If you'd like to receive
updates about the
Winter Solabration, please
Storysmith® Susan Marie Frontczak brings literature
to life, 
creates
stories from thin air, and hones personal experience into tales worth telling
again and again. Her stories and living history presentations have taken her to schools, libraries, corporations, and theaters across 42 of the United States as well as Europe.
Susan's original stories have been heard on Colorado Public Radio (Morning Edition), at the Colorado Music Festival Young People's Concert, through Story Gleaner productions, and on her CD "The
Three Fishes & Other Stories." Susan Marie’s motto is: "Give
me a place to stand, and I will take you somewhere else." More at www.storysmith.org.
The Maroon Bells Morris Dancers
Maroon Bells is the oldest of the morris teams now dancing in Colorado. We’ve been kicking up our heels, and jingling a few bells, since 1982 – long enough for some of our offspring to grow up and join the team. Our dancers come from towns along the Front Range and many walks of life. All are welcome to join us, particularly for our new dancers class each fall. We perform locally, at festivals and for special events, as well as a few more distant spots, e.g., Red Lodge, MT, the U.S. Midwest, and, every decade or so, in England. If you’d like to join us, please contact Squire Rowan Sauer for more information, or visit us on the web at: maroonbellsmorris.org
Bryan Connolly Extreme Juggling
Mixing whimsy with bloodlust, beauty with brutality, grace with destruction, Bryan the Circus Knight is a living dichotomy of worlds bound by the common desire to perform. His quest: to shatter preconceptions of circus. As a youth, Bryan’s first experience performing was juggling on the streets of Boulder, Colorado and has since honed his street show and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Performance from Colorado State University. While in school, Bryan joined "Motion Picture Stunts and Tactical" where he became versed in high falls, acrobatics and stage combat. After graduation, Bryan performed in several circus shows, including the role of Drosselmeyer in MOTH Circus’s production of "The Nutcracker," as well as five productions with the Phantom Circus show. When he’s not training or performing circus, he also does fight choreography, stunts, and jousting with the Knights of the Tempest, and won second place in the Light Armor Joust two years running at the Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival, the largest international jousting competition in the United States. His fondest wish is to gradually merge his two worlds into one whole full-spectrum performance experience of both circus and combat.
More at Bryan-Circus-Knight on Facebook.
Rodney Sauer has been playing piano and accordion for square and contra dances since the mid-1980’s, almost exclusively along the Front Range of Colorado. He has contributed powerful rhythmic accompaniment to such bands as Deb and the Pariahs, The Buffleheads, Falcon Flight, and Prairie Dog Picnic, as well as popular duets with fiddlers Eric Levine, Sandra Wong, and Elizabeth Wood. He has also been the long-time accordionist for the Maroon Bells Morris Dancers.
.
His interest in dance music led him to create the Mont Alto Ragtime and Tango Orchestra in 1989, which has developed into one of the world’s pre-eminent silent film orchestras. His most recent endeavor is the Coffee People! (And who doesn’t love Coffee!) Visit his web-site at www.mont-alto.com.
Chris
Kermiet has been calling and teaching traditional American
community
dances for over forty years and is recognized as one of the finest callers
in the United States. In 2000, he received the Heritage Award/2000 Artist
Fellowship from the Colorado Council on the Arts for calling and teaching
traditional American dance, as well as the Westword Best of Denver Award
for Best Dance Caller. In 2009 he was honored as a "Living Legend of Dance"
by the Carson-Brierly-Giffin Dance Library at the University of Denver. His video interview can be
viewed here. During the last ten years, as well as being in
demand as a caller and teacher of traditional dance, he has created choreographies
for a number of performing groups and theater companies.
Chris grew up with traditional dance. His father, Paul Kermiet, was one of Colorado's premier old time callers, and ran a summer dance camp on Lookout Mountain where Chris heard the best callers from around the country. He learned from all of them, and it shows in his teaching and calling, his broad repertoire and familiarity with traditional dance, and the way he puts new dancers at ease. He calls at numerous events across the Front Range, and currently leads the Denver English Dance (currently on hiatus because of the pandemic).
Visit his web-site.
He has also been posting his poems on-line at poemofthemonth.us for the past five years.
The December, 2020, poem-of-the-month is: ”This year! 2020. What Am I Thankful For?“
The January, 2021, poem-of-the-month is: