Hey Days Staff 2023
Hey Days Teaching and Music Staff
Hey Days Sound Staff
Hey Days Committee
- Bridget Whitehead, Program Director
- Rebecca King, Camp Manager
Brooke Friendly (OR) is known for her warm yet commanding personality, her clear and concise teaching, her creativity, and her sense of humor. She has a strong sense of what makes for a good community and she makes the learning experience fun and relaxing. A dancer for more than 40 years, she co-leads a weekly English and Scottish dance, teaches ECD callers workshops, calls Contra and family dances, and has taught country dance in a variety of settings: college academic credit, older adults, and K-12 students. Brooke has been on staff at camps, weekends, festivals, balls, and workshops throughout North America, England, and Australia.
Since 2020, Brooke has taught online callers courses, both privately and for the Country Dance and Song Society (CDSS). In December 2021, CDSS published her booklet Dancing the Whole Dance: ECD - Global/Positional Strategies for Teaching, Learning, and Dancing English Country Dance.
A dance choreographer, she, with her husband Chris Sackett, has published six books of dances (Impropriety Vols. 1-6) and produced seven CDs with the band Roguery (Shira Kammen, Jim Oakden, Anita Anderson, and Dave Bartley). Theatre choreography credits include Southern Oregon University Department of Theatre Arts productions of Entertaining Strangers (with Chris), Dancing at Lughnasa, and Caucasian Chalk Circle; and Oregon Cabaret Theatre’s world premiere of Parcel from America.
A founding member (1981) of The Heather and the Rose Country Dancers, a statewide organization of English and Scottish dance in Oregon, Brooke recently served as Secretary of the board of the Country Dance and Song Society.
You can find more information on her books, CDs, and teaching at BrookeFriendlyDance.com.
Brooke will teach ECD and a callers workshop on positional/global teaching.
Louise Siddons (UK) is an English Country dance, ceilidh, and contra caller based in Winchester. With a low-key and light-hearted stage presence, she strives to create an experience and atmosphere that is welcoming and at an appropriate skill level for the dancers present, focusing on fun, style, and history. Louise has called across the US and the UK for dance weekends, festivals, school groups, the Jane Austen Society of North America, house parties, and more. She uses positional, rather than gendered or role-based, calls.
Throughout the pandemic and beyond, Louise taught online workshops exploring the embodied aesthetics of solo dance, historic dance reconstruction and adaptation, and on positional calling, including courses for CDSS in October 2022 and January 2023. Her booklet Dancing the Whole Dance: Positional Calling for Contra was recently published by CDSS.
In 2011, Louise helped found the Oklahoma State University student group A Contra Affair, which became gender-free in 2017; in 2021 she received a grant from the English Folk Dance and Song Society to start the Brighton Gender-Free Contra+ series. She held leadership roles on the board of Scissortail Traditional Dance, which organizes dances across the state of Oklahoma, for a decade, and is currently on the board of the Friends of English Dance, a British organization dedicated to the living tradition of English social folk dance.
Louise will teach ECD and lead an Open Mic with an emphasis on positional/global calling.
David Macemon (OR) is one of those rare individuals whose dance passions include both English Country Dance and English Sword and Morris. He started dancing in high school, and has been dancing and teaching ever since. David is known for his patient and clear teaching style. He communicates the joy of dancing through his teaching and enthusiasm for the dance. He has been on staff for many dance weeks and weekends around the country teaching ECD and Sword/Morris. David is Foreman of Iron Mountain Sword, and is one of the resident callers for the weekly English dance in Portland, Oregon.
David will teach ECD, rapper sword, and lead the Gathering.
Bridget Whitehead (Canada/OR), our program director, conveys warmth and enthusiasm in her dancing and teaching, encouraging kindness, community and the love of dancing together. In 2005, after many years of ballet, and several of modern dance, swing, and tango, Bridget fell in love with English country dancing in Toronto, Ontario. She founded a bi-weekly English country dance in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, which she led from 2009 to 2011. She has also called in Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario, in Columbia, Missouri and at Hey Days in 2019 and 2022. Bridget lives in the Ashland, Oregon area where she is a regular caller and workshop deviser. In addition to her dance background, Bridget has a degree in education and a knowledge of music theory, yoga, and Pilates. Knowing that dance is more enjoyable when we feel comfortable moving and are in a good state of mind, she finds great benefit in the Care of Body and Mind class and is glad to be able to offer it again this year.
Bridget will lead Care of Body and Mind.
Roguery formed in 2008 to record Impropriety, an album to go with Brooke Friendly and Chris Sackett's first volume of dances. Since then they have met in the Rogue Valley of Oregon to record six more albums. The band's varied influences include English, contra, early music, classical, Breton, Scottish, Irish, Cape Breton, Galician, French, Balkan, jazz-fusion, gospel, Scandinavian, and Greek.
Anita Anderson (WA) is an extraordinary English country and contra dance pianist, playing with Roguery, Tricky Brits, Bag o' Tricks, and other Northwest bands. She is also a superb dancer, and this informs her playing, to the dancers' delight. She brings a large bag of tricks to her piano playing, with influences from doo-wop, baroque, ethnic, and vintage dance music--all in attentive service to the dancers. Anita is passionate about matching her playing to the moods and movements of dancers. Over the years, she has presented musicians' workshops at several camps, including BACDS English Week at Mendocino and Lark in the Morning. She also teaches private dance piano lessons. Anita is an excellent singer, has a background in Scandinavian music, and composes contra and English country dance tunes.
Anita will play for ECD.
Dave Bartley (WA) plays mandolin, guitar, cittern, and other plucked string instruments. He has written over 300 tunes for English dance, contra dance, and couple dancing. With Roguery, Tricky Brits, KGB, and over a dozen other bands, Dave has played throughout the US and Canada, as well as parts of Europe and Australasia. Drawing from a musical experience that stretches from classical training to classic rock, Dave also currently plays in French cabaret, Big Band era swing, and Greek rebetika bands. From the mischievous to the profound, you never know what he's going to do next, but you can be sure you'll enjoy dancing to it. For more information, go to Dave's website.
Dave will play for ECD.
Shira Kammen (CA), a multi-instrumentalist (primarily violin, vielle, and viola) and vocalist, has spent most of her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. She is a favorite at dance camps and events around the country. A member for many years of the early music ensembles Alcatraz, Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Folger and Newberry Consorts, Anonymous 4, the Boston Camerata, the Balkan group Kitka, and the Oregon, California and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals. Shira is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to performance on river rafting trips. She has performed and taught in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Morocco, and Japan, and on the Colorado, Rogue and Klamath Rivers. Shira happily collaborated with singer/storyteller John Fleagle for fifteen years, and performs now with many ensembles, among them the English Country Dance band Roguery. Shira has recorded many albums in a variety of styles of music and has played on several television and movie soundtracks, including 'O', a modern high school setting of Othello and ‘’The Nativity Story’. Some of her original music can be heard in an independent film about fans of the work of JRR Tolkien. The strangest place Shira has played is in the elephant pit of the Jerusalem Zoo. You will find more information at shirakammen.com.
Shira will play for ECD.
Jim Oakden (CA) started playing piano and clarinet at an early age and stumbled into early music from the classical music scene. After six years performing early music, he discovered the world of traditional and ethnic music. Having diverse tastes, he has played in many bands and performs on an absurd number of instruments, including accordion, mandolin, several styles of bagpipes, recorders, whistle and zurna (to name but a few). A dancer himself, he specializes in playing for dancers in a bunch of bands for ECD, contra, morris, Irish, Breton/French, Greek, and Bulgarian. He has been on staff at myriad dance camps throughout the country. In addition to the Roguery CDS, his recordings include three albums with Persons of Quality.
Jim will play for ECD.
Anna Patton (VT) plays clarinet with great verve, clarity, and harmonic whim. She grew up in a musical family in northern Vermont and was immersed from a young age in an eclectic mix of jazz, classical, traditional and world music. These days she gets to incorporate many of those influences into playing music for different kinds of dancing, including English, Contra, Swing, Balkan folk dance, and improvised dance. Among Figments and other bands and free-lance projects, Anna tours extensively around the U.S. and abroad with the innovative contradance band Elixir. With Elixir and other groups, Anna has been part of the production of seven independently released albums, including a solo album of swing and fiddle tunes for clarinet and string band, titled “Isadore's Breakfast.”
Besides performing and recording, Anna teaches aural skills and improvisation at workshop venues like Pinewoods camp, Ashokan fiddle and dance camp, and the Vermont Jazz Center. She especially enjoys leading workshops in the skills of improvising and on-the-fly arranging for dance musicians.
Anna received her Masters in Music from New England Conservatory in 2014 in the conservatory's Contemporary Improvisation program. She lives in Brattleboro VT with her husband, fiddler Ethan Hazzard-Watkins. annapatton.com
Anna will play for ECD and teach a music workshop.
Betsy Branch (OR) has been a mainstay of the Portland, Oregon dance community for many years. Her exuberant dance fiddling has delighted dancers on both coasts, and her warmth and engaging smile extend beyond the stage and draw in dancers and listeners alike. Betsy is an accomplished song leader and has taught singing and harmony workshops around the country. Currently, she is program director for CDSS Harmony of Song and Dance at Pinewoods. Betsy plays for English, contra, Irish and Scottish dancing, and is a leader in the Portland Megaband. Her primary passion is teaching and mentoring fiddlers and dance musicians. Betsy teaches privately out of her home in SE Portland, and for workshops around the region. When not playing or teaching, she works as a music editor, arranger, and transcriber. On the side, she loves to create glass mosaic art.
Betsy will play for ECD and teach the camper band workshop.
Dave Wiesler (DE) started playing piano for folk dancing almost three decades ago and quickly fell in love with its rhythmic drive, variety, and improvisational elements. A self-described mockingbird, adept at learning and imitating different styles of music, Dave is a nationally recognized accompanist for many types of dance (Scottish and English country dance, contra dance, waltz, swing dance) and can fake his way through an awful lot of other music genres, ranging from ragtime and vintage dance to classic rock, from Romantic-era classical music to Brazilian choro music. He has played at numerous music and dance camps and festivals across the country, as well as in Canada, Scotland, England, France, and onboard a ship traveling the waters of the Galapagos Islands. Dave is a patient music teacher, a capable guitarist and singer, and a prolific composer of over 300 tunes, songs, solo piano pieces, choral arrangements, and even a few classical pieces arranged for small orchestra. He lives in Newark, DE, with his supportive wife, two sons for whom he is primarily a chauffeur, and two cats that he’s allergic to. Some of Dave's bands include Goldcrest, The Gigmeisters, Cabaret Sauvignon, The Avant Gardeners, Green Light Karma, and Thistle House. For more information, go to davewiesler.com.
Dave will play for ECD and teach a composition workshop.
Rebecca King's (CA) classical piano training took a detour when she began playing for folk dances. She found that English Country Dance music was the perfect combination of classical chamber music with the improvisation of jazz. She plays for dances throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and has played in England, Italy, and throughout the US. She has recorded 3 albums with the trio Persons of Quality, including Farnicle Huggy for Andrew Shaw, played on Dances from the Greenery for Sharon Green, and released a solo piano CD and book of her own compositions titled Nearer & Farther. Listen at rebeccakingmusic.com
Rebecca will play for ECD.
Brian Lindsay (WA), our sound engineer for the week, has been dancing since he could walk, singing since he could speak, and holding a fiddle to his chin for most of his life. An experienced, versitle, and sensitive sound engineer, both for recording and live sound applications, Brian brings his skills as a multi-instrumentalist and dancer to inform his work creating good sound for dancing. In addition, he has shot and edited videos for bands, producing compelling visual performances with excellent audio. Since the start of the COVID-19 shutdown, he has successfully produced live-stream concerts with high quality audio and video, and become highy regarded providing technical assistance for live events on Zoom and other platforms. He is a member of a number of dance bands and performing collaborations including Countercurrent, Gallimaufry, Dear Crow, and Saving Daylight.
You'll find more information at brianlindsaymusic.com.
Gumby Falk (MA) will be an assistant sound engineer. Gumby is looking forward to her first time helping Brian Lindsay run sound for Hey Days this year. Her main priority is making sure the band and caller can be heard fully and completely throughout the hall without being too loud. She is an avid English and Contra dancer, as well as a contra dance organizer.
Hey Days Committee
Bridget Whitehead has been calling and organizing English country dances since 2009. She served on the Hey Days committee in 2019 with a focus on youth recruitment and again in 2022 as programmer-in-training, and is now our Program Director. It is a great pleasure and honor to contribute in this new leadership role to the ECD community that gives her so much. Bridget is grateful for all of the support from committee members past and present, and to the wonderful callers, teachers, musicians, and sound engineers who have agreed to be on staff for 2023.
Rebecca King joined the Hey Days Committee as Camp Manager, just in time for our pivot to an online camp. Her former job as a classroom music teacher and band director with the Sonoma Valley Schools gave her a lot of experience in large groups, patience, and working towards goals, which she hopes to put to good use at Hey Days in June. Besides playing the piano, Rebecca enjoys hiking and the great outdoors.
Alex Bradley is excited to join the committee this year as our new Hey Days Registrar. He is a VFX artist and illustrator based in Los Angeles. To get away from the screens, exercise, and connect with others, he loves nothing more than English country dancing. With his wife, Renée Camus, he performed in the Centuries Historical Dance company, a highlight of which was joining a production of The Merry Widow, graduating from dancing in one scene to being full-blown singing cast members overnight. They have also danced professionally at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They are owned by three cats.
Alisa Dodson is an ECD dancer, organizer, caller and choreographer, and has been a member of BACDS since the early 1980s. She has been on Ball committees and has served as a series dance manager. Alisa has been on the Mendocino/Gualala/Hey Days committee for many years, taking the position of programmer, bookstore honcho with Allen Dodson, and camp manager. She will run the bookstore and auction in 2023, working with Loretta Guarino-Reid.
Brooke Friendly joined the committee in 2007 as program director and has remained involved ever since, in charge of the website and other marketing. She was program director again in 2017-19, including the transition from Bishop's Ranch to SSU. She has taught dance using global/positional language and strategies since 1981 and as a result of the pandemic now teaches a variety of online workshops for callers. Happily retired from arts education and managment, her other loves are theatre improv, gardening, hiking, birding, and singing, dancing, and playing 'instruments' with her grandchild.
Loretta Guarino-Reid is a long time co-manager of the Peninsula English Country Dance in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been on the Hey Days committee in various roles since 2009, serving as manager, treasurer, and most recently, running the bookstore.
Rachel Pusey has enjoyed ECD since her student days, and now divides her affections evenly between Scottish and English. She is the treasurer for the committee.
Cat Fox found English Country Dance in 2016 and hasn’t stopped dancing since. She was Hey Days Registrar from 2017-2022.