HOW I STARTED...
FOLK DANCING, SINGING, PLAYING, COLLECTING...

by Karen Bennett

"How I Started" was a series of "oral history" articles on how various people in the international folk dance community in southern Ontario started folk dancing, playing an instrument, collecting costumes, etc. The following article introduced the series and appeared in the Oct. 15, 1995 issue of the Folk Dancer. The last "How I Started" appeared in the June 15, 1997 issue—which was my final issue as Editor (my first was Sept. 1, 1994)—and was about Steve Starchev, a dear friend who was to die less than a decade later.

In the fall of 1975 I moved to Toronto from Midland (about two hours north, on Georgian Bay) to take up my first [full-time] job. A friend of my father's, Conrad Stenton, a long-time folk dancer, thought dancing would be a good hobby for someone who knew nobody in Toronto, so he sent me a flyer for a University Settlement Open House....

I had a great time at the Open House. The Settlement was in its heyday and I loved the dancing so much I was soon going twice a week. Dick Crum provided additional inspiration, as his was the first workshop I went to (January 1976). This time was also the heyday of Al Gladstone's Friday night group at the Y on Eglinton, where I kept seeing wonderful dances I burned to learn and wonderful dancers, in particular Diane Gladstone, I burned to emulate. Prior to moving to Toronto my sole dance experiences were a very few ballet lessons and some unenjoyable folk dances painfully taught by the phys-ed teacher in high school which put me right off folk dancing (and I've heard this from a lot of other people).

It would never have occurred to me to teach if Teme Kernerman hadn't put the idea in my head. Once when Teme came to the Settlement she saw me lead some dances of Mihai David's I had just learned at a workshop (November 1977) and she invited me to a class at the North Bathurst JCC [Jewish Community Centre] to teach them. I did a lousy job of teaching, but the experience gave me another goal to work towards—becoming a good teacher. Curiosity about folklore in its many forms—dance, song, costume, etc.—is what has kept me dancing for 20 years.