The Bay Area Country Dance Society Website

David Newitt arrived at Swarthmore College in the fall of 1976 and was shocked to discover that this pillar of higher education had a two year physical education requirement.  Faced with the alternatives of being smashed to pieces on the football field and going to "folk and square dancing," the choice was clear, and he has been dancing ever since.   Starting with international folk dancing, he was soon dragged into the local Scottish Country Dance group, the college morris and rapper sword team, and, when it started in 1978, the Kingsessing Morris team of Philadelphia.  After a couple years in Colorado working for HP and teaching folk dancing, he came to Berkeley in 1982 to work on a Ph.D. in physics and to do country and display dancing.  He has concentrated on country dancing in the Bay Area, teaching and playing music for regular Scottish and English dances, and calling contras and the occasional square dance.

When not dancing, David takes pictures of people's insides, doing research in Magnetic Resonance Imaging at UCSF, specializing in body parts that start with "B." David's priorities can be guessed from the final acknowledgment in his dissertation, in which he thanks: "all my friends in various dance and music groups without whose continuing support I would undoubtedly have finished this dissertation several years earlier."

Shira Kammen, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. A member for many years of the early music Ensembles Alcatraz and Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with the Oregon, California and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals, and is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to performance on river rafting trips. She performs now with a medieval ensemble, Fortune's Wheel: a new music group, Ephemeros; an eclectic ethnic band, Panacea; as well as frequent collaborations with performers and in theatrical and dance productions. She has played on several television and movie soundtracks, including 'O', a modern high school-setting of Othello. The strangest place Shira has played in is the elephant pit of the Jerusalem Zoo.

Shira has delighted in playing for English Dance events for many years, including at least 5 BACDS English Weeks, English/American dance camps at Buffalo Gap and Pinewoods, several fall dance weekends at Monte Toyon, as well as a plethora of Playford and Fall Balls.

Danny Carnahan, originally a classically-trained cellist, helped pave the way for the California Celtic explosion of the early ‘80s with the ground-breaking Celtic duo Caswell Carnahan. With Chris Caswell and Robin Petrie, he toured for over 15 years, building a following from Europe to New Zealand, recording 7 albums, and earning two NAIRD "Indie" awards and a Grammy nomination. Since 2000 Danny has been performing and recording with the acoustic septet Wake the Dead, billed as "the world's only Celtic all-star Grateful Dead jam band." Danny is equally at home on cello, violin, octave mandolin and guitar. His first two musical murder mysteries, "A Jig Before Dying" and "Fortune Turns the Wheel", are available through his website (along with 7 CD titles).

As far as they know, the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a & Strathspey Society Band are the world's best Hawaiian-themed Scottish music band, playing for Ceilidh dancing, English dance, Contra dance, parties & weddings.  The members are Heather MacKay, Fiddle (Bowfin); David Newitt, Concertina & Fiddle (Sarcastic Fringehead), Patti Cobb, Piano & vocals (Delta Smelt); Bruce Herbold, Snare Drum & Percussion (Drum Fish); and guest artist Betsy St. Aubin (flute).

The Playford Ball rehearsal gives us a chance to share the wealth and spread the blame with our cavalcade of callers, including Bruce Hamilton, Bruce Herbold, Sharon Green, Mary Luckhardt, and David Newitt to call a few dances each, contributing to the fun with their own special style.

The Guppies ("Geographically Unsuited Players") are: Jim Oakden (recorder, clarinet, whistle, mandolin, banjo, bombarde, hurdy-gurdy, accordion and more), Kathrine Gardner (fiddle, octave fiddle and accordion), Craig Johnson (piano and accordion), and Flipper.

Playing together since 1981, the band jumps effortlessly and shamelessly between English country, contradance, southern tunes and Celtic music of various flavors, as well as mining rich veins of dance music throughout Europe.  They've played countless weddings, have been staffers at Mendocino English Week and BACDS Fall Weekend, and are a regular fixture in the schedules of community dance in the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas.

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Revised:  01/09/12