Natty Smith is a dancer, singer, and fiddler from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has been dancing with teams like the Pinewoods Morris Men, Thames Valley, International, Maple Morris, and Candyrapper VSOP for decades. Now the foreman of one team, frequent organizer for others, and musician for many, he has also recently enjoyed teaching the morris dancing for The Midwinter Revels in Cambridge. His favorite Morris tradition is Oddington, which, unfortunately, does not feature his favorite morris step—plain capers straight into a galley.
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Lily Kruskal Leahy grew up attending Family Week at Pinewoods, starting at age 4! The skills she learned there resulted in a lifelong love of music, dance, and community. She has been teaching longsword, morris dancing, and other traditional dances and songs to children for the last 20 years at CDSS Family Camps, and for various other organizations. She also had the privilege of being Program Director for Family Week at Ogontz for 3 years.
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Naomi Morse grew up surrounded by music and dance in the folk communities of New England (including Family Week!). She is known for her energetic and driving fiddle playing for both contra and English Country dancing and finds sounds both fiery and flowing in various styles of roots music including American old time, New England, Irish, Quebecois, and Scottish. Her bands have included The Poor Cousins, Night Watch, Housetop, and the mega-fiddle-band Childsplay and she has toured extensively with the world music ensemble Northern Harmony.
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Margaret Bary leads English Country and community dancing in New York City and beyond. She has been on staff at Pinewoods Family Week, Campers’ Week and other dance camps, teaching ECD, sword dance and classes for children and teens. As a member of Half Moon Sword, she hosts an annual sword dance festival, and performs locally, as well as at DART, NEFFA and the Marlboro Ale. Recently, Margaret along with her husband Jeff, have delved into dance choreography,
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Owen Morrison is an accomplished rhythm and lead guitarist, at home in many styles of traditional music. His playing, laced with rhythmic power and skillful finesse, has made him popular among dancers and fiddlers alike. Owen has toured the U.S. and abroad with bands such as Elixir, Airdance, Night Watch and The Morrison Brothers Band. A frequent staff member and Program Director at Pinewoods, Ashokan, Augusta, and many other camps.
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Karen Axelrod left the world of classical music over 40 years ago, and has found her home in the folk world. She is highly regarded for her creative piano playing at English, American and Scottish dance events around the US (including Pinewoods Dance Camps, Ogontz, Buffalo Gap, Berea Christmas Country Dance Week, The John C. Campbell Folk School, and BACDS events) and abroad. Her improvisational playing is lyrical yet touched with humor and whimsy.
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Aaron Marcus (they/them) is best-known throughout the country for their performances with Frost & Fire, The Turning Stile, Cedar Waxwing, StellaFlora, and formerly Giant Robot Dance. Aaron also brings exuberant energy, danceability, subtle lyricism, deep emotion, and spontaneity to any band arrangement, whether as an accompanist on piano or clogging while playing tunes on concertina. Aaron’s award-winning albums, “Garden Dreams,” and “Men Don’t Cry”, are filled with original danceable piano works, the former CD underlying Sam Sanders’ spoken-word poetry by local authors,
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Anna Patton is a clarinetist, singer, composer, and educator driven by musical curiosity. She plays with the internationally touring dance band Elixir and with many other contra, ECD, and swing/blues bands. She loves to teach ensemble classes, improvisation, and ear training. In her home town of Brattleboro VT, she directs the Soubrette Jazz Choir which performs her creative arrangements of historical and contemporary American music. She also enjoys drinking good espresso and playing ping pong.
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Dance, Music, & Song Camps
