2024 Dance Callers, Musician and Instructor Lineup
Dance Callers
Phil Jamison
Phil Jamison is nationally-known as a dance caller, old-time musician, and flatfoot dancer. He has called dances, performed, and taught at music festivals and dance events throughout the U.S. and overseas since the early 1970s, including over forty years as a member of the Green Grass Cloggers. His flatfoot dancing was featured in the film, Songcatcher, for which he also served as Traditional Dance consultant. From 1982 through 2004, he toured and played guitar with Ralph Blizard and the New Southern Ramblers. He also plays old-time fiddle and banjo. Over the last thirty years, Phil has done extensive research in the area of Appalachian dance, and his book Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance (University of Illinois Press, 2015) tells the story behind the square dances, step dances, reels, and other forms of dance practiced in southern Appalachia. A 2017 inductee to the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame and a 2022 inductee to America's Clogging Hall of Fame, Phil taught traditional music and dance at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina for close to thirty years, where he also served as coordinator of the Old-Time Music and Dance Week at the Swannanoa Gathering.
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Becky Hill
Becky Hill is a sought after percussive dancer, Appalachian square dance caller, choreographer, and educator. Becky has worked with Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, Rhythm in Shoes, Good Foot Dance Company, and studied with an array of percussive dance luminaries. Her choreography has been featured at Wheatland Music Festival, Jacob's Pillow, and the Kennedy Center among others. She performs regularly with Jesse Milnes and Ben Nelson and coordinated Circle-Up, a gender-free square dance calling resource, in 2023 funded by Mid-Atlantic Arts. She was a 2018 OneBeat Fellow; a 2021 Artist-in-Residence at Strathmore; a 2022 John C.Campbell Folk School; a 2023 Hambidge Center for the Arts & Sciences and Loghaven Artist-in-Residence; and a 2024 OneBeat Balkans' Fellow. She earned her MFA in Dance at University of Maryland College Park in 2022. As an avid organizer and teacher, Becky’s work is deeply rooted in the connections between music and community. Learn more at www.rebeccahill.org.
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Janine Smith
The Janine Smith experience is what you get when you cross a howdy-ma’am-BBQ-and-beans Honky Tonk with Zoom contra and sprinkle on some twinkly lights for sass. She’ll bring you a night of fun dances, from squares to contras, heck maybe a Singing Square, whether you’re sitting, standing, or somewhere in between. Her teaching is clear and to-the-point, though she has been known to goof around a bit. She’s one of the “Hot Square Babes”, a quintet of female callers who threw a monthly Square Dance Party in the DC area from 2004-2018, and a founding member of the DC Square Dance Collective.
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Musicians
Rachel Eddy
Saturday Night Dance band, fiddle workshop
Rachel Eddy is a native of West Virginia who grew up in a musical family steeped in the traditions of Appalachian music and dance. Now based in Washington, D.C., they are known throughout the world as both a dynamic, emotionally powerful performer and an engaging, thoughtful teacher. Rachel’s soulful singing and multi-instrumental finesse—including fiddle, banjo, guitar, and mandolin—may be heard on numerous solo and collaborative recordings as well as at dances and jam sessions, where Rachel is dedicated to fostering community and sharing a love of music with others.
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Brad Kolodner
Saturday Night Dance band, jam leader, camp co-director
Growing up in a musical family, Brad was exposed to Folk and Roots music from birth. His father Ken Kolodner is a renowned hammered dulcimer player and fiddler who toured for many years in the folk trio Helicon. When Brad picked up the banjo at age 17, everything started to click into place. Since then, he’s charted a path centered on performing, recording, broadcasting and community organizing. He’s an acclaimed clawhammer banjo player who performs with the chart-topping Irish, Old-Time, Bluegrass fusion quartet Charm City Junction. He’s recorded four albums of Old-Time and original music with his father Ken under the name Ken & Brad Kolodner including their latest Billboard-charting release Stony Run (2020).
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Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Saturday Night Dance band, harmony singing workshop
TWO-TIME GRAMMY® Award Winners, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer are master musicians with a career spanning over 35 years. Their superb harmonies are backed by instrumental virtuosity on the guitar, five-string banjo, ukulele, mandolin, cello-banjo, and many other instruments. An eclectic folk festival on their own terms, their repertoire ranges from classic country to western swing, gypsy jazz to bluegrass, and old-time string band to contemporary folk including some original gems. Their versatility defies a brief description, perhaps “well rounded Americana” does it best.
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Alex Lacquement
Saturday Night Dance band, rhythm workshop
Rooted in the sounds of American-born music Baltimore based bassist, Alex Lacquement has crafted a unique style that is dazzling, lyrical, and transcends musical genres. Whether on stage playing jazz, old-time, bluegrass, or playing with singer song-writers his tone is unmistakable and joy for performing is obvious and infectious. In addition to being an energetic, assertive, and groovy ensemble player and imaginative soloist, he is a skilled arranger, composer and producer. Alex tours across North America playing at performing arts centers and festivals with the critically acclaimed acoustic roots quartet Charm City Junction, Ken and Brad Kolodner, Letitia VanSant, and other Baltimore Based Artists.
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Maddy Mullany
Friday Night Dance band, fiddle workshop
Maddy Mullany has been playing and performing fiddle tunes since the age of 9. Growing up in New Mexico, she learned a repertoire from her parents (both fiddle players) and local musicians; however, since moving to Asheville in 2012, she has been exploring Western North Carolina fiddle tunes as well as Round Peak styles. Maddy now plays banjo, fiddle and guitar in various bands. Maddy studied Art with a minor in Traditional Music at Warren Wilson College. Since getting her degree, she has been on several music tours internationally, including a fusion project with a traditional band in rural China, and a tour playing for the Bailey Mountain Cloggers in Colombia. These tours culminated in recorded albums of Jenny and the Hog Drovers, and the Georgia Horseshoes. She teaches tunes learned from source recordings, by ear, with a focus on rhythm and bowing patterns.
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Bridger Dunnagan
Friday Night Dance band, guitar workshop
Bridger Dunnagan is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and recording artist based in Western NC. Bridger grew up with a strong reverence for the natural world with a family who had always deeply felt the profound magic and power of music. Bridger draws from a cultivated appreciation and passion for fiddle styles such as Old-Time, Bluegrass and Swing. His musical voice comes through with a freedom between tasteful musical fluency and innovation and a heartfelt sense of touch with American folk music.
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Clarke Williams
Friday Night Dance band, banjo workshop
Clarke Williams is a multi-instrumentalist based in Marshall, NC. While comfortable in a variety of styles, he has a strong focus on the musical traditions of Western NC. He has won awards and recognition for his fiddle, banjo and guitar playing at festivals and fiddlers conventions across the Southeast. Clarke has performed nationally and internationally, in bands such as Jenny and the Hog Drovers (with Phil Jamison), the Georgia Horseshoes and the French Broadcasters. Clarke graduated from Warren Wilson College, where he studied traditional music. In teaching, Clarke emphasizes developing musical intuition, active listening skills, and group 'jam' skills.
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