This article originally appeared in the Bay Area Country Dancer, Fall, 1994, and is reprinted with permission
Jody McGeen is an English country dance teacher, and founder and foreman of Mayfield Morris & Sword
What do you like about calling?
I don't think of it as calling as much as teaching. I like analyzing movement in other people, and how I move, and what I feel is the best moving, and then teaching them what I think is the best in that dance style. I like to put that into words, and have that improve their dancing. Change them a little bit that way.
So you care about how they're doing it?
Yes, about every little bit that goes into it. So that every bit of your body is the best that it can be. Ballet dancers speak of "loving your feet," so that every movement is loving your foot as if it's the most exquisite thing on earth.
Now maybe people won't actually think about their feet that way, but I would like to give that sense, that every part of your body is precious.
So that applies to English?
And ritual.
Do you achieve that?
Ummm, a lot of the time. Not always, and not with everyone. Not everyone is in a place to be able to absorb it. Their receptors are off, and they just want to dance. It's not always a problem on the part of the teacher.
Many times I've been told that the San Jose English dance class is the best one to be at. I like to run a class, not a party, so the people who come are the ones who want to be there. So maybe I am more successful than I think.
I'm not just a caller. That could be done by a sensitive robot. I'm a teacher, and I think people sell themselves short if they just label themselves as callers.
Do you teach in the rest of your life?
I teach all day long. I teach music and computers, and I have 18 private students on cello and piano. On Tuesdays, I'm teaching from 8:15 am to 10 pm, with a break for dinner and my chiropractor.
I also play in an orchestra and a string quartet.
How can people come hear you play?
I'm principal cellist with Saratoga Symphony. The conductor programs a lot of works with solo cello parts, so he keeps me happy.
How did you get started dancing?
I started dancing in Christmas, 1975. A musician friend dragged me to the Christmas festival in New York. At that time, CDS New York was running a huge Christmas festival, which had been happening for 20 years, at Barnard College. I saw Mummers' plays, sword dancing, the CDS bicentennial show. That was a retrospective of country dance in America; it was previewed at the festival, before all the costumes were finished. Plus all of the wonderful music: Phil Merrill, Marshall Barron.
I fell in love with the music. I only danced one dance, and that was because a friend told a friend to dance with me. I was upset that I only got to do one dance (it was "Hole in the Wall"), but it was old home week for people who knew each other from Pinewoods [a dance camp in Plymouth, Massachusetts]. So everyone was greeting and dancing with old friends. I went to Pinewoods that summer, and that was it.
I've always been a frustrated dancer; I've had a lot of dance training. If I had another body, I would have been a ballet dancer.
[But] I probably enjoy it more as it is; I've found a little niche.
Speaking of little niches, you moved from New York to the Bay Area. Was that a big change? Or pretty much the same?
A big change. When I left New York, I had no particular intention of dancing here. I had danced so intensely that I was burned out. I was quite lucky that I came back, and that a place opened up for me.
In New York, the dances were all organized by the NYDAC, a committee that did all the programming. It wasn't like here where each dance has its own organizer. There, the committee hired the teachers and the musicians for all the dances. And for the most part, your merit was what determined whether you were hired by the committee. So there was more unity; I felt like we were all connected.
When [the local English teachers were] Bruce [Hamilton] and Bob [Fraley] and me, we tried to coordinate our classes, we'd travel and come to each other's dances, so we knew pretty much what was going on at the other dances. Now there are more callers and more dances, so that has died out. The Saturday dance and the dance in San Francisco have helped that a little, as the people there get to see us all. But people don't get to the peninsula [where Bob's dance is] as much.
In California, there are wonderful musicians, and a lot of enthusiasm. And when I came, people here were willing to say, "Here's someone from somewhere else, doing something different, so let's try it." Our dancers are more polite. They're really willing to try something new. Maybe that's because the dancers here haven't yet been dancing for thirty years.
They're forgiving, yet they want quality and know when they have it.
So that's different?
Yes, I've seen dancers be rude to teachers back East if a dance is taught differently than how they are used to it.
Have you taught back there since moving?
Not since '87 or '89. I went back and called at Genny Shimer's memorial dance.
In New York, there was a bit of an exodus. Jim Morrison moved. Joan Carr moved to California. There were a number of people who left. So it was decided that an apprentice program might be a good idea. I was one of those apprentices; I worked with Genny Shimer and Christine Helwig.
You didn't just start it on your own. You planned programs, and were critiqued afterwards. And you were working with Marshall Barron and Phil Merrill, working with excellent musicians teaching you to work with the band. I feel lucky to have been involved with that.
Didn't Bruce Hamilton do something like that here?
Bruce held classes, which is a little different. And Alisa [Dodson]...apprentic[ed]. The New York thing was more like student teaching. Rather than being told how to do it, you actually did it. It was live.
What have you learned from teaching morris?
What I find I'm best at, because of Morris--my brain doesn't always retain the little details, which foot at which time. But I'm really good at style, saying "you need to turn your leg 10 degrees more." So I don't have a lot of confidence with those technical details. But I can break a movement down into words and teach how it's supposed to feel. And there's always someone in the room who knows those little details.
Is it possible to write an English dance? Or can we only do what was published by Playford?
Oh, yes. I'm not a strict traditionalist. I would like us to call it not a Playford ball, but just a ball, if we're going to do other things. We're doing less and less that was published by Playford.
When I was the programmer for my first ball, I didn't want to be called the dancing master. That title belonged to Genny Shimer. So the committee came up with a title I could live with: dance ogress. Master is for someone who has made a great contribution over a long time.
Would you like to be a master some day?
Yes, someday.
Who dances better, Ring of Bells or Mayfield?
On Ring of Bells, the group I went to England with, Jody Evans, Deirdre Bialow, myself; there were stellar people on that team. The team that Mayfield has, as a group that works together, is quite wonderful. And they're always trying to be better dancers. From the Ring of Bells of my era, to the Mayfield of today, it's close.
Did you start Mayfield?
Yes, I'm founder and foreman. I started it with Susan Kramer when she was still Susan Pross. Many of the original team are still dancing.
What's the most challenging thing about English dance teaching?
One of the most challenging things I find with it--I'm not going to talk about interpreting or reconstructing dances--is keeping it really enjoyable for everyone. Trying to bring in people who think they don't like English dancing, who think they only like contras. Trying to get them doing it in the style that was intended.
In New York, we did both styles and did them together. Everyone did some of both. An evening dance had both English and American dance. I find that a challenge, that they're so separate here.
Should we try to change that?
We should try to keep really a good quality of teaching. And our [dance camp] weekends have both. At every weekend I've taught at, I've had someone come up and say, "I didn't think I was going to like English dancing, but I had a really great time." And I love American dancing, but I've been loyal to English week [Mendocino Dance Camp].
Any parting shots? Or words of advice?
Come to English week! I always encourage anyone who's interested in calling or teaching to work with someone personally.