Committee

YDW is organized by a committee of six volunteers. We thought you’d like to know who we are.

Rebecca Lay

Rebecca Lay is a farmer who loves Money Musk just about as much as she loves growing tomatoes. Which, in case you were wondering, is quite a lot. Rebecca also loves to feed people delicious, locally-grown food, so she is in charge of sourcing and purchasing all of the ingredients for every dish served at the weekend. She even grows some of the vegetables at her very own Ten Speed Farm in Brattleboro, Vermont.

When she is not busy weeding garlic, harvesting tomatoes, or seeding salad mix, Rebecca works as a dance caller. She tries (but often fails) to wash the topsoil stains off of her hands and feet before leading contra, English, and square dances for people of all ages throughout New England and beyond.

Margaret Youngberg

Mog first encountered the folk community at Oberlin College and hasn’t yet looked back. She has worked at Pinewoods Camp for several summers. Mog currently dances with Marlboro Morris and Sword and Maple Morris and likes to spend Monday nights at the South Amherst English dance.

Other interests include 40-part renaissance motets, triominoes, cribbage, and mashups.

Ethan Hazzard-Watkins

Ethan is a fiddler and dance organizer based in Brattleboro, VT. He spends a good amount of time on the road playing for dances and festivals all over the country with bands such as Elixir and The Figments. In addition to YDW, Ethan helps to organize the Brattleboro Dawn Dance and regular contra dance series in Greenfield and Brattleboro.

When not working on some musical project Ethan enjoys gardening, drinking espresso, building web sites, and playing soccer.

Sarah Pilzer

Sarah P. (a.k.a. Pitz, a.k.a. Spilzer) has a penchant for good food and organizing armies of volunteers. This makes her a perfect fit for her role as kitchen manager at YDW. For her, nothing says fun like being up to her elbows in a bowl of egg salad that will feed 150+ people. Outside the kitchen, Sarah submerges her arms in saltwater in pursuit of a Master’s degree in marine biology from Boston University. She studies ichthyology and bioacoustics which are fancy words for “fish sounds.”

Sarah is enthusiastic about all forms of traditional dance, especially contra, ECD and ritual. As an avid morris and sword dancer, one of her life goals is to collect as many different colors of vest as possible. She also loves singing in several different styles, from pub songs to pop songs. In addition to the YDW Committee Sarah serves on the Pinewoods Camp Board of Directors and has previously been a member of the CDSS Governing Board.

According to Mog, she gives excellent hugs.

Julia Nickles

Julia Nickles is a dancer and dance organizer who resides in the greater Philadelphia area. She started contra dancing when she was in elementary school because she wanted to copy what her cool big sister did. While in college at Brown University, Julia organized the contra dance on campus and worked to increase participation among students and other local youth.

Since she actually enjoys working with numbers, she is in charge of managing the finances for YDW. In fact, when she is not organizing dance events, Julia teaches high school mathematics at a boarding school.

In addition to her work with YDW, Julia serves on the board of the New England Folk Festival Association (NEFFA).

Max Newman

Max Newman originally hails from Alaska. Now a resident of Boston, he gets his kicks playing for dances, often with the band Nor’easter. He recently finished a term as the Youth Projects Intern at the Country Dance & Song Society, where he continues to hang around working on things like the CDSS Blog. The newest committee member (along with Mog), he’s responsible for organizing the weekend’s volunteers.

Known to shout “Money Musk!” in a crowded hall, he is also an avid fan of root beer.

Former Committee Members

Brian Gallagher and Maggie Zander were members of the original YDW Committee who helped found the weekend in 2008. After the 2010 weekend they stepped down from their organizer roles. We miss them and we’re grateful for all their work over the past three years!

Brian Gallagher

Brian has a history of traveling around the U.S. going to various contra dances and infecting the crowd with his positive attitude. He loves working with people in differing age groups to find connections on the dance floor. Brian was the person who planted the YDW seed and convened the group that became the first organizing committee.

Magdalen Zander

Maggie has been dancing since she was in her mother’s womb. She loves contra, English, waltz, other couple dances, and used to be on a morris team. Maggie also enjoys singing. Maggie was instrumental in procuring T-shirts and inventing magnetic name tags; she also oversaw registration and communicated with campers.