Terpsichore's Holiday

2026-2027 Staff

Callers: Lisa Greenleaf, Dan Blim

The Gigmeisters: Dave Wiesler, Paul Oorts, Alexander Mitchell & Ralph Gordon

English Band: Anna Patton, Karen Axelrod & Ben Schreiber

Rachel Leader, Ariel Shapiro & Ozzy Gold-Shapiro

Kappy Laning, Katie Zukof, Meg Dedolph

Fynn Crooks, Ruth Pershing, Cecily Mills

Lisa Greenleaf calls regularly in the Boston and New England areas and has been a staff member at dance camps and festivals throughout the country and beyond. Her specialties include traditional and contemporary contras, fun squares, challenging dances of all shapes and sizes, and callers' training. Lisa likes to emphasize community and communication in her workshops, guiding participants to get the most out of their dancing or calling experience. She has a keen interest in understanding group dynamics as well as the power of positive leadership. She is also ready for a game of cribbage.

Dan Blim is a dancer, caller, and choreographer of English, Scottish, and Contra Dances. Based in Columbus, OH, Dan teaches music history at Denison University and loves trivia, board games, baking, movies, and musicals.

Belgian-born Paul Oorts performs on harp guitar, 10-string cittern, mandolin, and musette accordion most often with his wife, hammered dulcimer player Karen Ashbrook. He is very active in the world of English, Contra, and Vintage dances in the DC-Baltimore area. With the trio Goldcrest he has made two recordings and performed at dance events all over the US. Paul plays first mandolin and directs the Rigatoni Trio (and Quartet) that specializes in old-time Italian American music. He performs locally with the Americana band “Song Riot.” As a teacher or staff musician, he has been on faculty at many week-long camps like the Augusta Heritage Center (WV) the Swannanoa Gathering (NC), Common Ground on the Hill (MD), Kentucky Music Week (KY), Pinewoods (MA), Timber Ridge (WV), Hill County Acoustic Music Camp (TX), Hey Days (CA), Walnut Valley Festival (Winfield, KS) , the Volksmuziekstage in Gooik (Belgium) and many times online at the Quarantune Dulcimer Festival.

Alexander Mitchell, Berklee College of Music graduate, is an acoustic multi-instrumentalist who plays fiddle, mandolin, guitar and has an amazing singing voice! Alexander started playing fiddle in 1978 after hearing bluegrass music. Since then he has been cultivating such diverse styles as Appalachian, bluegrass, Celtic, Klezmer, traditional roots dance music, ballroom, sizzling hot swing and jazz.

Ralph Gordon is a uniquely versatile musician, bringing more than 35 years of musical experience to the bass and cello. He is equally at home in folk, old time, swing, jazz, blues, bluegrass, klezmer, chamber group settings and all styles of music for dancers. Ralph, classically trained, studied music at West Virginia University and the Manhattan School of Music. He left Manhattan to perform with the New Jersey Symphony, then toured with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. He eventually returned to West Virginia where he joined the ground breaking folk ensemble, Trapezoid. Nine years and four recordings later he left the group in 1986 to become a free lance musician. Since then he has performed with many individuals and groups in a multitude of musical styles and settings He is a sought after freelance artist and session musician in the Washington/Baltimore metropolitan area. Ralph can be heard on more than 100 recordings and contributed to arranging and producing on many of these. He teaches bass and performance classes at summer camps across the country.

Pianist Dave Wiesler (Newark, DE) discovered playing for folk dancing in the early 1990s, and felt that the job description had been written specifically for him. In the three decades since, he has become highly regarded for his strong rhythm, his technical skills, and his deep knowledge of many genres — ranging from contra dance, English and Scottish country dance to Viennese waltz, couple dance, jazz, and sacred music. Dave has played at festivals and dance and music camps across the country, as well as in Canada, Scotland, England, and France. He appears on over two dozen recordings, many of which feature his compositions. In addition, Dave is a music teacher, a capable guitarist and singer, a writer of silly parody songs, and a children's choir accompanist.

Anna Patton is a clarinetist, singer, composer, and educator from Brattleboro Vermont. She has toured the dance halls of the U.S. and beyond since the early 2000’s with bands including Elixir and the Figments. Current projects include the dance bands Topspin, Root System, and Murmuration (Anna and Karen Axelrod and a rotating cast of violinists.) She loves to teach singing, ensemble classes, improvisation, and ear training. In her home town, she directs two community choruses: a large by-ear chorus called Brattleboro Harmonia, and a small swing choir, The Soubrettes, which performs her creative arrangements of historical and contemporary American music. She also enjoys drinking good espresso and playing ping pong.

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 U.S. (including Pinewoods Dance Camp, 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. Karen is a member of the bands: Alchemy, Peregrine Road, Night Heron, Murmuration and 3rd String Trio. She also plays accordion and tours with the renowned longsword team, Orion.

Ben Schreiber, a fiddler and tune writer rooted in the contra dance scene, brings a diverse musical palette influenced by his Midwest upbringing and years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Having started with the Suzuki method at an early age, Ben’s musical journey has been enriched through exploration of folk music. While best known for his contributions to contra dance bands like Uncle Farmer, the Dam Beavers, Offbeats, and Potent Brew, he also performs with the newly-established chamber-folk trio, Long Story Short. Ben’s musical experience also extends into English country dancing, where he is a regular presence at local ECD dances in addition to playing for workshops at various camps and weekends. Beyond music, he enjoys cooking, running, coding, and digital art/design.

Katie Zukof is a professional recess supervisor, elementary school Spanish teacher, caller and mother of two girls. A lifelong dancer, she resides in Bloomington, IN where she has been contra dancing and clogging since 2007, calling since 2009 and dancing salsa rueda de casino since 2023. In the summer of 2025, she received an Eli Lilly Teacher Creativity Grant to study Irish Set Dancing and it's accompanying percussive steps in Counties Clare, Cork, Kerry and Leitrim. She has previously led children's art classes, dance classes, outdoor games and mummers' plays at Terpsichore's Dance Holiday, Pinewoods Camp and Cumberland Dance Week.

Cecily Mills is a Boston-based cellist and vocalist. She grew up attending a multitude of CDSS camps and events. While she can be found playing music at bluegrass festivals, Irish sessions, and house concerts, her heart lies in making music for dancing. She is seen most often performing with The Bubblegum Society and The Second Floor for contra dancing, the Pegasus Collective and the Turn Signals for English Country dancing, and the New Grown-Ups for a delightful variety of scenarios. A self-appointed court jester, Cecily can be found instigating all sorts of shenanigans and tomfoolery on the dance floor, in jam sessions, on the stage, and at the dinner table. Cecily brings a wealth of musical experience and creativity along with a joyful and inclusive spirit to all she does.

Ozzy Irving Gold-Shapiro (they/them) is a curious historian, Yiddishist, musician, and raconteur. They fell in love with Yiddish in 2013 while traveling through (today’s) Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania as a participant on the Helix Project and have continued to work in the Yiddish world, tinkering around in both dusty & digital archives at the Yiddish Book Center. They believe that the past is alive and always changing and love looking in new places for old answers. Outside of Burikes, they have been involved as a researcher, translator, and performer in a number of archival Yiddish-based performance projects that seek to destabilize traditional historical narratives including Jenny Romaine’s “The Revival of the Gravediggers of Uzda,” (a spectacle theatre piece about the oft overlooked neighborly relationships between Yiddish-speaking Jews and Muslim Tatars in Belarus) and “Vu bistu geven?/Where Have You Been?” (a film about the history of the land where Klezkanada takes place.) (Romaine is the a founding member of Great Small Works and the musical director of Jennifer Miller’s Circus Amok.) They have witnessed the power of music and theater in struggles for liberation, and love forging connections, building community on and off the stage, and creating joyous and raucous occasions for local mutual aid work.

Rachel Leader (she/her) is a klezmer violinist, cultural organizer, and educator based in Northampton, MA, and is passionate about cultivating vibrant community-rooted cultural spaces. She is a founding member of the award-winning klezmer quartet Mamaliga, performing and teaching internationally at Yiddish Summer Weimar, KlezKanada, and Yiddish New York. Rachel is also a founder, violinist, and producer of the Magid Ensemble’s critically acclaimed “Shterna & The Lost Voice," an immersive musical storytelling production that transports audiences into the rich world of Yiddish folklore. Rachel received the 2021 Klezmer New Leaders Fellowship from the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and is a founding member of bands A Glezele Tey, Burikes, among other projects. She also regularly performs with Chaia (Kleztronica), blending house and techno grooves with electric fiddle and archival samples to create innovative soundscapes of Jewish diasporic identity. Rachel is the co-founder and director of KlezCummington, an annual klezmer festival dedicated to the creation and deepening of Yiddish diasporic music and cultures hosted on her family’s land in Cummington, MA.

Ariel Shapiro (they/them) is a musician, cultural organizer, cook, and multidisciplinary artist based in so-called Northampton, MA. Having grown up playing classical flute and piano, finding klezmer music in 2008 and the accordion in 2011 were both life-changing revelations, and Ariel’s life has been shaped by these two magnetic forces ever since! Ariel is a founding member of klezmer bands A Glezele Tey and Burikes, as well as a core organizer of The People's Puppet Parade, a twice-yearly parade/spectacle performance that brings together intergenerational community to build large-scale art and participatory, homegrown theater. Ariel has also spent many years developing skills in collective process, facilitation, and relational organizing, including training with AORTA, the UMass Alliance for Community Transformation, and Restorative Circles. When not playing accordion or organizing community events, Ariel can be found tending many community garden plots, biking around town as a worker-owner of Pedal People Cooperative, and creating pottery, block prints, and art of all kinds!

Ruth Pershing has long been active in traditional music and dance circles, performing with Cane Creek Cloggers since 1985, and with the Mountain Laurel Cloggers in Connecticut before that. She also regularly calls contras, squares and community dances, and helps organize the family dance series in Chapel Hill. She has taught clogging and led dances at Berea (KY), Brasstown (NC), Ashokan (NY) Pinewoods (MA), Wannadance (WA), Mendocino (CA), Merlefest (NC), Moosejaw (MN), and Hindman (KY). She studied buck dance with bluesman John Dee Holeman of Durham (NC), and worked with Mike Seeger to co-produce Talking Feet, a video-documentary on southern step dance.

Kappy Laning has been teaching children, teens and adults English ritual dances for many years at CDSS and LSF intergenerational camps and local schools. She enjoys adapting traditional ritual dances (rapper, longsword, garland and border morris) to create a fun and dynamic experience while meeting the needs of the students. Kappy was the CDSS Camp Director for CDSS Cascade week (formerly known as Adult and Family week (Buffalo Gap/Timber Ridge/Camp Louise) for 25 years and organized Terpsichore for for 10 years. Kappy is also a Contra, English dance, and family dance caller and musician. She is an Integrative Breathwork Practitioner and recently retired as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. She danced with Charm City Rapper, Frayed Knot Rapper and Court Square Garland Dancers for many years.

Meg Dedolph is a dance caller, musician, and organizer in the Chicago area. She started dancing decades ago when she and a friend, looking for something to do in Madison, WI, decided to check out a contra dance based entirely on a lamppost flyer. When she moved to Chicago shortly afterwards, she started attending the regular Monday night dances put on by the Chicago Barn Dance Company.

She plays guitar and drums with the Cosmic Otters, helps organize the monthly all-ages barn dances run by the Fox Valley Folklore Society, and is a guest caller at dances around the Chicago area. She is the squire of Pullman Morris and Sword, a member of Braintrust Morris, secretary of the Midwest Morris Ale Association board, and vice president-elect of the CDSS Board of Directors. She is frequently on staff at Lloyd Shaw Foundation and CDSS camps and is on the organizing committee for Terpsichore’s Dance Holiday. In her free time, she teaches Wiggleworms classes for the Old Town School of Folk Music and works at a local yarn shop.

Fynn Crooks used to have a fear of hurdles, but she got over it. Oh, that’s terrible! As a storyteller, humorist, and teacher Fynn has been sharing bad jokes, tough riddles, and a healthy enthusiasm for life with her students, young and old, for a decade. She loves leading group games to encourage communication, cooperation and just plain goofiness. You might find Fynn launching a rubber chicken across camp, leading a silly circus, lifeguarding, telling a folktale, teaching the art of marshmallow catapults, or just dancing with wild abandon. Whatever she does, you’ll sure want to join in the fun—her energy is infectious, but don’t worry, she washes her hands often!

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