Sharon Green

Dance leader may have been the highest-profile role Sharon Green played at Country Dance*New York, but it was only one of many. In the years she was associated with CD*NY (1988-2002), Sharon was indispensable as board member, coordinator of English dances, and organizer of the True Brit weekend. Over and above these practical contributions to the life of CD*NY, Sharon's enthusiasm and generosity sparked "the heart and soul of the community," as one dancer put it.

After her first contra dance, in May 1988 in Bar Harbor, Maine, Sharon felt "maybe I could learn how to do this." Then she "lucked out and got into English Week at Pinewoods that August." She first called a dance, Jack's Health, in June 1993, at CDW's Ice Cream Social, and by that fall she had begun apprenticing in Westchester and teaching in North Jersey.

As a novice caller, Sharon worked most closely with Christine Helwig and Fried de Metz Herman. Through CDSS she took dance leadership classes with Bruce Hamilton, Gene Murrow, and Sue Salmons; she also traveled to England to attend the initial callers' module (led by Betty Chater, Wendy Crouch, Alan Davies, and Colin Hume) sponsored by EFDSS.

Sharon's memberships in dance organizations read like vintage alphabet soup: CD*NY, CDSS, EFDSS, NOMAD, BACDS, NBCDS, CDS Boston Centre, North Jersey ECD, and CDW (Country Dancers of Westchester). She helped found the now defunct Harpies Molly team and served, with Paul Ross, as co-director of Christine Helwig's Chelsea English Country Dancers, with whom she began dancing in 1990.

If you have attended any of these festivals, weekends and camps, you may well have danced to Sharon's teaching: NOMAD (CT), Heritage (PA), the Dance Flurry (NY), Down East Festival (ME), Mainewoods Dance Camp (ME), NEFFA (MA), San Francisco Free Folk Festival (CA), Lark Camp (CA), BACDS English Week (CA), and CD*NY's True Brit Weekend and Weekend Whirligig (NY). She has also been a frequent visiting caller and teacher at dances on both coasts, and has taught at festivals and workshops in the UK and in Japan. When she is not teaching or calling, Sharon, yes, dances, regularly at BACDS and at Playford Balls from Seattle to Edinburgh.

Sharon does occasionally sit down. In fact, she edited the notes on English country dancing for two of Fried de Metz Herman's collections of dances, Ease and Elegance and Fringe Benefits.

Sharon currently lives in the Bay Area, calling dances and balls from Victoria, BC, to San Diego, CA.

Email Sharon Green at sharongreen@post.harvard.edu