Class Descriptions

ECD: A Danceable Feast

For all dancers
Kalia Kliban with Sandy Gillette, Christopher Jacoby

Sip and savor your way through a banquet of English country dances that celebrate the joys of fine dining.

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ECD (Advanced): 1718!

For experienced dancers
Sharon Green with Rebecca King, Jon Berger

1718 has been called The Great Year of English Country Dance because that year saw the publication of 4 (!) collections of country dances, including Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1718 by Nathaniel Kynaston and Twenty Four New Country Dances Compos'd by a Person of Quality. Enjoy dancing these great dances from The Great Year as reconstructed by Fried de Metz Herman and Andrew Shaw.

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ECD: Unusual Formations

For all dancers
Brooke Friendly with Rebecca King, Christopher Jacoby

Duple minors with oddities, set dances in unusual formations, dances for odd numbers of people... we'll play with dances with structures and formations that are a bit out of the ordinary.

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French Connection: Balfolk Mazurka

For all dancers
Adrienne Simpson with Jim Oakden, Audrey Jaber

Influenced by Tango Nuevo and blues dancing, contemporary BalFolk Mazurka offers opportunities to bring your dancing to a new level. We’ll learn the basic step and some variations of this partner dance, then explore ways to increase connection, improvisation, and musicality that can heighten your dance experience in other genres as well. No partner or experience needed.

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Musician & Caller Communication Skills - how do we get what we want and need?

For musicians and callers both - especially newer callers.
Sande Gillette & Jeffrey Spero

We will focus on how musicians and callers can better communicate essential information, needs, tempos, adjustments, signals, introductions, noodling, etc. First half - discussion, second half - playing and calling to practice skills. Musicians should bring a stand and the Barnes books. Callers, please choose 3-4 dances from the Barnes books (a variety of meters and moods is helpful) that you’d be prepared to call in the workshop and send your list before camp to back to top)

ECD (Advanced): Advanced Impropriety

For experienced dancers
Brooke Friendly with Jeffrey Spero, Jon Berger

Come dance to the great tunes—old and new—that have inspired the figures, phrasing, progressions, and nuances that are the signature of the choreography of Brooke Friendly and Chris Sackett. If you are completely comfortable with all the basic ECD figures and familiar with some of the unusual ones, if you learn dances quickly without needing them called after the first few times through, you'll enjoy this challenging class focusing on the more complicated dances from the Impropriety Volumes.

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ECD: Dances from the Greenery

For all dancers
Sharon Green with Rebecca King, Audrey Jaber

An occasional choreographer, Sharon Green focuses on creating accessible dances set to splendid tunes. With thanks to Dave Marcus, Debbie Jackson, Maro Avakian, Martha Stokely, Patti Cobb, Rebecca King, and especially Jonathan Jensen for their glorious music, and to dance friends on both coasts for their willingness to try out the moves.

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Balfolk Tunes

BalFolk is a new extremely popular European folk tradition based on dance forms from many countries in Western Europe. We’ll play through a cross-section of the common tunes from Brittany, several regions of central France, Gascony, Portugal, and Scandinavia. Sight-reading skill will be useful, but some can also be learned by ear. Dots provided.

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Balfolk: À Gauche

For all dancers
Adrienne Simpson with Jim Oakden, Christopher Jacoby

Based on historical, fairly simple dances, BalFolk  has been surging in popularity. Traditional roots are garnished with an environment that fosters fun, improvisation, and community. Explore set, circle, and line dances from Central France, Brittany, and beyond to the accompaniment of fabulous tunes.

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ECD: The Best of Both Worlds

For all dancers
Kalia Kliban with Jeffrey Spero, Jon Berger

Get ready to stomp and swing, with style! This session features contra dances with an English flair.

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Tunes ‘n Stuff – English Edition

We’ll take a few well-known English tunes and explore what we can do with them by ear in an ensemble setting.

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ECD (Advanced): No Walk-Through English

For experienced dancers
Kalia Kliban with Jeffrey Spero, Audrey Jaber

This session will feature a mix of dances silly, sublime, easy and challenging, and none will be walked through. It’s important that you be completely familiar with the basics of English dancing. You’ll need to think fast, listen carefully, and be ready for a LOT of dances.

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Dancing the Whole Dance -- An 'On-Your-Feet' Callers Workshop

For all callers/dancers
Brooke Friendly with Jim Oakden, Sandy Gillette

Improve your proficiency using global and positional language and strategies as we learn and dance repertoire that is more challenging to teach without gender or role-substitution terms. We will dance and discuss Brooke’s teaching choices.

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Delicious 3/2 Tunes

Beautiful tunes in 3/2 are unique to ECD, and we'll play through some old and new.  We'll talk about ways to make them irresistible to dancers, and try out lovely harmonies.  Bring your Barnes 3 book.  A link to notation will be provided as well.

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