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Who is Fiddle ‘n’ Feet?
Fiddle ‘n’ Feet is a performing and teaching company that seeks to educate and entertain audiences, exploring the many traditional dance and music styles of North America, particularly the eastern areas of the United States and Canada. Aided by a variety of shoes and instruments, the members of Fiddle ‘n’ Feet bring alive the history of American traditions that have been influenced by the many immigrants who settled here in the 1700s and early 1800s. The styles represented draw from Celtic, European, and African roots that intermingled as well with Native American traditions. The result is dance and music rich in tradition, yet completely relevant to the music and dance of today’s culture.
The Artists
Dancer Tamara Loewenthal has been performing and teaching various styles of step dancing for over 20 years. Growing up in the Appalachian foothills of southwestern Pennsylvania, Tamara fell in love with clogging as a young adult and has been flatfooting ever since. A founding member of the nationally recognized dance company Rhythm in Shoes, she has toured across the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Japan. She has won awards for her clogging, including a blue ribbon at the Mt. Airy, NC, Fiddler’s Convention. She has become an accomplished French Canadian step dancer and in 1999 received a prestigious Arts Council of Indianapolis Fellowship to study with masters in this field. Tamara has produced a CD of dance tunes and games for kids, Dance Together Children! She is a nationally known caller of square and contra dances, teaching at dance camps such as Buffalo Gap and Augusta in WV, Berea in KY, and Brasstown in NC. Tamara is also a 2003 and 2005 Indiana Individual Artist Grant recipient.
Fiddler Jamie Gans has been studying Irish and Old Time music for well over 25 years. Twenty years ago, he was an active member of the vibrant fiddling community in Ottawa, Ontario, and amassed a huge repertoire of regional and traditional tunes. Jamie worked for three years as a historical interpreter for the Minnesota Historical Society at a reconstructed fur trading post. In 1993, he received an award from the Minnesota State Folk Arts Program and he is also a recent recipient of a Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis to collect music in Ireland and Scotland. Formerly a principal musician with Rhythm in Shoes, Jamie has spent much of the last ten years immersed in the study of Old Time music, including a recent focus on the banjo. He has six recordings to his credit, including his most recent release, Snug in the Blanket.
Sam Bartlett (Merrillville only) is a versatile musician who plays traditional American Old-Time, Bluegrass and Irish styles on tenor and five-string banjo, mandolin, and guitar. He specializes in the performance and interpretation of old tunes: reels, jigs, hornpipes, waltzes and writing new compositions in the tradition. He performs and teaches traditional music for concerts, festivals, conferences, and workshops, both solo and with multiple groups. He fits this music, as well as music composed in the tradition, to its accompanying dance forms: contra and square dance, Irish set dances, step dancing and Appalachian clogging. He also leads master classes on banjo and mandolin.
Tina Liza Jones (Fort Wayne & Wabash only) has been in old-time bluegrass bands in the Blue Ridge area where that music is native and thriving. She is a singer and instrumentalist playing banjo, guitar, mandolin and bass. Tina studied classical music in an Episcopal boarding school and earned a degree in Chinese language from the University of Michigan. Always passionate about bluegrass, she moved to West Virginia to be swamped in mountain music. Tina has appeared with John McCutcheon, Trapezoid, and Tony Trischka. Tina's workshops are on pioneer, African American and Native American music on guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, rebec and concertina. She also mixes in stories, folklore, poems, plays, bluegrass repertoire, clog dancing, and ballads.
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