I have strong roots in the folk community. My mother sang gospel for my bedtime songs. My godfather is a bluegrass musician and used to have musical get togethers at his house where the grown-ups would play the banjo and washboard and pluck away at a string stuck in an old timey wash bin. I absorbed all the songs and rituals and dance my Camp Fire camp could offer.

I started going to the Seattle Folk life Festival when I was 16 and felt completely at home at with the bluegrass musicians busking on the grass and completely welcomed into a new world with the Norwegian dancers and their heavy embroidered skirts swinging about and the Morris dancers slapping their sticks and stomping their bells. I was in awe of these performers. I wanted to be so much part of a culture and so accomplished a dancer that I could perform too.

Fast forward 27 years. John and I had been taking dance classes for 8 years at this point, but we joined a zydeco intensive and performance class. And at the end of 12 weeks, John and I performed with Allons Danser at Folklife. We've been doing it for three years now, but somehow it was only this year that I realized my dream had come true.

I love going into the dance building and recognizing half the people there. Because I am a part of the culture. I love performing a traditional Louisiana dance even though I've never been to Louisiana and feeling I'm not just doing the steps, I have the groove. I love doing all this with John because we made ourselves part of this culture together.