Curious about how Culver City English Country Dance got started? Here’s a brief history of CCECD.

Culver City English Country Dance was co-founded by James Hutson and Annie Laskey in 2006 to provide a venue for English country dancing on Southern California’s west side. Our annual Playford-to-the-Present Ball had already been going, starting with the “First Los Angeles Playford Ball,” on Saturday, September 29, 2001. Lindberg Park Stone House in Culver City was available starting on the fourth Sunday of January 2006, thus establishing our second and fourth Sunday programming schedule, and our anniversary dance, which happens on the fourth Sunday every January. Annie and James organized the CCECD dances together for years. A committee of dedicated dancers was established to run the dances 2015, and Annie stepped down in 2017. CCECD has been going strong since then.

Our committee members include:

• Aileen Poehls: committee chair
• James Hutson: caller, programmer, historian and archivist, sound
• Pat Keating: Playford-to-the-Present Ball co-chair
• Mickey Waring: Insurance, Playford-to-the-Present Ball co-chair, sound
• Renée Camus: caller, marketing and promotions (social media and email), webmaster, SCCDC liaison
• Kaye Evans: Refreshments coordinator
• Kevin Savage: SCCDC secretary
• Mike Frank: sound
• Sparky Sotcher
• Elyse Ashton
• Pat Green
• Melinda Dickinson
• Ivan Bottik

We celebrated our 20th annual Playford-to-the-Present Ball in October 2020, in the midst of the pandemic lockdown. We held a wonderful anniversary event online, over Zoom, with reminiscences and photos, stories and memories, even English country dancing to live music in our homes. Part of our event included this history of the P2P Ball, written and curated by our co-founder, James Hutson:

Here is James’ script of the history:

When Giovanni De Amici produced the first Southern California Playford Ball in 2001, we had no idea what we were doing.

The seeds for that event were planted in 1997 when Giovanni, who was an avid English country dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area, moved to Southern California and started a twice-a-month English Country Dance series in the city of Torrance in Los Angeles County. This series attracted participants from all across the region, and as attendance grew, a core constituency developed.

This new community attended local dance events produced by various historical groups, but the greatest enthusiasm was for the annual Playford Ball in Northern California, produced by the Bay Area Country Dance Society (BACDS). But the BACDS Playford Ball was 400 miles away, and demand soon arose to create a local version of this event. The BACDS ball was a template for the kind of ball we wanted: an experienced dancer ball that rewarded strong dance skills.

We followed the lead of BACDS in a number of ways. We encouraged costumes from all periods. The kind of costume one wore was less important than knowing how to dance. Like BACDS we put together programs from the full gamut of English Country Dance repertoire, historical to modern. And because BACDS balls always had a theme, we thought our ball should have a theme too.

[PIC 01H] The first Southern California Playford Ball was held September 29, 2001, at the South Bay Masonic Center in El Segundo, with Giovanni producing and me as dance leader. [END PIC]

After it was noted that the date of our ball, September 29, was the Feast Day of Saint Michael (also known as Michaelmas), Annie Laskey recommended that I include the dance Michael and All Angels on the program. Thus we had our first themed program, called “Saint Michael’s Madness.” [PIC 2001]

Other themes soon followed. 2002: [PIC 2002] “An Evening in Orange.” (The ball was held in Orange County.) 2003: [PIC 2003] “The Rose Ball.” (that was in Pasadena. “Rose Ball,” Pasadena, get it?) 2004: [PIC 2004] “Sparkling Waters,” 2005: [PIC 2005] “Faces and Places.” The last of the themed balls was in 2006. [PIC 2006] Giovanni called it “Playford’s Playford,” consisting of all historical dances published before 1699.

[PIC 02H] Here is Giovanni in 2002 on the left, with Bruce MacRae and yours truly. Shortly after the “Playford’s Playford” ball Giovanni announced that he was discontinuing the semi-monthly English Country Dance series that he produced in Torrance in order to spend more time with his family. That might have meant the end of the Southern California Playford Ball, [END PIC] but by then a new series had started in Culver City that, like the Torrance series, was an affiliate of the California Dance Co-Operative. Demand among the dancers to continue the ball was strong, and the Culver City series was the logical inheritor. A new committee quickly formed, and the newly-named “Playford-to-the-Present” Ball was reborn.

[PIC 03H] The change of name came about because some of our dancers felt the name “Playford” represented a specific historical period, and our ball was always much more than that. Expanding the name to “Playford-to-the-Present” clearly stated the importance of both historical and modern dances on our ball programs. It also reenforced the fact that we welcomed costumes from all periods. [END PIC]

As the ball — and the community — matured, we broke away from BACDS influence and made our own way. The themes, which were always somewhat tenuous anyway, were abandoned, although we were not shy about borrowing ideas from other balls if we liked them, such as the notion of having a picture corner. [PIC 04H] Aren’t they a lovely couple?

We tried experimenting with the format. In 2008 we held the ball rehearsal on a Saturday afternoon, [PIC 05H] followed by a catered dinner, [PIC 06H] followed by the evening dance, [PIC 07H] all at the same venue. Afterwards, we decided that in the future we would always hold the ball rehearsal on Friday nights, and give the dancers all day Saturday to relax before the ball itself on Saturday night. [END PIC]

Balls in the Giovanni era used all local talent, but by the time of our seventh ball we were ready to reach out beyond our region. The 2007 ball featured our first out-of-region musician, Jon Berger, and in 2008 we invited our first out-of-state Dance Mistress, [PIC 08H] Mary Devlin. In 2011 I was responsible for getting [PIC 09H] The Funky Fandango String Quartet out of Northern California to play for our ball, the first time we used all out-of-town musicians.

Over the years we have continued to rely on local musicians as well. [PIC 11H] Mary Ann Sereth, pictured here in the red dress in the center, has played for the ball six times, and in recent years frequently plays for our Friday night reviews. [PIC 10H] Jeff Spero and Bonnie Insull have each played our ball seven times, including twice when they shared the stage.

In 2013 Chris Page led the program, the highlight of which was an original dance he composed for the occasion, named after Bonnie Insull’s band, Bonfire, which played that year. Here’s a brief video clip of that dance. [VIDEO 01]

As we’ve broadened our perspective, we’ve reached out to many distinguished dance leaders and musicians from the greater English Country Dance world. But we’ve always kept our focus on programs that would appeal to our local constituency.

[PIC 12H] Throughout all the changes, “Playford-to-the-Present” is still THE Southern California Playford Ball. From our central location, we represent the coming together of various English Country Dance communities across the region to renew old friendships, share the joy in this activity we all cherish so much, revel in the beautiful music, and try to remember that tricky transition in a For Those Who Know dance like, say, Patrick’s Waltz. [VIDEO 02]

I think we finally figured out that transition from “rotate the set” to a diagonal hey, but even if we didn’t, we had fun trying. And of the “strong dance skills” I alluded to earlier, I think the most important is probably “recovery.”

Ultimately, it’s not about the dances, or the costumes, or the decorations, or the refreshments. It’s about us. All of us. Together. And by now, we think we know what we’re doing.