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Fred DeMarse, TeacherI started Scottish Country Dancing in 1986 in the San Francisco area. I had to be coerced into attending my first classes, but I soon began to enjoy the dancing and music and the community spirit in the San Francisco Branch. Shortly thereafter, I was coerced again to start taking Highland Dancing lessons for performance purposes only, but my interest soon developed into competition. In 1992, I relocated to Los Angeles for job reasons, but I was able to continue country dancing with the Southern California Branches and my Highland Dance training.
I started training to be a Scottish Country Dance teacher in 1994. I attended St. Andrews Summer School for my certificate training, and passed my Full Certificate in 1996. I also achieved my Highland Dance teaching certificate in 1995 and my Highland Dance judging qualification in 2002 after retiring from dance competition.
I moved back to the Bay Area in 2005, where I began teaching Highland Dancing and Scottish Country Dancing to children and adults. My weekly teaching schedule is full, as I balance a weekly SCD adult class for the San Francisco Branch with several nights of Highland Dance lessons for children and adults as part of the curriculum for the San Jose School of Highland Dancing.
I have been very fortunate to have seen different parts of the world and meeting many wonderful people who have become close friends – all because of Scottish dancing. As a dancer, teacher and judge, I have travelled to many wonderful places – including Australia and Russia, the United Kingdom and many countries on the European continent, and all across North America, including Saskatchewan now for the second time.
My viewpoint on teaching and dancing is to have fun and to make it fun for others. I strongly believe in learning and practicing the basics of Scottish dancing – this is the way I’ve been taught by the many wonderful teachers whom I’ve had – and my ultimate goal is to impart the knowledge I’ve learned and the desire to dance well to my students while creating a social environment that is friendly, supportive and fun.
Lara Friedman-Shedlov, Teacher
After absolutely refusing to learn to dance as a child, Lara accidentally fell in with the New Scotland Country Dance Society while a student at Edinburgh University. After 20 years of abstinence, she became a confirmed addict in a matter of months. With Scottish country dancing as her gateway drug, she soon found herself Highland and Scottish step dancing as well. Her current repertoire also includes Morris, rapper sword, English clog, and Cape Breton step dancing, but still swears by Scottish country dance when looking for an exhilarating time. Lara lives in Minneapolis with her husband Dan and two rats. She earned her RSCDS teaching certificate in 2000.
Julie Gorka, Piano
Julie Gorka is a musician with a wide range of musical interests. She plays contra dance, Scottish, historic, English, Irish and Klezmer music on piano, harp and fiddle. She plays with many local musicians in the Triangle area and in the Washington DC area, including Copious Notes (with Mara Shea), Southwind (Irish), Syllabub (English and Colonial), Sassafras (contra dance, with Ted Ehrhard) and Magnolia Klezmer. Her band “A Sheep at the Wheel” made a recording two years ago featuring traditional Scottish music on piano, fiddle, cello, harp and recorder, including also some English, Irish, and American music.
Julie has a degree in piano performance, teaches 25 Suzuki piano students, teaches master classes at a nearby music school, judges Piano Guild auditions nationally, is the chairman for Certification and the co-chair for the Ensemble Festival at the Raleigh Piano Teachers Association. She enjoys working folk music styles into her classical piano students’ musical education.
Mara Shea, FiddleMara Shea has been playing with violins since she was about six, when her mother decided her daughter had a really good sense of pitch and enrolled her in the Neighborhood School of Music, in New Haven, CT. Mara studied classical music for about 10 years, and then went on a 15-year holiday from playing music at all. Then she discovered folk and dance music—contra dance, English country dance, Scottish country dance. Mara learned much from workshops with Alasdair Fraser, Elke Baker, Becky Tracy, David Kaynor, James Kelly, Kevin Burke, and many other fine musicians, but much of what she does comes straight from what the dancers are doing—she plays for the dance.
Mara has played for many Scottish dance events in Canada and the US since she was an apprentice with Bobby Brown in 1998 and 1999, at Thistle School. She also won a number of Scottish fiddle competitions between 1998 and 2001 (Loch Norman Highland Games, Grandfather Mountain Games). For Scottish music, she often plays with Julie Gorka in Copious Notes; with Dave Wiesler; with Rebecca McCallum and Jim Stevenson-Mathews in Highland Oasis; and with Pete Campbell and Dean Herington as The MacRowdies. She also played with Bobby Brown and The Scottish Accent when they performed in North Carolina venues.
Mara has been on staff numerous times as a musician and teacher at TAC, at Pinewoods, Ramblewood, Scottish Weekend, and at the John C. Campbell Folk School. With Dave Wiesler, she recorded a wonderful Scottish country dance CD called Heather Hills. She can be heard on a number of other CDs of contra dance and waltz music (through www.cdbaby.com). In 2011, with Julie Gorka’s help with accompanying chords, she published a collection of 18th- and 19th-century strathspeys, including historical background notes and her own recordings of the tunes; Airs and Dances is available through the www.melbay.com website.
Mara also plays for contra dances, often with the fiddle-guitar duo, The Elftones (www.elftones.com) and sometimes with Julie Gorka, Dean Herington, Jim Stevenson-Mathews, or Dave Wiesler.
Listen to more of Mara’s music, and find out more about her at www.marashea.com.
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