staff.html.in

	<h1>Teachers</h1>

	<h2>Linda Mae Dennis</h2>
	<p><img src="lindamae.jpg" width="181" height="219" alt="Linda Mae
Dennis" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"/><img src="lindy.jpg"
width="100" height="300" alt="Linda Mae Dennis age 3" style="float: right;
margin-left: 1em;"/>Linda Mae Dennis was born and raised in Alberta, Canada,
where she first ventured into Tap at age five, and Irish Dancing at age seven.
After family moves to Southern California and then Houston, Texas, (where she
got a largely unused degree in Biology) she started her adult life in Austin,
Texas. By taking every dance class she could find, and after a short stint at
Motorola, she became a professional Tap dancer in 1983, and toured with Austin
on Tap Dance Theater for several years.</p>

	<p>When she retired from touring, she continued to Tap with the "in
town" company, as well as to teach ballet, tap, jazz, and gymnastics to
children, as well as taking up Irish Dancing, which included hard shoe dancing.
And somehow she morphed from a middle manager to a graphic artist. </p>

	<p>In 1996, a friend invited her to a Scottish Country Dance class. She
watched the class and enjoyed the music, and went back the next week, and the
next, and the next. After partaking liberally of the vibrant Scottish Country
Dance Culture in Texas, attending lots of workshops and dances and starting a
Tap class for Scottish Country Dancers, she had to get out of the heat and
moved with her husband, Patrick, to the Pacific Northwest.</p>

	<p>She attended her first TAC Summer School in 2003, where she got the
teaching bug. After a lot of hard (but supremely fun) work, she received her
Prelim in 2005, and her Full Certificate in 2007. In the meantime, she took
some Cape Breton Dance lessons, and started a "Celtic Tap" class in Vancouver,
WA. (“Celtic Tap” is an amalgamation of Cape Breton, Scottish and Irish Step
Dancing, and American Tap, all done to Celtic music.) She also learned to be a
Flourishing Tenor Drummer, and plays regularly with Fort Vancouver Pipe Band,
Kells Pipes and Drums, and the Skamania Pipes and Drums.</p>

	<p>She has taught workshops in Washington, Oregon, California, Texas,
and Alberta, Canada, and regularly teaches Scottish Country Dancing in
Portland, OR, and Stevenson and Vancouver, WA, and is active in both the
Portland and Southwest Washington State Branches of the RSCDS.</p>

	<h2>Lea Maiolo</h2>
	<p><img src="lea_maiolo.jpg" width="190" height="220" alt="Lea Maiolo"
style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"/>Lea Maiolo started Scottish Country
Dancing at the age of 13 when her dad spotted an ad in a newspaper and thought
that folk dancing would be something she would enjoy. She had done ballet and
tap as a child, and had continued to try that on and off through the years, but
Lea was immediately taken with Scottish. She started in David Brandon's class
in South Pasadena.  Lea and her dad soon branched out to several classes a
week, later including highland class with Fred DeMarse. Lea joined the Los
Angeles Branch demonstration team a year or two after she started dancing, and
began teaching the Eagle Rock class of the San Gabriel Valley Branch
occasionally a year or two after that. She got her preliminary teachers'
certificate under Mary Brandon's tutelage in 2002.</p>

	<p>Lea graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising
in 2003 and began working as a costumer on various commercials, films, and TV
shows. In 2004 Lea met her now-husband Jim Maiolo, when he moved to LA from
Pennsylvania, having been dancing at Swarthmore College. She also started
teaching the Eagle Rock class full time. In 2009 she got her unit 4 and 5
completed, tutored by Doug MacDonald.</p>

	<p>When Jim was offered a job at Microsoft, they moved to Washington,
and Lea now teaches the Redmond class on Sunday nights. She also occasionally
runs a demo group for a very silly fantasy fair in Bonney Lake. Lea and Jim
have a one year old daughter named Jasmine.</p>

	<h1>Musicians</h1>

	<h2>Cynthia Soohoo</h2>
	<p><img src="cynthia.jpg" width="188" height="198" alt="Cynthia Soohoo"
style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"/> Cynthia Soohoo, a native of Portland,
has enjoyed performing and writing musical arrangements in classical and
popular genres since childhood; but it wasn't until 1997 that a chance
opportunity to explore Scottish fiddling gave wings to her lifelong attraction
to Celtic music, a love now also shared by her family.  Eventually
relinquishing the fiddling to her two passionate fiddler sons, she became the
pianist-arranger for the family band, which plays for Scottish cultural events
and Scottish country dancing.</p>

	<p>Cynthia is also very active in music outside of the Celtic world,
maintaining a private piano studio, directing a church orchestra, leading a
string quartet, teaching violin classes, and performing traditional and
contemporary music for various occasions.  Cynthia, husband Stephen and their
two young daughters are enthusiastic Scottish country dancers.</p>

	<h2>Maggie Hannahs</h2>
	<p>Maggie recently moved here from Minneapolis.  She dances with the
Portland group, and plays her fiddle.</p>

	<h1>Organizers</h1>

	<h2>Kathlleen Mintz</h2>
	<p>If you have any questions, comments, or wish to request further
information, please email Kathlleen <a href="mailto:yww2013 at yahoo dot
com">yww2013 at yahoo dot com</a></p>

	<h2>Darrick Wong</h2>
	<p>Darrick grew up in Silly Cone Valley and moved to the Portland area
after college to work on Linux.  It was in Portland where he met the Scottish
Country Dance group, and has been folk-dancing with them and other local groups
ever since.  Occasionally he can be found dancing at Irish cèilidhs, or
arm-twisted into going to a Contra dance.  In the past few years, he's
branched out to dance with other SCD groups on the West Coast, such as San
Francisco and Seattle.</p>

	<p>If you see a problem with the website, email Darrick: <a
href="mailto:djwong+yww2013 at djwong dot org">djwong+yww2013 at djwong dot
org</a></p>