About the Weekend

The Lenox Assembly was begun in 2009 by Paul Ross and Robin Hayden to provide an intensive English country dance experience to teachers, model dancers, and experienced dancers with strong dance skills wishing to improve their own ECD dance technique.

Successor to the Fried-for-All

The weekend has always been in part the successor to Fried Herman's Fried-for-All, held in Lenox, MA, for twenty years, from 1988 to 2007. Fried's weekend was a combination of evening dance parties and daytime workshops in which she introduced her new choreography. The preservation and enjoyment of that choreography has been a central part of the Lenox Assembly.

At the same time, the Lenox weekend goes beyond Fried's repertoire by including other modern choreographers and new and familiar historical interpretations by Andrew Shaw and others.

A Focus on Dancing Well

Learning new repertoire is a part of every dance weekend for experienced dancers. But at the Lenox Assembly, the focus is always on dancing well, whether the choreography is new or familiar. A commitment to this principal informs the teaching, learning, and playing that comprise the weekend's workshops and parties.

Paul Ross's instruction to each guest teacher is, "Teach what you want, but don't teach just the track. Teach dances and dancing."

Outstanding Music

The Lenox Assembly's musical talent has consistently been world class. For the first seven years, the extraordinary ECD pianist Karen Axelrod was the keyboardist at the weekend, joined variously by Eric Martin on violin and viola and Doug Creighton on flute and melodeon or by Barbara Greenberg on violin and Daniel Beerbohm on flute, clarinet, and sax. In 2014 Gene Murrow and Naomi Morse were on staff. The New York pianist Cynthia Shaw joined us in 2016, in 2017 we were privileged to have A Joyful Noise, and in 2018 Alchemy provided the transcendent, driving sound that has been typical of music at the weekend.

Surveys of participants taken immediately after each weekend routinely rate the music as "Excellent." Typical comments are, "The music was incredible this year," and "Amazingly talented musicians--really made me want to move, and their playing was well-suited to the various moods and styles of the dances we did."