Winter Dance Week 2026

Ring in the New Year at the Folk School during our popular year-end music, song, and dance celebration. The nation's most sought-after callers, instructors, and musicians gather in beautiful Brasstown, North Carolina for a week of American contras and squares, English Country dance, partner dance, singing, jamming, story telling, and more! Winter Dance Week offers a unique combination of top-notch staff, mountain surroundings, delicious chef-prepared food, comfortable accommodations, and a friendly, welcoming atmosphere. Plus, our New Year’s Eve is like no other! Ring in the New Year with lively dancing, singing, performances, midnight countdown and balloon drop, and the annual Brasstown Brigade black-powder musket firing for good luck in the new year.

We recommend that participants have previous group dancing experience (such as our November 20-22, 2026 “Traditional Group Dancing” weekend class).

Limited work exchange scholarships are available. Apply online at https://forms.gle/DM3S1UKMbRRjESeV8 and email [email protected] after submitting.

Tuition $400

Note: Due to the lesser tuition cost of this dance week as compared to a standard week-long class, local and other discounts do not apply.

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A leading caller of contras, squares, English country dance and family dance programs, Sue Rosen has been actively calling for more than 30 years in the Boston area, across the country, and overseas. She has built a collection of great dances and has written contras that have become part of the standard repertoire of dance callers across the contradance world. Her speedy and encouraging walk-throughs will have you cruising through dance after wonderful dance.

Joanna Reiner Wilkinson has taught English dance for over two decades. In addition to being one of the leaders of the Philadelphia-based Germantown Country Dancers, her calling has taken her from Amherst to Ann Arbor, from NEFFA to Hey Days, from St. Croix to Vancouver, and other points abroad, including many sessions for the Country Dance & Song Society (CDSS) and CDS Boston Centre at Pinewoods Camp. While known for her clear calling and instruction, Joanna loves teaching workshops for ECD callers, and workshops that explore ECD technique, new dances, and how people learn and remember dance choreography.

Richard Powers is a full-time instructor of dance history and contemporary social dance forms at Stanford University Dance Division, Department of Theater and Performance Studies. His principal focus since 1975 has been traditional social dance forms, from the Renaissance to today. Specializations include 19th century American and European social dance, dances of the Ragtime Era and Jazz Ages, and currently evolving vernacular dance forms. His research is drawn from a personal collection of over 2,500 historic dance manuals, the largest personal collection in the world, supplemented with a twelve thousand-title collection of period dance music. Other resources include ongoing exchanges of information with dance historians in the U.S and Europe. Richard has choreographed folk and vintage dance suites for AMAN Folk Ensemble, the Ethnic Dance Theatre (Minneapolis), the Brigham Young University Folk Ensemble, and Ahmet Luleci’s Collage Dance Ensemble in Boston.

Bruce Rosen has been part of Boston's contra and English country dance community since the mid-70s as a dancer and musician. His rock solid piano and guitar accompaniment is sought after by many of New England's best contra dance musicians. Bruce also plays piano for English country dancing, appearing frequently in Jamaica Plain (MA), as well as other New England venues. As part of Boston’s traditional music scene, he plays guitar at Irish sessions, drives the rhythm at Old Time music jams on the banjo ukulele, and is the pianist with the Boston Scottish Fiddle Orchestra. In the early 90s, Bruce took up the accordion, and has played for ritual teams and classes. Bruce has collaborated on four recordings of New England contra dance music.

You know Audrey Jaber is performing if the room is buzzing at a higher level. Her fiddling, featured in bands including The Free Raisins, The Gaslight Tinkers, Audacious (with Larry Unger), and Wake Up Robin, has electrified dance and concert halls across the US and Europe. Hailing from Honolulu and now living in California, she cut her folk teeth in the Boston area, attending Berklee College of Music and spending years exploring the thriving New England folk scene. Audrey’s fiddle playing is rhythmically lively and spontaneous; she's guaranteed to get you up and dancing. She specializes in English dance, New England, Celtic, and Old Time tunes (and did we mention she’s also an audio engineer?!). You might also have taken a workshop with Audrey, as she’s been on staff at various camps including various weeks at Pinewoods, Ashokan Northern Week, BACDS American week, New London Assembly (Amherst Early Music Festival) and Halsway Manor.

Benjamin Jaber has been obsessed with Irish Traditional Music since his early teens, after being introduced to recordings of the great master uilleann pipers and becoming a sought after dance musician. He is completely self-taught on the uilleann pipes, wooden flute and tin whistle, and has been making a name for himself as a piper in recent years over several visits to Ireland. In his ‘normal’ life, Ben is also an accomplished and successful French horn player, and has been Principal Horn of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra since 2008. He remains active in the recording studios of Los Angeles with many film and TV projects to his credit.

Dave Bartley plays guitar and other stringed instruments for a wide variety of genres from classical to world music, mostly for social and folk dance. A member of the Seattle band KGB for its entire 31 year life, Dave also plays with Contra Sutra, Bag o’Tricks / Tricky Brits, Roguery, and Keltoi, and has collaborated with other contra and ECD musicians all over North America.

Jonathan Jensen is an inspired pianist in a wealth of musical styles from contra to English Country to ragtime and jazz. A composer of brilliant English country dance tunes and waltzes, Jonathan has performed at dance events and camps around the country. For 42 years he played double bass in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which performed many of his orchestral arrangements. In recent years he has become increasingly active as a songwriter and lyricist. "Do It Now", a musical he co-wrote with playwright Rich Espey was given a successful, sold-out production in the summer of 2022 by the Fells Point Corner Theater in Baltimore.

Dave Langford is an experienced and versatile fiddler, guitarist and fiddle teacher from the Boston area. A veteran of 30+ years of playing Contra Dance and English Country Dance music for all types of events, Dave combines multiple styles of fiddling with sensitivity as well as fierce rhythmic energy and drive. He's added his talents to dozens of music and dance weeks as well as hundreds of weekend events around the US and beyond. He is a founding member of the bands Stomp Rocket and The Latter Day Lizards and regularly performs with Supertrad.

Campaign for Reel Time features Betsy Branch on fiddle, Bill Tomczak on clarinet and sax, and Mark Douglass on piano. The Portland OR based band love to play with melodies and harmonies to create a rich texture that will make you want do dance your feet off. And they're having just as much fun as the dancers. They play for contras, English Country Dance, partner dance, and whatever else you throw their way.