Woody calls contra, squares, mixers, and circle dances for all levels of dancers, from weddings and community dances to venues for experienced dancers, such as contramanias and weekend dance camps. He generally calls modern contras, although he finds the occasional chestnut fun, and he enjoys calling smooth, active contras. He can also call good, fast squares, and will call one or more in an evening depending on the crowd and the music. His teaching is clear and precise, and generates excitement and exhilaration on the dance floor.
Woody has called extensively throughout the Pacific Northwest and West Coast and for the past few years has toured across the United States. He has done dances in Denver, Washington DC (Glen Echo), Baltimore, North Carolina (including Brasstown), Georgia, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky. New York, Anchorage, and many other places around the US and Canada.
West Virginia is Woody's former home, where he was first exposed to the feeling and rhythms of Appalachian music and dance. He danced to old-time string music in small community halls in the mountains and first learned to call in the early '80s at the Augusta Heritage Workshops in West Virginia. He has been calling dances ever since. Woody has lived and called in Madison, WI and Ithaca, NY. He moved to Oregon in 1990. In the past few years, he has expanded his calling to dance and music camps, including Fiddle Tunes, Bear Hug (Montana), and Raincoast Ruckus (Vancouver, BC).
An accomplished percussive dancer, Woody usually does some stepdancing when he calls. He began clogging in the late '70s in West Virginia. He taught clogging in Ithaca and was one of the founding members of the famous "Limberjacks" clogging team in New York in the early '80s. In Wisconsin, he was on the "Kickapoo Cloggers" and was founding member of the "Barking Frog Cloggers" - an eclectic dance troupe that specialized in unusual formations and rhythms. Over the past ten years in Oregon, his dancing has evolved into a more complex style of flatfooting that adds a rhythmic accompaniment to the music. He is well known for his style of dancing in the area, and he adds a percussive element to bands throughout the Pacific Northwest. At festivals and dances, he often teaches percussive dance workshops that include clogging, flatfooting, rhythms, and waltz clog.
Woody can be reached at:
240 Crystal Springs Lane
Roseburg, OR 97470-9623 (US)
Phone: 541-440-1926
