Bonnie Insull Flautist Bonnie Insull is a leading light of the Southern California English and contra scenes. She's played for the Riverside Harvest Ball, the San Diego May Ball, and the Mad Robin Ball; her contra-dance band, Bonfire has a unique jazzy sound. She brings musicianship and dance skill to all her dance engagements. |
Charlie Hancock Charlie Hancock (CA), pianist and accordionist, is equally adept playing for English country, Scottish country, contras, and display dancing. He has played for BACDS dances, camps, and balls for 18 years, with occasional gigs further afield, including Pinewoods and the Portland (OR) English ball. He is a member of Bay Area folk ensemble Euphonia, and has recorded with Sylvia Herold, Holly Tannen, and Cathie Whitesides. Infusing jazz, swing, and Irish music, he plays with brilliance, drive, and clarity. |
Rebecca King Rebecca King teaches music to hundreds of children in the Sonoma Valley Schools. By night, she plays piano at English Country dances, and in the contradance bands Flashpoint and Luceo. Her recordings include Swinging On The Gate for the Bay Area Country Dance Society, and Farnicle Huggy, a collection of 18th cen. English Country dances. |
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Shira Kammen Multi-instrumentalist and occasional vocalist Shira Kammen has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. A member for many years of the early music groups Ensemble Alcatraz, Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, the Balkan group Kitka, the King's Noyse, the Newberry and Folger Consorts, the Oregon, California and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals, and is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to providing music on river rafting trips. The strangest place Shira has played is in the elephant pit of the Jerusalem Zoo. |
Michelle Levy Michelle Levy has been performing on and exploring the possibilities of the violin/viola for over 20 years. Starting out classically, she fell in love with the spontaneity of folk music while in college, and soon began a career focused on accompanying vocalists, improvising, and performing ancient music on fiddle, viola, and Medieval vielle. She currently performs with the Boston Camerata and regularly plays for English Country dances & Contra dances on the west coast with lots of groovy folks, recently co-founding dance bands The Whoots (Jim Oakden, Noel Cragg, Ben Schreiber) and TriTonic (Anita Anderson & Jim Oakden). Michelle has played for Playford Balls, English Week Dance & Music Camp, Fall Frolick, & Spring Fever. She just released the album Forces of Nature (March 2012), a collaboration with Shira Kammen. |
Jim Oakden plays for dancing-lots of kinds of dancing- on a ridiculous array of instruments from accordion to zurna, and has appeared at numerous dance camps throughout the country. Oddly enough, he's also one of the founding members of Sacramento's wacky Ophir Prison Marching Band-which is still going strong after several decades. |
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Kalia Kliban Kalia, an expert in performance dance from Appalachian clog to morris to longsword, is the house caller for the Sebastopol English dance, and a rising star on the national scene. A fixture at BACDS Family Week, she's the programmer of this year's Fall Frolick. |
Sylvia Herold Sylvia's discovery of Irish and British traditional songs more than two decades ago sparked in her an obsession for songs and singing. Since then, she has explored many styles. Sylvia also has a passion for American popular songs of the '30s and '40s and recorded four albums with the swing vocal trio "Cats and Jammers." Her experience with other genres, however, only renews her appreciation for narrative folk songs. You may also have heard her in "Wake the Dead" or Euphonia. Sylvia, an accomplished guitar player, has taught guitar at Lark Camp for many years, and has been a popular singing leader at Fall Weekend several times. |
Nick Cuccia "But I *am* dancing! It's just that my partner is electronic and has a lot of knobs!" is how Nick responds when asked why he's listening to music instead of dancing. Taking equal joy in producing contra, English, and other folk and couple dance music of the highest quality, Nick's credits as lead or assistant sound engineer include numerous BACDS events and camps (English Week, Fall Weekend, Fall Ball, Sierra Swing, and local tours by The Flying Romanos, Pete Grassby, and Four in a Bar), the first two NBCDS Mad Robin English balls, the San Francisco Free Folk Festival, and the Fairfield (IA) Folk Arts and Dance Co-op's annual Bare Necessities dance weekends. |