English Week at Pinewoods 2018
By Ruth Hyde
On a freezing cold, blustery day in January, I am reminiscing about last summer’s English week at Pinewoods and trying to imagine the pleasant warm weather and good times we had there. This year I was fortunate to have Anne Roskowski, a scholarship winner, to share the long drive. When we were greeted and found our housing assignments, I was happy to accept the offer of a guide to help Anne find her cabin since it was a name I’d not ever heard. I was pleased to find that I was in my favorite room, #2 in Pinecones, with two roommates I’d enjoyed rooming with previously. As soon as we had settled in, one of them joined me for a swim in Round Pond, perhaps my favorite place in Pinewoods. Each morning I arose about 7:15 for an early morning skinny dip.
After dinner and the usual informational welcome meeting, we had our first dance with several callers. The English dances benefitted from the variety of callers, each which their own style, who rotated their order throughout the week. It was wonderful to see so many friends who I had danced with over my many years at Pinewoods. Each of the evening dances included one or two contras which I loved. They were well chosen to be fun and easily doable, even for those with little experience.
I especially liked the way Robin Hayden, who taught ECD for all, began her class with a brisk walk around the hall. I appreciated her emphasis on moving to the mood and tempo of the music and the need to gauge the size of one’s steps to the amount of space to be covered. There was one new dancer in the class who habitually took tiny steps. Without interrupting the class very much, Robin managed to give her enough individual help that she was able to successfully dance Cross Your Heart, a triple dance in which everyone moves all the time. One day, Robin noticed that most of the experienced dancers were in one set, so she asked all the leaders to change sets so that dancers with more experience were paired with those with less. Thus, everyone enjoyed the dance more than they might have otherwise.
I also enjoyed Robin’s second class, one which gave callers an opportunity to have their calling of familiar dances mentored by Robin or another master caller. Two mentors alternated observing and giving the callers the results of their observations privately. Her aim was to have a friendly atmosphere in the class to help callers feel more comfortable and to help both callers and dancers have more enjoyment of the dances called.
Next was a gathering for all in the camp house, chaired by Kalia Kliban, who also called contras. A special treat was piano music by Graham Christian who played the piano each day as we arrived. Here campers and staff shared stories, songs, and other talents. One special feature was a series of introductions to various instruments. I loved times when everyone sang together. It seemed that many dancers could also sing harmoniously.
I was disappointed that Gene Morrow’s class was right after lunch, a time when I usually like to nap. I went anyway, even though I was not at my best, and enjoyed dancing to a variety of rhythms: duple rhythms such as jigs, reels, and marches, and triples including minuets, slip jigs and different types of waltzes. One day we did one of my favorite dances, Bryan’s Boutrade by Fried Herman to a march.
My job was afternoon tea so I attended only parts of some of the classes offered during the rest of the afternoon. They included a class in the dances “for those who know” which are then done at 7:45 PM before the regular dance, taught by Linda Nelson. Contra dancing, a variety of instrumental classes, and a singing class were also taught then. One of the tea times was used for the auction which had traditionally been done at night.
I was pleased to have several friends among the fine musicians who provided the music for most of the dance activities: Rachel Bell, Karen Axelrod and Jacqueline Schwab. The exception was staff night off when campers provided both callers and musicians. It is always on of my favorite evenings.
All too soon it was Friday and time for classes to show what they had learned. I had encouraged Anne to try as many different classes as time allowed; I was pleased to see that she had done just that. After many goodbyes at the last night party and on Saturday morning, it was time to head for home, very tired but very happy.
Now it is time to sign up for English Week 2019. https://www.cdss.org/programs/dance-music-song-camps