Appendix D
BIOGRAPHIES OF INFORMANTS
Peter Bixby, a dancer in his thirties, is a graduate student in comparative literature at Indiana University. He was active in dance in New England for nine years, prior to moving to Indiana. Bixby is a beginning caller and choreographer of contra dance, and a devotee of morris dance.
Fred Breunig, a caller and musician in his forties, lives in Putney, Vermont. He works as a printer when he is not engaged in music and dance. Breunig has been dancing, playing music, calling, and composing dances for over twenty years. He is regularly active in dance in Vermont and New Hampshire, and has also shared his talents in twenty-eight states, three Canadian provinces, and in England and Scotland.
Bernard Chalk, a caller in his fifties, lives in England. He is retired from working for the Thames Water Company in London. Chalk has been dancing and calling for over thirty years, and at the time of our interview had been composing dances for ten years. In addition to being active in all the major festivals and dance groups in England, he has toured more than thirty states in the United States. He also served as the resident manager for the Berea Folk Center in Kentucky for a couple of years.
Bob Dalsemer, a caller and musician in his forties, lives in Brasstown, North Carolina. He makes his living working with music and dance. Dalsemer has been dancing, calling, and playing music for dancing for over twenty years, and at the time of our interview had been composing dances for fifteen years. He is regularly active in dance in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. area, and has also called and played music in more than twenty-five states, in Canada, England, Denmark, and the U.S.S.R.
Roger Diggle, a caller and musician in his forties, lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He makes his living as a refrigeration and heating service engineer. At the time of our interview, Diggle had been dancing and playing music for about ten years, and calling and composing dances for over six years. He has been active in dance primarily in the Midwest, but also in the South and in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. He is currently working on a book of his own dances and has written several articles for dance newsletters. In addition, he has given workshops on the intricacies of choreography, calling, dancing, dance music, and P.A. equipment.
Larry Edelman, a caller and musician in his thirties, lives in Baltimore, Maryland. He works both as a square dance caller (squares and contras) and as an adult education specialist. At the time of our interview, Edelman had been dancing and playing music for eighteen years, calling for fifteen, and composing dance for twelve years. He has called in twenty-five states from Florida to Alaska, and he has also called in four European countries. Edelman is the author of the book Square Dance Callers Workshop and each year he teaches a week long intensive callers' workshop. He is known for his ability to write square dances that appeal to today's dancers.
Susan Elberger, a caller in her forties, lives in Lexington, Massachusetts. She has worked as a manager and administrator in human services and health care and is currently a parent and homemaker. At the time of our interview, Elberger had been dancing for fifteen years, calling for thirteen, and composing for twelve. She is active in dance primarily in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, but she has also called in Michigan, California, and England. Elberger was President of the New England Folk Festival Association for four years. She is particularly interested in the social context of dance as opposed to its value as aerobic exercise, and she is also collecting dances written by women.
Chip Hendrickson, a caller in his fifties, lives in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. He works primarily with English social country dancing (Playford) and historical English and Early American country dancing and square dancing of the 1950s. He works with eighteenth century presentations, and has held a position as the supervisor of dance at Colonial Williamsburg. At the time of our interview, Hendrickson had been calling for over forty years, and dancing longer than that. He is regularly active in the New England area and has called in over thirty states and in Canada. He has also made approximately twenty modern square dance records on the TOP Caller label.
Steve Hickman, a dance musician in his forties, lives in King George, Virginia. He makes his living as a musician, both playing for dances and giving music lessons. At the time of our interview Hickman had been dancing and playing music for twenty-one years, had called a little, and had co-authored one dance. He is regularly active in the Washington D.C. area and the east coast in general, and in addition has worked all across the United States, and in Canada and Europe.
Becky Hill, a caller and musician in her thirties, lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. She works half time in special education and half time with the folk arts, story telling and dance calling. At the time of our interview, Hill had been dancing for seven years, calling and composing for five, and playing music for four years. She has been active in dance primarily in Ohio, but also in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Washington D.C., and New York.
Tom Hinds, a dance caller and musician in his thirties, lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. He makes his living as a dance teacher. At the time of our interview, Hinds had been dancing for ten years, calling for six, and playing music and composing dances for four years. He calls regularly in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, and he has also called on the west coast. He has published two books of his own dances.
Gene Hubert, a dance caller in his thirties, currently lives in Bethesda, Maryland. He makes his living as a computer programmer. At the time of our interview, he had been dancing eleven years, and calling and composing nine years. Hubert has been active in dance primarily in the Midwest and the Southeast, but he has also called in the Washington D.C. to Boston corridor. Hubert's dances are very well know nationally among contra dancers, and he has published three books of them, Dizzy Dances I, II, and III.
Larry Jennings, a contra dance facilitator in his sixties, lives in Belmont, Massachusetts. He is a retired scientist and works now to facilitate the growth of the dance communities in the Boston area. At the time of our interview, Jennings had been dancing for forty-one years, and calling and composing for seventeen years. He edited a collection of dances, Zesty Contras, that has been an invaluable source book for dance callers since it was published in 1983. He also contributes to the "Contra Connection" column in the Country Dance and Song Society Newsletter.
David Kaynor, a dance caller and musician in his forties, lives in Montague, Massachusetts. He makes his living leading dance events and giving music lessons. Kaynor has been dancing since he was a child, and at the time of our interview had been playing music for eighteen years, calling for fifteen, and composing dances for about ten years. He calls regularly in the New England area and has also traveled throughout the United States and in Scandinavia.
Carol Kopp, a dance caller in her forties, lives in Streetsboro, Ohio. She makes her living as a programmer-analyst. At the time of our interview, she had been dancing twenty-six years and calling thirteen years, and had composed dances sporadically for eleven years. Kopp is active in dance primarily in the Cleveland-Akron area, but has also called in Massachusetts, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
John Krumm, a dance caller in his thirties, lives in Audubon, Pennsylvania. He makes his living as a teacher working with children at an alternative school and is known for his prolific composing of rounds for singing. He is regularly active in dance in the Philadelphia area, and has also traveled as a caller and run workshops at dance camps. He has composed a number of popular contra dances.
Dudley Laufman, a dance caller and musician of sixty, lives in Canterbury, New Hampshire. He makes his living as an itinerant fiddler and dancing master. He has been dancing, calling, playing music, and composing dances for over forty years. He is active in dance throughout New England, and in New Hampshire in particular. Laufman has traveled as a caller and musician on the eastern seaboard, in the South, in the Midwest, on the west coast, and in Alaska and Hawaii. His work as a dance caller and musician has been a primary influence in the resurgence of traditional dance forms in this country. Many of today's callers and musicians learned to dance at Laufman's dances in the earlier years of the revival.
George Marshall, a musician and caller in his thirties, lives in Belchertown, Massachusetts. At the time of our interview, he had been dancing eighteen years, and calling, playing music, and occasionally composing dances for over fifteen years. Marshall plays and calls with the dance bands, Wild Asparagus, and Swallowtail. He is most active in the Northeast, but has called and played all over the United States and in Canada.
Al Olson is a dancer and dance composer who learned his dancing in Boston but now lives in Chicago. He was completely uninvolved in any kind of dancing until a very smart woman trapped him into his first square dance in 1962, but he's been dancing enthusiastically ever since. By 1976 he began to realize that the awkward moments he sensed in some contras resulted from the dance patterns themselves rather than from his lack of skill, and he began altering dances to remove awkward spots. This eventually led him into composing original dances, and he still composes compulsively whenever a "new" idea comes to him. [Olson] is retired now, but his training in physics may have helped to shape the way he thinks about dance patterns (quoted verbatim from Olson 1992:1-2).
Fred Park, a caller and musician in his forties, lives in Asheville, North Carolina. He makes his living leading and performing music and dance, and performing as a story teller. Park has been dancing, calling, and playing music since the early seventies, and he has composed a few dances along the way. In his work he has traveled all over the United States and in France.
Beth Parkes, a dance caller in her thirties, lives in Billerica, Massachusetts. She makes her living teaching people how to use computers and calls dances as a secondary occupation. She also works with Hands Four Productions, an organization that arranges dance weekends and publishes material related to dance. Parkes has traveled as a dance caller and has composed dances as well.
Tony Parkes, a dance caller in his forties, lives in Billerica, Massachusetts. He makes his living as a dance caller, and supplements it by working as a proofreader and by working with Hands Four Productions (described above). At the time of our interview, Parkes had been calling for about twenty-seven years and composing contra dances for twenty years. His dances have been widely disseminated, in part through his books, Shadrack's Delight and Other Dances (1988) and Son of Shadrack (1992). He is also the author of a recently published book, Contra Dance Calling: A Basic Text. Parkes is regularly active in dance in the Boston area and has called all over the United States and in Europe.
Dan Pearl, a dance caller in his thirties, lives in Ashland, Massachusetts. He makes his living as a computer programmer. At the time of our interview, he had been dancing for twelve years, and calling and composing for eleven. Pearl is active in dance primarily in the Greater Boston area, but he has also traveled extensively in New England, the mid-Atlantic, the South, the Midwest, and the West. He contributes to the "Contra Connection" column in the Country Dance and Song Society Newsletter.
Ted Sannella, a dance caller in his sixties, lived for many years in the Boston area and has recently moved to Wiscasset, Maine. He is a retired pharmacist and finds that in his retirement he is doing more calling and traveling to dance camps than ever before. At the time of our interview, he had been dancing forty-seven years, calling forty-six, and composing dances for thirty-seven years. His dance collection Balance and Swing is widely used by callers across the country. He also contributes to the "Contra Connection" column in the Country Dance and Song Society Newsletter. Sannella is regularly active in dance in New England, and in addition has traveled throughout the continental United States and Alaska, and in Canada, England, Denmark, and Belgium. His work as a dance caller and composer has had tremendous influence on the growth of the dance revival in New England.
Pete Sutherland, a caller and musician in his forties, lives in Monkton, Vermont. He makes his living as a musician and an educator. At the time of our interview, he had been dancing and playing music for twenty years, and calling for fifteen. Sutherland has been most active in New England and the Midwest, but has traveled widely all over the country as a dance musician. He has composed many songs and dance tunes, and has been a member of the performing group Metamora and several dance bands, including Arm and Hammer String Band, Def Leprekon, and his current band, the Clayfoot Strutters.
Don Theyken, a dance caller in his fifties, lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He makes his living as an electron microscope service engineer. At the time of our interview, he had been dancing eleven years, calling for eight, and composing dances for seven years. Theyken is active primarily in the Great Lakes area, mostly in Michigan. He was a dance leader on a folk dance exchange to Denmark in 1989.
Steve Zakon, a dance caller and musician in his thirties, lives in East Sullivan, New Hampshire. He makes his living as a chef and as a dance caller. At the time of our interview, he had been dancing eleven years, calling and playing music for seven, and composing dances for six years. Zakon is primarily active in the Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire, but he has also traveled widely on both coasts, and in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota