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BACDS 2011 Playford Ball April 2, 2011
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BACDS 2011 Playford Ball April 2, 2011
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The Playford Ball |
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With over 15 years of teaching in the Bay Area, Bob Fraley is best-known in BACDS as the long-time caller of the Palo Alto English dance, as well as co-founder of the San Jose (now Peninsula English) dance. A favorite dancing master at both Fall Ball and Playford Ball dances in years past, he is a past foreman of Deer Creek Morris, has performed Rapper Sword dances, and at the California Revels. He also has a national reputation as a leader of Scandinavian couple-dancing, and has been featured for his hambo workshops at the San Francisco Free Folk Festival. He has also taught international folk dance from countries including Germany, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, and Israel. Bob has performed international dances in Wisconsin, Colorado, and California, and was the artistic director of the Zavrti Dance Ensemble of Palo Alto. |
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Chuck Ward is a co-founder of the San Francisco Country Dance Society in 1970, which later became the base for the Bay Area Country Dance Society. He has been playing for English country dances since long before the advent of either. His Baroque sensibilities combined with his love of musical jokes has made him popular at Mendocino, as well as the camps at Pinewoods, Berea (KY), Brasstown (NC), and the weekly dances in the Bay Area and Sebastopol. He was a member of that renowned group, the Claremont Country Dance Band, whose recordings may still be acquired through CDSS. Be sure to ask Chuck for a limerick when you see him! |
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Jon Berger is a local Bay Area treasure of tunes, providing an artistry of fiddle music and then some. He has played music for morris, English country, and contra dances since 1976 and is a regular musician at Bay Area and North Bay English country dances. A former musician for Berkeley Morris and co-founder for Apple Tree Morris he now plays in Sebastopol and is part of the band Flashpoint. He is well-known for his powerful music, and, while playing for morris, his ability to maintain a connection between the music, the dancers and the dance (not to mention his sense of humor, and grand singing voice). Jon is also a former member of the Renaissance trio "Cyderman's Fancy," and more recently "Tempest," a Celtic rock band that plays for an entirely different style of dancing. Between gigs, Jon has a solo law practice. He lives in Sebastopol, California with his wife, famed morris dancer, clogger and caller Kalia Kliban, and a sufficient number of cats. |
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Michelle Levy studied classical viola with Consuelo Sherba and David Rubenstein as well as Old Timey fiddle/banjo with Professor Jeff Titon at Brown University. After receiving the McKasson scholarship to Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School, she fell in love with the spontaneity of folk music and began a career focused on accompanying vocalists, improvising, and performing ancient music. For two years she toured with improvisational world music ensemble Cantiga, which was accepted to the Special Events roster of Cirque du Soleil. She is continuing her musical studies on medieval vielle with Shira Kammen while performing throughout the country with an eclectic variety of ensembles and vocalists, including Abby Green, Maia Archote, and Istanpitta Early Music Ensemble. Most recently she was awarded the Jude Biggs scholarship to study English country dancing & music at BACDS English Week in the Mendocino Woodlands. She especially loves to play for dancers and to teach! |
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Versatile dance pianist Rebecca King has been playing dance music in California since 1982. She can be heard playing English and Contra Dance in the greater San Francisco Bay area and the North Bay, mainly with the bands Flashpoint and Luceo. Her strong classical training and her love of jazz shows in her rhythmic and lyric piano accompaniments. By day, she teaches music in the Sonoma Valley schools. She can also be heard on Cowboy Dancing by Ray Bierl, and on BACDS' recent music CD Swinging On The Gate in which she was also executive producer. |
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"But I *am* dancing! It's just that my partner is electronic and has a lot of knobs!" is how Nick Cuccia 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 BACDS events and camps too numerous to list. |
East Bay Workshop |
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Alan Winston is a regular and well-known English country dance caller in the Bay Area. He teaches historical and contemporary community dances at weddings, for company/corporate groups, for hobbyists, and for historical interest groups. He also leads for early American dance, American contra dance, Victorian/Civil War dance, and early California (1840s) dance, and has been a long time member of the BACDS board. |
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Debra Tayleur brings mirth and music to English country, contra, and other community dances in the Bay Area and surrounding venues. Not content to contribute this way, she also programs the Wednesday Berkeley English country dance series for BACDS. |
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Sue Drehiem teaches and play violin and fiddle for a wide variety of venues and styles. Whether it's classical freelancing with regional orchestras or Gilbert and Sullivan Troupe, touring with opera theatre, or performing with Celtic-folk or fusion bands like Golden Bough or Tempest, Sue brings it all to any musical venture. Her greatest musical love - music and tunes of the British Isles - has helped bring her to us. We're lucky to have her and hope to hear more at BACDS events in the future. |
Peninsula Workshop |
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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." |
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Bill Jensen
has been enjoying English Country dancing since 1984, and has played
piano for dances since 1997. He plays frequently at dances throughout
the Bay Area. Bill particularly enjoys working closely with callers to
provide musical backup for teaching dances. |
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Stan and Susan Kramer, sometimes called the dynamic duo of English Country Dance music, are products of that wonderful evolution - dancers turned musicians. Stan has been playing since 1965, uplifting a 2nd and 3rd generation of dancers, for morris, and English dance, but strangely won't admit to contras. He plays fiddle, recorder, string bass, and mentored with Pat Shaw, Phllippe Merrill and Marshall Baron. Susan is also firmly grounded in the folk traditions, both from Berea College and as a child dancer, and who Stan says "needs no introduction because her music speaks for itself." |
Ball Rehearsal |
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The Playford Ball rehearsal gives us a chance to share the wealth and spread the blame with our cavalcade of callers, including Bob Fraley, Ric Goldman, Sharon Green, and Mary Luckhardt on hand to call a few dances each, contributing to the fun with their own special style. |
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Anne Goess grew up in Palo Alto, California, where she studied violin with Jenny Rudin and played with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra. After a transformative session at Lark Camp, Anne now enjoys playing in seisúns and for céilí and set dancing in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a member of the Wild Hog Céilí Band (with Bob Laughton, Daniel Schoenfeld and Kristine Robin) she performs at weddings, festivals, restaurants and pubs. She has also appeared with Melanie O’Reilly and Aisling, savoring their innovative mix of jazz and traditional Irish music, and with the Three Irish Tenors and now enjoys playing for Contra and English Country dances as a member of the Raggedy Annes (with the inimitable Charlie Hancock and Andy Eggleston). |
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Jim Oakden 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 bagpipe, recorders, whistle and zurna (to name a few). A dancer himself, he specializes in playing for dancers in a bunch of bands for ECD, contra, morris, Irish, Breton/French, Greek, Bulgarian. He has been on staff at myriad dance camps throughout the country. |
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Ruth Anne Fraley plays piano and accordion for English Country
Dancing. She has been in the band for Palo Alto's Friday night English
Country Dances since 1984 and occasionally plays piano for other BACDS
dances in the Bay Area.
She has been on the music staff at Mendocino English Week, BACDS Fall
and Spring Weekends, BACDS Family Week several times each, and also for
a week at Pinewoods English Dance Camp.
Ruth Anne played accordion for the Deer Creek Morris Men in their early years, providing music for May mornings, Christmas Revels and various other gigs. Ruth Anne has been playing accordion and singing Scandinavian folk dance music with Nattergal Scandinavian Folk Dance Ensemble since 1991. Oh, and she's also the manager for the Stanford Soccer Club girls' team the Tsunami. |
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