Wendy Graham (Durango, Colorado), self-described “dance maniac,” is thrilled to be back at Cumberland dance week. Her passion for music, song and dance caught fire in 1991 on a Danish-American Exchange (DAE) youth dance tour to Denmark. Today, Wendy leads English and American folk dances and teaches social dance across the country and abroad. She proudly served on the Lloyd Shaw Foundation and Country Dance and Song Society (CDSS) boards, and the CDSS Lifetime Contribution Award committee. She loves building community and sharing the joy of music, song and dance with people of all ages and abilities.   

www.perkypantsdance.com

Jared Kirkpatrick (Starling, Flamingo Sketches) has been immersed in the contra dance world all his life, and has been lucky enough to play with multiple dance bands. With very broad musical influences and interests from Balkan harmony singing to fusion and jazz music, he loves focusing on the possibilities that arise when these styles influence each other and come together. Having studied jazz vibraphone at Temple University, Jared is now based in NC - taking every excuse to travel to dances across the country, with either a mandolin or a mixing board in tow. 

Stacy grew up in north central Indiana with a teacher parent and a love for slow summer vacations. She lived in Chicago, New York, Paris, and southern France before returning to Indiana to start her own family. A French immersion summer camp inspired her love for working with young people, and she has been teaching French and English ever since. Stacy has been working with Child Grove here at Cumberland for the past three years, and it's become one of her family's favorite places to spend time together!

Joshua (Josh) Loiacono is an avid fiddler, tunewriter, round-singer, and dancer. A long-time Cumberland attendee, his favorite activities at camp include porch jams, sharing rounds/songs/stories with other campers, and getting out of the cold water at the swimming hole! He is a member of contra bands Mixed Nuts and The Curtesy Turners. He is currently pursuing his Master’s degree in Environmental Sustainability at Tennessee Tech University.

This year he is excited to co-lead the Revelers' Song & Music class and Teen Jam with his sister, Maia. 

Maia has been a member of the Cumberland Dance Week family since the age of five and hasn’t stopped spreading her love of music and dance since. She is a trained classical violinist at Northern Kentucky University and can be found playing contra dances throughout Kentucky with Mixed Nuts. She loves to dabble in other genres such as jazz, dubstep, and Celtic music. Maia studies acting and voice and loves teaching songs and games for all ages. As a teenager, Maia made it her goal to help foster an inclusive and welcoming camp environment and co-founded the teen jam to encourage young musicians to explore the contra music scene. She is thrilled to be on staff for the first time. 

Sam is a traditional musician known throughout the United States for his mandolin, banjo, and guitar playing as well as his original music. His compositions have been profiled on NPR’s All Things Considered and his playing has been featured on the Thistle & Shamrock, and in two Ken Burns documentaries, Prohibitionand The Dust Bowl.

Sam has recorded with a virtual who’s who of traditional musicians, among them: Garry Harrison, Paul Brown, Eden MacAdam-Somer,  Rafe Stefanini, Pete Sutherland, Dirk Powell, Rodney Miller, David Greely, and Rick Good.

Sam is also a master entertainer, and author of The Best of Stuntology (Workman, 2008) which is sold internationally and translated into Finnish and German. As an artist, Sam has for the past 20 years played a role in the resurgent interest in the 19th century entertainment form, the moving panorama, or “crankie show.”    www.sambartlett.com/

Sarah Wendtlandt grew up in Germany dancing and traveling throughout Europe with her parents’ International Folk dance group. From a young age she also studied ballet, tap, Irish step dance and ballroom. In 2005 she received her associate's degree in modern dance and choreography in Austin, Texas. Sarah toured throughout Texas with the Hungarian Folk dance performance group Csardas for a few years before relocating to Staunton, Virginia in 2018. Here she has discovered her love for contra and is eagerly planning on starting a Balkan dance group in the Shenandoah Valley. Sarah is a massage therapist and specializes in Ashiatsu, where she ‘dances’ on the massage table using her feet to massage clients. She is very involved in the local community theater as an actor, singer, dancer, and choreographer. Sarah is very excited to share some of her favorite folk dances with families this coming summer at Cumberland Dance Week!

Jonathan is an avid dance fiddler, pianist, and melodeon player coming to us from Chicago. Drawing from a variety of British Isle-based traditions, he regularly performs for contras, squares, Irish sets, and English country dances. He is also a dancer and musician for both Pullman Morris and Sword and Fox Valley Morris. Being a dancer himself, he brings intricate, energetic and tasteful music to his performances. His current musical endeavors include the Cosmic Otters (founding member), Chicago Reel, and I Am Ireland (a nationally touring show featuring the personality of Paddy Homan).  thecosmicotters.com/

Eric Schedler plays accordion, piano and banjo for contra, square and English country dancing with Midwest-based bands the Cosmic Otters and Supertrad. With his playing firmly rooted in traditional Irish music, Eric has performed and taught at camps and festivals around the country, and currently serves as program director of the all-ages Cumberland Dance Week, a project of the Lloyd Shaw Foundation, of which Eric is also a member of the board of directors. Eric lives in Bloomington, IN with his wife, Katie Zukof, where they run a family dance series, raise their two daughters and operate a brick-oven bakery. thecosmicotters.com

Meg Dedolph plays guitar and drums for the Cosmic Otters and is a dance caller in the Chicago area. She also teaches parent-child music classes for the Old Town School of Folk Music’s Wiggleworms program.

thecosmicotters.com