Teaching Staff
Joanna Reiner—English Country Dance Margaret Bary—English Country Dance Mary Wesley—Squares & Contras Rebecca McGowan—Irish Sets and Stepping Ross Grant—English Ritual Dance Kristy Highfield—Rapper Dancing Lily Kruskal Leahy—Harmony Singing Anne Goodwin—Porch Singing Olivia Barrand—Crafts |
Music Staff
Kate Barnes Doug Creighton Dave Langford Naomi Morse Casey Murray Molly Tucker Dave Wiesler Sound engineering by Dereck Kalish
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Read more about our individual staff members and musicians below!
The following dance terminology will be used during the weekend:
Contras & Squares: Larks & Robins
English Country Dance:
Evenings: Positional and Larks & Robins
Classes: Positional, Men & Women, and Larks & Robins
English Country Dance:
Evenings: Positional and Larks & Robins
Classes: Positional, Men & Women, and Larks & Robins
Class Descriptions
Social Dancing
Challanging ECD – (Joanna Reiner)
ECD for All: (Joanna Reiner)
Introductory ECD: (Margaret Bary)
Contras: (Mary Wesley)
Irish Sets: (Rebecca McGowan)
Ritual & Step Dancing
Northwest Morris (Ross Grant)
Rapper Sword (Kristy Highfield)
Step Dancing (Rebecca McGowan)
Singing and Music-making
Harmony Singing (Lily Kruskal Leahy)
Singing on the Camphouse Porch (Anne Goodwin). Everyone regardless of experience or estimation of your vocal skill is welcome to the Camphouse porch to share a song. Songs with joining-in bits and easy harmonies are especially encouraged, but you can bring anything you like. We’ll have a theme each day that you can follow or ignore as you wish. Come to sing or just bask in the vibes
Wiesler's Wallpaper (Dave Wiesler)
English Tunes (Ross Grant)
Slow Jam (Dave Langford)
Others
Warm up and Stretch (Rebecca McGowan)
Crafts (Olivia Barrand)
Challanging ECD – (Joanna Reiner)
ECD for All: (Joanna Reiner)
Introductory ECD: (Margaret Bary)
Contras: (Mary Wesley)
Irish Sets: (Rebecca McGowan)
Ritual & Step Dancing
Northwest Morris (Ross Grant)
Rapper Sword (Kristy Highfield)
Step Dancing (Rebecca McGowan)
Singing and Music-making
Harmony Singing (Lily Kruskal Leahy)
Singing on the Camphouse Porch (Anne Goodwin). Everyone regardless of experience or estimation of your vocal skill is welcome to the Camphouse porch to share a song. Songs with joining-in bits and easy harmonies are especially encouraged, but you can bring anything you like. We’ll have a theme each day that you can follow or ignore as you wish. Come to sing or just bask in the vibes
Wiesler's Wallpaper (Dave Wiesler)
English Tunes (Ross Grant)
Slow Jam (Dave Langford)
Others
Warm up and Stretch (Rebecca McGowan)
Crafts (Olivia Barrand)
Teaching Staff
Margaret Bary leads English Country in New York City and beyond. She has been on staff at CDSS Family and Campers’ weeks, ESCape and other dance weekends and events. Recently, she has delved into dance choreography, writing a number of dances along with her husband, Jeff, that are being featured in the wider community. Margaret currently serves on the board of the Country Dance and Song Society, and the steering committee of Pourparler, a group for teachers of traditional dance and music in schools and communities. A lifelong dancer and dance educator, Margaret believes that participatory dance fosters joy and connection between people.
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Raised in the cradle of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Mary Wesley found her way to a Burlington contra dance in the fall of 2005 and was immediately hooked. She was later happy to learn that the tradition is in her DNA – she is the granddaughter of two square dance callers!
Mary loves to share her infectious joy for traditional dancing with dancers of all ages and she has something to offer every crowd. She calls contra, square, family and community dances with great joy and finds "chestnuts" absolutely irresistible. In recent years Mary has also become enthralled with the breton and Balfolk dancing and also enjoys teaching this repertoire. When not calling, Mary works for Vermont Folklife and produces "From the Mic," a podcast about dance callers for the Country Dance and Song Society. |
From Boston, Rebecca McGowan is a traditional and old-style Irish dancer, with particular interest in step dancing as music and making Irish dance lyrical and approachable. She has been on the faculty of the Catskills Irish Arts Week, ReJigged, Pinewoods, O’Flaherty Retreat, and others. She released a unique visual album From the Floor (2019) and a quartet album Eight Feet Tall (2023) together with duet partner Jackie O’Riley. Rebecca has been recognized as a co-recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Choreography Fellowship (2022), Somerville Artist Fellowships, and the Boston Foundation, and she directs a non-competitive step dancing school for adults.
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Lily Kruskal Leahy is incredibly excited to be returning to July 4th Session! Currently living in Co. Cork, Ireland, Lily is a music educator in a local performing arts school and is the founder and director of a small vocal ensemble in her town of Mallow. She has been involved in choral singing all her life and has been the musical director for several choirs and vocal groups over the last several years. Making beautiful harmonies with friends is one of her favorite activities and is looking forward to sharing this at July 4th weekend at Pinewooods!
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Anne Goodwin feels that there are few things better than being in the midst of a bunch of people singing in harmony. She pursues this through pub sings, circle singing, community singing, and the occasional march or rally. She’s even been driven to performing with several acapella folk groups over the years. But she feels it’s best when sitting on a rustic porch by a lake on a summer day.
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Olivia Barrand has a BFA in costume design and construction and spent 20 years working on costumes for Broadway, film, and television. A lifelong maker, she ran a jewelry fashion business on Etsy for many years and continues to explore new skills, taking classes in ceramics, screen printing, woodworking, and printmaking, among others. She now lends her creativity to event decor, her children’s Halloween costumes and craft projects, and interior design and organization consulting. Olivia is excited to share her love of crafts at Pinewoods Camp this summer.
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Music Staff
Dave Langford is an experienced and versatile fiddler, guitarist and fiddle teacher from the Boston area. A veteran of 30+ years of playing Contra Dance and English Country Dance music for all types of events, Dave combines multiple styles of fiddling with sensitivity as well as fierce rythmic energy and drive. He's added his talents to dozens of music and dance weeks as well as hundreds of weekend events around the US and beyond. He is a founding member of the bands Stomp Rocket and The Latter Day Lizards and regularly performs with Supertrad.
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Naomi Morse grew up surrounded by music and dance in the folk communities of New England. She is known for her energetic and driving fiddle playing for both contra and English Country dancing and finds sounds both fiery and flowing in various styles of roots music including American old time, New England, Irish, Quebecois, and Scottish. Her bands have included The Poor Cousins, Night Watch, Housetop, and the mega-fiddle-band Childsplay and she has toured extensively with the world music ensemble Northern Harmony. After over a decade of living in Brooklyn, she now lives in the woods of Vermont with her husband and son.
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Molly Tucker is a fiddler, composer, and educator based in Boston. Growing up studying classical violin, she spent a great deal of her childhood listening to and playing fiddle tunes and awaiting the next contra dance. With a love for many styles including New England, Celtic, and Old Time, her fiddling is sonorous, yet full of energy and groove. She performs regularly with folk and contra dance duo Casey Murray & Molly Tucker as well as improvising string quartet, Quartet Davis, which plays original compositions in blues-based and folk styles. She loves sharing the joy of musical discovery through teaching, whether teaching private students, workshops, or at fiddle camps.
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Newark, DE, pianist Dave Wiesler started playing for folk dances in 1992 and quickly built a national reputation for his technical skills, his composition, his orchestral imagination, and his rhythmic and inventive piano playing. He is at home in a huge array of dance styles, ranging from English and Scottish country dance, to contra, swing, vintage dance, couples dance, Viennese waltz. Dave has enjoyed fruitful collaborations with over a hundred other musicians, was a long-time member of the acclaimed band Goldcrest, and now plays ECD with his bands Snapdragon, Constellation, and Firecrest. His music has taken him to 38 states and several foreign countries. He plays on two dozen recordings and is a patient music teacher, a capable guitarist, an artful choir accompanist, and a prolific composer.
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Sound Engineer
Dereck Kalish has been dancing regularly in New England since 2005. In 2011 he became both a caller and a sound engineer, with a focus on providing the best service possible to make for a fun and successful dance. He has provided great sound for weekly dances and larger events such as Pinewoods Camp, Tropical Dance Vacation in St. Croix, Peterborough Snow Ball, NEFFA, Boston Playford Ball, and CDS to name a few. Dereck can be seen calling English and contra dances throughout New England. Dereck has a strong background in the arts, having studied classical piano, and earned a degree in fine arts. He serves as the Chair for the NEFFA Thursday Night Dance Committee in Concord, MA, is a director on the board, and is a member of the Sound Committee for the annual festival. Dereck lives with his partner, Sarah, in Wakefield, MA.
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