NGI Recipient: Alex Krogh-Grabbe
Session Attended: Country Dance and Song Society - American Dance & Music Week (2009)
Thank you so much for allowing me to attend Pinewoods for American week on the New Generations Initiative scholarship! As we’ve all thought numerous times before, Pinewoods is a truly unique and magical place. Since I started contradancing ten years ago, the folk community has been an increasingly important part of my life. I recently started learning to play piano and began learning to call. Experiences like Pinewoods just invigorate my already passionate energy for contradancing and the community that it creates. I look up to callers like Lisa Greenleaf and Nils Fredland, and being at American Week allowed me to get closer to both of them.
Then there are the connections made to other young dancers! I made so many friends at Pinewoods, and I have no doubt that many of those friendships will last for decades. Pinewoods even directed me toward involvement in two other areas of the folk community! I’ll be dancing with the Marlboro Morris Men this year, as well as attending Boston Harmony, both at the suggestion of folks I met at Pinewoods. I’m excited.
A more productive, ecstatic week I could not have spent this summer. For that I thank you, and hope you are continually able to offer such scholarships to the youth of our community. We are the future of the community, and scholarships such as these help our enthusiasm for involvement overcome our inability to afford such magnificent experiences. Thank you again, a million times.