I started country dancing in 1974, when I was studying textile design and happened to be living in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. A friend took me to the then quite new Germantown country dance group. From the very beginning, I was engaged by the beauty of the tunes and the dance patterns, and the sociability of dancing with a partner and a whole set. I remember coming up from Philadelphia to the 1974 CDSS Christmas Festival held at Barnard and being very impressed by the New York dancers.
The country dance community has been a mainstay for me. Soon after I moved to New Jersey, in early 1975, I looked up the Ridgewood Country Dancers and also started coming to the dances at Duane Hall in New York. I met David Chandler at Duane in 1975, and we were married in 1980. Our son, William, achieved a measure of fame in 1984 by wearing a baby tuxedo to the first New York Playford Ball. Now he is that tall young man who is an occasional dancer.
Once a start was made, it didn't take long before I was very much involved with country dancing--English, American, and Scottish, as well as morris and sword. When I moved to Manhattan in 1976, my apartment was within walking distance of Duane Hall, and dancing was at the heart of my city existence. I was one of the early members of Ring o' Bells Morris, joining the team in 1975 and dancing until 1990. In the summer of 1979, Ring o' Bells was the first American women's team to tour England. For many years morris and sword were part of the Duane Tuesday evenings, and my first teaching gig in New York was a longsword series in the fall of 1979. I've stayed active in ritual dance and am a founding member of New World Sword (started in 1990).
I feel privileged to have encountered, in person, many major figures in the country dance world. In the 1970's, May Gadd was still calling dances and was a revered figure. Pat Shaw's visit to the U.S. in 1974 (his last, as it turned out) was cause for great excitement. Genny Shimer, Jim Morrison, and Sue Salmons were among the main callers in New York, and Marshall Barron (fiddle) and Phil Merrill (piano) gave us exquisite music week after week. As a new dancer I had little idea how truly splendid all this was. Dancing at the CDSS summer programs at Pinewoods camp every year since 1976 has also provided an excellent exposure to varied styles of music and dance.
After several years of total-immersion dancing, I made the move to calling English country and contras. In the late 1970's, David Chandler started a country dance group in New Jersey that evolved into the Princeton Country Dancers. I called some dances there, and when NYDAC (now CD*NY) organized a dance teachers' apprentice program in 1980, I was part of the first group, along with Bertha Hatvary, Tom Phillips, and Jody McGeen. We worked with Genny Shimer and Sue Salmons. Dancing at that time in New York had a broader focus than it does now. Contras and early American dances, as well as English country dances and ritual dance, formed the Tuesday evening programs. An evening always included traditional dances, which explains the honored position of "Speed the Plough" and other traditional dances in my repertoire. Historical English dance meant the Playford country dances in Cecil Sharp's Country Dance Books. Pat Shaw's research into old dances and his output of new dances were just starting to expand the country dance repertoire in the U.S. Still on the horizon was the marvelous proliferation of new reconstructions and original choreography that we now enjoy.
As a caller I've taught at English and American events up and down the Eastern seaboard from Philadelphia to Boston. I called the Ridgewood dances from 1984 to 1990. As of spring 2001, I was a mistress of ceremonies at six of New York's Playford Balls and on the staff at all of the New York True Brit weekends. I've also led workshops at country dance weekends in London, Ontario, and in the California Bay area. I was a member of the country dance staff at Pinewoods Early Music Week in 1999 and 2000. I have also been on the staff for Winter Dance Week at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C.
A few years ago, I taught country dance at weekend programs for the New York chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America. My research on country dance in Austen's letters and novels led to a booklet of Austen quotations about dance. In 1997, CD*NY was looking for a way to attract new dancers, and a Jane Austen evening was scheduled. That day, we had the good fortune of Linda Wolfe's article In Step with Austen in the New York Times; there was a splendid turnout, and the influx of dancers helped rejuvenate Tuesday night English dances.
In my "other" life I'm a children's librarian and storyteller. Work and family life in New Jersey have lessened some of my involvement in CD*NY; I'm no longer in attendance at every dance event, but country dance and the community of dancers are still mainstays for me.
I would agree with Jane Austen in her novel Emma:
"It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and not material injury accrue to body or mind; but when a beginning is made—when the felicities of rapid motion have once been though slightly, felt—it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more."