Dawn Dance Weekend - Staff

In addition to our fantastic regional talent we are delighted to have the following headliners:

The Groovemongers: C.W. Abbot is the band's improvising mandolinist extraordinaire. He comes from a more southern musical tradition, but has embraced new styles such as French Canadian reels and Irish jigs with abandon. In addition to mandolin, he's played guitar, bass, fiddle, pedal steel, and jug. These days he's mostly sticking to contra dance music with mandolin and guitar. Jane Knoeck's musical beginnings were in classical piano and voice studies. She entered the instrumental folk music world upon discovering the hammered dulcimer. Contra dance bands followed and she's been playing for dances ever since on piano and accordion, weaving a variety of musical influences into her style. She also enjoys playing for both English and Scottish country dance. Rebecca McCallum grew up playing classical violin, but began to transform from a "violinist" to a "fiddler" shortly after college. In the midst of the driving rhythm and danceability of her fiddling, you can still hear signs of that classical precision and tone. She favors northern styles of music in her contra fiddling, but also indulges her Mediterranean roots by playing in a Greek band as well. Mark Hellenberg has been playing traditional music for over forty years, beginning as a drummer in his father's bagpipe band in the early sixties. Since then, Hellenberg has been featured as a percussionist on over a dozen recordings including two Green Linnet releases by the Celtic ensemble, The House Band. He is currently also a member of The Sevens and the Ohio based Hotpoint String Band and works with other contra dance luminaries including the Reckless Ramblers and Wild Asparagus. When not playing music, Mark works as a producer and Classical music host at Ohio University Public Radio in Athens, Ohio.

Bare Necessities is a Boston-based quartet known nationwide for its unique presentation of English country dance music. The quartet, composed of Earl Gaddis and Mary Lea (violin and viola), Peter Barnes (flute and whistles), and Jacqueline Schwab (piano) has been playing weekly country dances since 1978, performing music primarily from the 17th and 18th centuries. They have toured in England as a band and have played for concerts, festivals, workshops, balls and dance camps throughout the United States and Canada over the years. In the course of concertizing and dance playing, they have become increasingly free in their improvisatory explorations of these beautiful melodies. The resulting sound is that of both chamber and folk music, yet extraordinarily inventive and playful with its interweaving of harmonies and countermelodies.

Adina Gordon is a caller and contra dancer based in Brattleboro, VT and Asheville, NC. She travels throughout North America calling dances large and small, in communities from Cocoa Beach, FL to Anchorage, AK and Belfast, ME to Honolulu, HI. You can find her anywhere there's community to be created through dance. Dancers frequently remark on her energy and joy, which is both highly evident and contagious. Adina likes to remind dancers that if they're laughing and smiling, they're doing it right. That's all it takes. She teaches dances clearly and quickly, maximizing dance time. As the conduit between the music and the dancers' feet, her goal is to get you dancing and get out of the way. Adina is an inveterate "dance gypsy," having danced in 26 different states so far (27, including the state of bliss.) When not calling or dancing, she's probably studying dances, her favorite pastime. Adina does a bit of web work, plays French horn, and loves spending time outdoors. Adina has friends all over the planet and a car that gets really, really good gas mileage.

Helene Cornelius, English country dance leader of the CDS Boston Centre for over forty years and a perennial favorite at dance weeks throughout the country, has made an invaluable contribution to the English dance community as a teacher, an arbiter of taste, an inspiration to generations of dancers, and an incomparable builder of both historical and contemporary repertory. Accordingly, the CDSS Governing Board selected her as the first recipient of its Lifetime Contribution Award, an honor established to recognize individuals whose life's work has had a profound and lasting influence on the dance and song community. Helene is renowned for her broad knowledge of 20th-century English country dancing and its evolution over the years. She has continuously led in the search for and presentation of new material and with wonderful, understated wit and concise teaching conveys her styling points, which she cares about passionately.