dance are always well received.
Bob Isaacs (NJ)
sought after as a caller, is highly regarded as a contradance choreographer. Callers are always checking with him for new dances to add to their repertoires.
AIRDANCE
Rodney Miller (NH)
was designated a “Master Fiddler” by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1983. He is widely considered to be the foremost exponent of New England style fiddling, a uniquely American blend of French Canadian and Celtic influences. Over the past 35 years, he has toured the U.S., British Isles, Australia and Denmark, performed and taught at hundreds of music and dance festivals, and recorded over ten fiddle albums.
In 1999, Rodney was invited to represent the state of New Hampshire and play at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall in Washington, D.C. He has also played on Garrison Keillor's NPR show A Prairie Home Companion and had his fiddle music choreographed to by Twyla Tharp. His most recent recording is with Airdance, called ‘Cloud Nine’, and was recently released in 2006. Rodney is a master violin-maker employed by Stamell Stringed Instruments in Amherst, MA.
Elvie Miller (MA)
grew up in New Hampshire surrounded by folk music and dance. With a strong background in classical piano, Elvie began playing for contradances in her early teens and has since performed and taught across the country with her father and her band Night Watch. She contributes driving and spunky rhythm and energy for the band and dancers on piano and accordion. In 2005-2006, she traced the origins of contradance music while traveling in northern Europe as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow. In 2003, she released a duo album of dance music with fiddler Naomi Morse.
Marko Packard (MA)
a recent addition to the Connecticut River Valley music community, is an excellent Irish flute player, a soulful and swinging saxophonist, and a dynamic guitarist. He has toured for several years with the Ohio-based tap-dance company, Rhythm In Shoes, as their lead saxophonist. He has also toured with the contradance bands Airdance, Reckless Abandon, The Groovemongers, and Flapjack. He is currently working on a solo CD of his own songs and compositions.
Stuart Kenney (MA)
is one of the most in demand upright bass, and five-string banjo players on the contra circuit. His musical interests range from New England contradance music to Cajun and Blues. He was a 14 year-member of Wild Asparagus, and has played in the Greenfield Dance Band since 1982. Stuart cut his Cajun teeth with the legendary, late Dewey Balfa, and played with him for many of his New England appearances.
Stuart is a founding member of many great bands including The Sevens, AIRDANCE and Tidal Wave. (Tidal Wave: Sabin Jacques, accordion; Rachel AuCoin piano, Stuart Kenney, upright bass; with fiddlers Andre Brunet, Claudine Arcand, and Eric Favreau.) The Sevens new release “Valiant” is due out spring '07; Airdance has just released its most recent recording entitled Cloud Nine; and Tidal Wave's self-titled debut recording is due out early in 2007.
Stuart has appeared at the Ashokan (NY) Fiddle and Dance workshops with Jay Unger and Molly Mason. His musicianship and creativity have taken him to many festivals throughout the country and overseas. His most recent project, Undertoe, is a musical collaboration with accordionist Karen Tweed of Yorkshire, England, and Marko Packard. Newly released in Fall '06 is their first CD Walking Down Angell Road. Also appearing on the recording are Rodney Miller (fiddle), Peter Barnes (piano), Peter Siegel (mandolin), and Sarah Blair (fiddle). Although Stuart's music has brought him coast to coast, his musical home is at the Guiding Star Grange in Greenfield, MA, where he plays for and hosts many dances.
LIFT TICKET
C.W. Abbott (RI)
is an improvising mandolinist extraordinaire. He comes from a more southern musical tradition, but has embraced new styles such as French Canadian reels and Irish jigs with abandon. In addition to mandolin, he's played guitar, bass, fiddle, pedal steel, and jug. These days he's mostly sticking to contradance music with mandolin and guitar.
Seth Houston (CO)
on piano and guitar, rocks the house with his driving rhythms, lush harmonies, and funky grooves. His tunes stretch the boundaries of the contradance genre and are integral part of Lift Ticket's repertoire. Seth's singing workshops have proved popular at music and dance events from coast to coast, including Village Harmony, Pinewoods, and Lady of the Lake. In between weekends, Seth teaches junior high and high school choir at Shining Mountain Waldorf School and is pursuing a master's degree in choral conducting at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Rex Blazer (USA)
who lives somewhere between Alaska, Montana, and Florida, started playing bluegrass fiddle in Montana in the 70's until he discovered Fiddle Tunes and dance. Rex has studied Cape Breton, Quebecois, New England, Old-Time and Cajun styles extensively and enjoys blending them into his own uniquely improvisational style of “new-wave” contra and square dance music. Known for his “liberal” interpretation of traditional music, which focuses on improvisation over recently composed fiddle tunes and pop music, Rex has been touring Canada and the U.S. for the past 20 years.
NOTORIOUS
Eden MacAdam-Somer (MA)
is one of the most exciting and versatile young musicians performing today. With roots in classical music she has also grown to love traditional fiddling, jazz, and folk music from around the world. Now, from symphony halls to coffee houses, she beguiles her audiences with a style that is truly her own.
Beginning her classical studies at the age of four, it was as a teen that Eden became an active member of the traditional music and dance community. She is a past winner of the MTNA and the Lennox Young Artists Competitions, and has been a featured soloist with symphony orchestras, jazz bands, bluegrass, DAWG and American folk groups. Catch her fiddling and singing with guitarist Larry Unger as the folk/swing duo Notorious, with early-music ensemble Istanpitta, and as violinist in the MacAdam-Somer String Quartet.
Larry Unger (MA)
has been a full time musician since 1984 and has presented a diverse range of musical performances at dances, festivals, and concerts across the United States, Canada, France, Scotland, Denmark, and Sweden. He has played with many top contradance bands, including Notorious, Reckless Abandon, Uncle Gizmo, Big Table, and the Reckless Ramblers, and has accompanied such fiddlers as Judy Hyman, Elke Baker, Rodney Miller, Alisdair Fraser, Matt Glaser, Ralph Blizard, Lissa Schneckenburger, and Eden MacAdam-Somer. Larry's original waltzes and fiddle tunes have been played and recorded by musicians around the world. He has a great breadth of understanding of traditional music to complement his considerable technical proficiency and enjoys telling stories about the origins of his music and the people who taught him.
Jim Oakden (CA)
plays in bands of myriad International styles and performs on an absurd number of instruments, from accordion and bagpipe through whistle and zurna.
Mark Hellenberg (OH)
has been playing traditional music for over forty years, beginning as a drummer in his father's bagpipe band in the early sixties. Since then, he has been featured as a percussionist on over a dozen recordings including two Green Linnet releases by the Celtic ensemble, The House Band. This past year, he appeared on NPR's All Things Considered with his band, The Sevens. He is currently also a member of The Sevens and the Ohio based Hotpoint String Band and works with other contradance luminaries including the Reckless Ramblers and Wild Asparagus. When not playing music, Mark works as a producer and Classical music host at Ohio University Public Radio in Athens, Ohio.
Marty Brenneis (CA)
was a rock-n-roll sound engineer in a former life. It wasn't long after he started contradancing that he began twiddling the knobs on the soundboards for dances… and he hasn't stopped yet.
Annie Johnston (OR)
is hailed by dance gypsies and traveling musicians as the Camp Chef extraordinaire. She generously sustains us with dishes unequaled in flavor and flare.
