Country Dance and Song Society Biographies of Governing Board Members

Officers
	Bruce Hamilton(Menlo Park, CA): Kicked out of the choir in Grade 3, I spent 20 years believing I couldn't sing, and another 20 before I found out how much fun it is, and how egalitarian. Meanwhile Swarthmore woke up a dancer I didn't know was there, and I quickly became one of the crazies -- dancing 5 nights a week, demonstration teams, helped get ECD going in San Diego, helped start the RSCDS branch there, started an ECD group and a morris team when I moved to the Bay Area, etc. As that cooled I got interested in training teachers -- first Scottish, then English. I'm still enjoying that, and still learning how. I got another awakening when Tom Siess brought John Carver's principles of governance to the CDSS board. First learning about them, then applying them under his time as President, I saw that a board could in fact make a difference. It's a worthy challenge. By day I'm a computer scientist at Agilent (née Hewlett Packard) Laboratories, where we try to get systems of test equipment and computers to work effectively together. My current focus is getting very close synchronization among groups of real-time clocks. The attached picture was taken several years ago but the photographer said it showed the joy of dancing, and I agree.
	Sandy Rotenberg (Philadelphia, PA) dances and performs with her local English and Colonial dance groups, and she enjoys contra, zweifachers and vintage dancing. She is a veteran Pinewoods and Buffalo Gap camper and has earned her dance gypsy badge. She is Vice President of the Germantown Country Dancers and has been active with that group for twenty years, organizing their performance teams for many years, and she has organized many of their quilting projects. By day, Sandy is a social worker, coordinating an intergenerational program that matches older volunteers with families who have children with special needs. She served on the CDSS Board and Executive Committee from 1996-2003.
	David Chandler (Metuchen, NJ) is an example of the value of recycling within CDSS. Secretary of the CDSS Executive Committee for a number of years back when the organization was headquartered in New York City, he brings both an insider's and outsider's perspective to today's CDSS governance. He first did country dancing at Antioch College in the early 60's, then took it seriously starting in the early 70's on moving to New Jersey. He was an early member of the Greenwich Morris Men (long retired), a member of the American Country Dance Ensemble (CDSS's bicentennial dance performance group), called English and contras in New York and Princeton (where he planted the small seed that grew into an amazing organization under the skillful care of many others), was a member of an early Long Range Planning Committee for CDSS, was a long-time member of the Gadd/Merrill Fund Committee, served as a CDSS representative to the Pinewoods Camp, Inc., Board and is now Treasurer of Country Dance*New York, Inc. Back to dancing the last several years after taking time off to connect with son William (who, alas, hasn't caught the dancing bug - yet), he still finds joy in both English country and contra dancing. He recently retired after many years as Director of the Rutgers College Counseling Center. His wife, Beverly Francis, is a well-known caller, Jane Austen-ite and school librarian. In addition to doing the work of Secretary, he will bring a continuing concern for the necessity of supporting the transition to new generations of dancers and musicians, and the usefulness of looking both ahead and behind.
	Rachel Winslow (Lansdowne, PA) has retired from her position as a full time CPA, specializing in auditing and consulting for nonprofit organizations. After serving a special one year term as Treasurer, she is delighted to have entered a full term so that she can continue using her skills to help CDSS. For fun, Rachel dances mostly English and some contra, performs with the Germantown Country Dancers team, and works on GCD group quilt projects.
Board Members at Large
	Jackie Algon (Wilton, CT) has loved dancing her whole life, but she took a twenty year plus year hiatus to focus on multitasking schoolwork, career and child raising. Near the end of the century, having finally finished her doctorate and with her daughter in med school and married, she went out to dance. She came to English country dance through the international folk dance genre four years ago; she danced in New York and New Jersey for a while and now dances weekly with the Reel Nutmeg performance troupe in Hartford, CT. When Jackie retired at the end of 2003 as Director of Information Policy and Records Management of Merck & Co., Inc., where she’d worked for 34 years, she and her partner Carl Andersen moved to Connecticut, where they’re in the process of reconstructing their home to include a dance space. For the past year, Jackie has served on the Country Dance * New York Board. She was a founding board member of Merck’s childcare center (now 25 years old) and developed the first after-school childcare program in Millburn, NJ. Her joy comes from dancing, fiber arts (knitting, spinning, weaving), cooking, being with friends and family and serving the various communities in which she participates.
	Carol Barry (Edmond, OK) began dancing in 1984 when a friend invited her to a local dance. She was enchanted immediately and has been dancing ever since. She has been active in contra, English and Scottish country dance, holding office, serving on committees and planning workshops. She is active in the Oklahoma City International Folk Dancers, coordinating the teaching program, serving on the Board and chairing dance camp weekends. She is a founding member of and regular caller for Scissortail Traditional Dance Society. Most recently she has formed a "small but enthusiastic" English country dance group in Oklahoma City. Carol is a retired university librarian, enjoying to the fullest a traveling, dancing and family-filled life. She considers community dance to be in the top tier of activities that enrich the body, mind and spirit of its participants and the communities/extended families they form.
	In addition to serving on the CDSS Board, Bill Cronin (Littleton, MA) is a member of the NEFFA grants committee, a former member of the CDS Boston Centre board, and a former music director of Roaring Jelly, a large contra dance band based in the Boston area. He dances with (and is the current squire of) the Pinewoods Morris Men, and also enjoys English Country Dancing.
	Nan Evans (Portland, OR) is a dance organizer and leader of English country and contra dances who brings a commitment to the joy of dance and the magic of community. Nan is well known throughout the Northwest and beyond for clear teaching and a warm and welcoming style—characteristics that have served the Portland English dance community well, especiallyduring its developing years when she organized and led the regular English dances and, with a team, createdthe popular Portland English Country Ball. Nan livesina co-housing community where decisions that affect the community are made by consensus and where she and hercellist husband, Fred Nussbaum, hold informal dances and concerts in the community building great room.In her work life, Nan retired from the State of Oregon, where she was the Director of the Department of Land Conservation and Development, and isnow the Director of Government Relations at the Oregon chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
	Gaye Fifer (Charlottesville, VA) has been an active contra dancer for the past 28 years, first in St. Louis, MO, then living in Charlottesville, VA and traveling all around. She has been an organizer for her local dances in Charlottesville, serving on the board and co-chairing their fall festival committee numerous times. In addition, Gaye has been calling both locally and around the country at contra weekends. She is known for her energy, enthusiasm and sense of fun. Gaye's other dance passion is American folk waltz. For the past 6 years she has taught a regular ongoing waltz class and hosted a monthly open waltz. The waltz community keeps growing, and an intermediate level class has been added, a second monthly waltz is in the works and new teachers are being groomed. Gaye and her partner, Wayne Albright, have also been leading waltz workshops at contra dance weekends for the past 6 years. When not dancing/waltzing/ calling, you can find Gaye teaching 4-year-olds in the Charlottesville City Schools, singing in a women's choir and enjoying her 17-year-old daughter, Rachel (who is an avid contra dancer and waltzer).
	Brian Gallgher (Northfield, MA) did some asking around and found that, after visiting all of the various local contras and contra dance weekends, the most commonly used name to refer to him was "Pajama Boy." Upon further research, he remembered that he usually wears "pajama pants" -- loose fitting and relaxed pants --when he dances. Since starting contra dancing in Greenfield, MA in 2001, shape note singing at NEFFA 2006 and English country dancing at Pinewoods 2007, Brian, who considers himself to be a very new participant in many folk traditions, has danced from Maine to South Carolina and from Washington, DC, to St. Louis, MO. He thoroughly enjoys different types of music, dances and dancers. More recently, Brian has been very involved encouraging the next generation of contra dancers-that is, younger dancers-to become involved in their local communities. He started the Facebook group "Contra Dancers," which has over 1,400 members across the country. On this national forum, he has helped to drive many discussions geared towards encouraging younger folks to dance, to become involved in their communities and to ask for help in attracting younger dancers to their community. Brian co-led a workshop at NEFFA '07 titled "Contra Dancing: The NEXT Generation," where participants discussed techniques to expand local dance communities to younger dancers. He serves on the CDSS Youth Task Force.
	Brenda Goodwin (Salt Lake City, UT) has been a hard-core contra dancer since 1993. She learned to dance in Los Angeles, and then moved to Salt Lake City to marry her dance camp sweetie seven years ago. She is president of Wasatch Contras in Salt Lake City, directs the local dance camp (Wasatch Wiggle), and also spearheads the organizing committee of Labor Day Dance Away in Los Angeles. She calls in Salt Lake City and at various dances and events around the western United States, and caters dance camps as the proprietor of Forward and Back Catering. Dancing, and the community it creates, are Brenda’s passions, and she is pleased to be able to dedicate much of her life to helping it thrive!
	Scott Higgs (Wayne,PA) fell head-over-heels in love with dancing in 1975, taking up English, Scottish, contra and morris all at once. Since then, he has led contras and English country dances in 26 states, three Canadian provinces, and five foreign countries. These travels connect him with enthusiastic dancers and organizers in all corners of the dance world -- from whom he learns an amazing range of perspectives on dancing and community. Scott currently serves CDSS as Program Director for English & American Dance Week at Pinewoods (he has also directed two other CDSS weeks, taught at six of the seven CDSS Pinewoods sessions, and led dancing at over 100 weekend and week-long programs). At home, Scott participates actively in many dance groups as board member, organizer, caller, dancer and (occasional) musician. As the leader of a dance series that stretches back 55 years, Scott understands and respects tradition, and knows how to sustain the vital energy of a group that evolves over time. As co-founder of a one-year-old morris team, Scott knows how to collaborate with others to develop something dynamic and new. As a board member, Scott will apply his experience and creative energy to help CDSS flourish, now and in the years ahead. In the few hours that he is not dancing, Scott is a computer consultant, focusing primarily on database management.
	Rosemarie Lach (Victoria, BC) has been a dancer all her life. She has danced with Island Thyme Morris and Movimento historical dancers and now performs with Leikarring, a Norwegian dance group. Rosemary introduced English country dancing to the Victoria community and continues to teach and call at the weekly dances. She is always encouraging other dancers to step forward and try their hand at calling. Rosemary established the annual Hands Across the Water English dance workshop, and the biennial Victoria English ball. She helped rekindle the contra dance community and calls regularly at the local contra dances. Last year, she helped organize the West Coast Leadership Conference. When not dancing, Rosemary lives on a float home in Victoria harbor and manages a very active seniors center.
	Annie Laskey (Los Angeles, CA) is an avid English country dancer, caller and dance producer in her hometown of Los Angeles. A Jane Austen and Renaissance geek from 6th grade, she loves the historical aspect of the dancing, as well as the camaraderie and sociability. In addition to enjoying English country dancing, Annie can be encountered occasionally dancing Scottish, contra, squares and sometimes ballroom. Though not gifted with any musical talent, she continues to blissfully tootle away on the recorder and to stand in awe of real musicians. Active in many nonprofits over the years, she works for a historic preservation advocacy nonprofit, running their architectural walking tour program.
	Lily Leahy (Watertown, MA) did not choose to be a part of the dance community in the typical way; she was born into it. The daughter of longtime dancers and CDSS members Tom and Deborah Kruskal, Lily feels as though she was raised by the dance community and strongly believes in the motto “it takes a village.” At a time when many rebel from their parents, Lily clung that much harder to dancing and music and all the people involved in both, and they have been her “village”growing up. Lily has been going to Pinewoods Camp since she was 8 months old and hasn’t missed a year since. She currently dances with Orion Longsword and goes to the occasional English or contra dance in the Boston area. She has also been active with Revels, Inc. productions and recordings. Lily grew up watching her parents as board members of Pinewoods Camp, the CDSS Board and the Boston Centre Board and as program chairs for sessions at Pinewoods. She always hoped that one day she too would be able to give back to the community that helped shape who she is today. In her daily life, Lily coordinates an after-school program in Wellesley, MA, to which she brings the many aspects of music, dance and drama that she learned at Family Weeks at Pinewoods. When asked by a colleague how she knew so many songs, she replied that she had done 25 years of field research and intends to do many, many more!
	Chris Levey (ThetfordCEnter, VT) has been English dancing as long as he can remember, except for a rebellious time in high school. He was a co-founder and leader of the Madison Country Dancers (1977), Oak Apple Morris (1978) (both in Wisconsin), the Strafford Ball (1995, Vermont), and is the founder and present leader of the Upper Valley English Country Dancers (1988) and the Green Mountain Morris (1998). He has danced primarily in Berea, Chicago, Madison, New York City/New Jersey and Vermont, and he has been the morris fool for Oak Apple, Millstone River and Four Corners Morris teams. Chris is now interested in how to involve teenagers in dance (working with that very age when he rebelled against anything folk). He is particularly proud of his teenage boys' morris team. In his non-dance life, Chris teaches engineering at Dartmouth College. He and his wife, Barbara DeFelice (who co-leads a teenage girls morris team), and son Nacio live on an old Vermont farm and also enjoy cross-country skiing, biking, and hiking in the mountains. His website is at: http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~cgl
	Linda Lieberman (Ames, IA) began dancing in the late 1980s when a friend wanted to start a dance group at the art center where she worked as a potter. She volunteered to be responsible for the door and was immediately drawn into dancing. She has been part of a flatfoot clogging team, called at barn dances and community dances, and led dancing in schools and English and Scottish country dance groups. During several visits to Australia, Linda called at bush dances and played at the Australian National Folk Festival. She plays in the Onion Creek Band, Cecil’s Harp, and Widdershins at various venues around the Midwest and in Australia. She and her husband, Gary, who are avid participants at dance events on both coasts and beyond, have created two books of their original dance tunes and are in the process of putting together a third book. Linda is one of the organizers of the Central Iowa Traditional Dance and Music Festival, now in its tenth year, and has organized balls, concerts, leadership workshops, music workshops, and various other social events since the early nineties. She is on the board of a local Arts Center and has been instrumental in getting grant monies for various dance events in Iowa. Ames High School in the mathematics department is where you will find her most days during the school year, where one of her favorite subjects to teach is hands-on geometry.
	Chloe Maher (Lansdowne, PA) has been involved in the traditional dance and music community her whole life. Beginning with Scottish country dance, she has subsequently enjoyed English country, contra, clogging and rapper. Chloe spent five summers on Pinewoods crew, where she happily became aware of the wider traditional music, dance and song community. Singing has long been a hobby for Chloe, and she became an avid shape note singer while at Oberlin College, an activity that culminated in co-editing (with Charles Wells) and publishing Oberlin Harmony, a compilation of songs sung and enjoyed at Oberlin. Recently, Chloe has been enjoying playing piano for English, Scottish and contra dances. She currently is one of the leaders of the Philadelphia area rapper team and dances with Fiddlekicks Cloggers. She works for the Children’s Literacy Initiative ( www.CLIontheweb.org). Chloe likes to travel and is interested in religion and gender studies, particularly of North Africa.
	Pat Petersen (Durham, NC) Pat first encountered English country dance in the '70s in Chicago, where her hopelessness with Hole in the Wall did not deter her enthusiasm and her love of the combination of music and movement. After moving to New York, utter confusion with her first triple minor still left her undaunted, and she plunged into English, sword and morris classes at NYDAC with eagerness. Before long, she began teaching and playing for ECD at early music workshops. Pat has been dancing, teaching and playing for ECD for more than 25 years, on both coasts and as far afield as Australia. Pat's love of teaching includes making dances fun and accessible to nervous newcomers as well as challenging more experienced dancers. As a longtime member of and teacher for Sun Assembly, a gender-neutral ECD group, she believes strongly in dance as a builder of community, respect, connection and awareness. In her work life, Pat is a recorder and early music performer and teacher. She directed an early music vocal ensemble for 20 years, and has been known to play a mean banjo-uke with an old-time band. She has served on the boards of many organizations, including the American Recorder Society and local dance and recorder groups. She was for many years the assistant director of Amherst Early Music, and continues to serve on its Executive Committee.
	Gretchen Preston (Ann ARbor, MI) began dancing in 1982 in Ann Arbor; there was one dance a month then-now there are more than 10. She learned about CDSS when she went to Pinewoods Camp in 1984 where she was "in love with dancing, the music, the great people who I met there and the camp itself." Gretchen met her husband, Greg, at a local Ann Arbor dance in 1985. Since that time, they have danced in cities across the country whenever they travel. They have been on their local longsword and rapper teams and are actively involved in the local dance organization. Gretchen was on the board of Pinewoods Camp, Inc., from 1994 to 2000. She is eager to work with the CDSS Board on the new long-range projects and looks forward to planning for the organization's longterm health. CDSS leadership and resources have been and continue to be invaluable to her local dance community, she says. In her non-dance life, Gretchen owns and operates nine childcare centers in Michigan.
	Mary Kay Schladweiler (Minneapolis, MN) has been actively involved in country dancing for the past twenty-plus years. Currently, she dances and teaches English country dance, and is a member of the Crosby Lake Clatterers, an English clogging group. She also started and continues to lead an English longsword team called Wild Rose Longsword and Garden Society which dances seasonally. Mary Kay is also a contra dancer and international folk dancer. Her day job is program director at Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis.
	Lisa Sieverts (Nelson, NH) began contra dancing as a summer kid in the 1960s at the Nelson Town Hall and now has the pleasure of living three miles from this famed locale. During her western phase in the 1990s, she helped found the Boise (Idaho) Contra Dance Society. Lisa is a contra dance caller, performing regularly around New England. She serves as Secretary on the boards of both the Monadnock Folklore Society and the Hannah Grimes Center, a small business development organization based in Keene, NH (http://www.hannahgrimes.com). She owns Facilitated Change (http://lisasieverts.com), a consultancy specializing in project management, and teaches at the Marlboro College Graduate Center in Brattleboro, VT.
	For Stephanie Smith (Bethesda, MD) traditional dance, music and song are major passions and also part of her vocation. She studied folk song at the University of Edinburgh, obtaining a master's and Ph.D. in Scottish Studies (folklore). She has taught contra and English dance since 1978, and has organized a number of dance and music events in Scotland and the USA. She has served as a board member for the Folklore Society of Greater Washington and has been a regular caller and organizer for the FSGW weekly English dance since 1993. Stephanie is an archivist at the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and has co-directed the ongoing English Country Dance Video Documentation Project since 1999, with Daniel Walkowitz of New York University, in collaboration and consultation with CDSS.
	Jane Srivastava (Vancouver, BC) first contra danced in Canterbury, New Hampshire in 1963. She now dances in Vancouver mostly, Seattle sometimes, and wherever her dance gypsy heart takes her. (In 2006 Jane danced on 4 continents, and dined on 5.) . A high point of being on the CDSS Board is traveling around the country to the Executive meetings, and meeting and dancing with our members and affiliates. Jane also enjoys English country dancing and singing. She has helped coordinate Vancouver Country Dance and their spring dance weekend, Raincoast Ruckus, as well as a dance cruise around the Horn, and the West Coast Leadership Conference. Her non-dancing activities include hiking (currently introducing her 2 year old grandson to the sport) and Taoist Tai Chi. She is retired from many careers, including author (seven children's books), teacher and accountant.
	Mark Weinstein (Huntington, NY) came over from the dark side 12 years ago (with a little shove from his wife Lucy), having started his dance life as a ballroom dance student who never quite mastered Cuban motion. He currently dances mainly English, but still enjoys a good contra swing and rare Scottish jig. Mark is the principal organizer of Weekend Whirligig, assists with Country Dance New York’s True Brit weekend and has helped organize several other dance events. To help support his hiking, gardening and dance habits, as well as family (wife, 2 dispersed kids and a cat), he works as a primary care internist, is the managing partner of a large medical group and head of quality assurance and medicine in a hospital, and dabbles in research in medical informatics.

Phone: 413-268-7426 Fax: 413-268-7471

Country Dance and Song Society 132 Main St/PO Box 338 Haydenville, MA 01039-0338 Office Hours M-F 9:30am - 5:00pm EST

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