Our Director Mike Ruff, has been the driving force behind Tradamis since its inception.  His background is as a dancer, caller and multi instrumentalist and still attempts to have a separate career as a performer.  He currently dances with St Albans Morris, Nonsuch History & Dance and runs at least 3 bands, Quicksilver, Lavender Village Band and Null Nomine Daunce.

The inspiration behind his work in education has been the idea of putting our wonderful traditional heritage into its proper context and maximising the enjoyment that can bring.  Visit Mike's Web Site

Penny Brookman  L.I.S.T.D.Dip, MA.PA, PGCE. has, for more than thirty years, taught and performed a broad range of dance styles. In addition to her professional Ballet and Theatre dance qualifications she holds an MA in Performing Arts and has worked extensively with T.A.P.S, as a teacher and performer in multi-cultural and inter-disciplinary projects and also with Kintbury May Maids Morris, Reading Cloggies, Tanglefoot, and ISIS clog and step dancers. She has taken Morris and traditional dance around the world, including Europe, America and Japan, as Foreman of Kintbury Morris, as well as appearing on the BBC programme of Folk dance for schools, and in venues as diverse as the New Forest show, and the Festival Hall.

Penny has worked as an artist in residence, and taught children with learning and behavioural difficulties, as well as hearing impaired and physically challenged students, including work for Mencap.

Penny has current experience of teaching a range of Gcse, AS/A2, and Btec performance courses, as well as running a traditional mayday event for more than twenty five years, and has taught ages from 3yrs to 90yrs!

Penny Pinder  has been performing English folk dance, including Morris dance, since her own schooldays. She has many years' experience of teaching Cotswold Morris, to both experienced and novice adults and to children of all ages.  She was Foreman of Hurst Morris and is now Foreman of Windsor Morris. With these groups Penny has choreographed, stage-managed and performed shows of Cotswold Morris for national and international festivals, and even the occasional TV show!

 

 

 

 

 

Anne Garrison is a qualified teacher of movement and dance, training at Worcester in the 1970s.  After leaving college she was a member of the Instep Dance Group based at Dunfermline College of PE Edinburgh, performing and teaching dance in schools.

In 1993 she joined Reading Traditional & Step Dance Group and was involved with running their very successful clog & step dance festivals, after the closure of the Cloggies she was a founder member of Aldbrickham Clog & Step Dancers.  Anne has worked on dance & drama projects.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Diana Campbell-Jewitt has been teaching traditional styles of dance since she was a teenager and has recently become free lance after working for 12 years as National Education Manager for the EFDSS.  She is a qualified school teacher with a degree in History and Literature and a Masters Degree in Cultural Studies. She is an author / editor of many resource books, for use in schools, including, books on Longsword Dance’, ‘Understanding Victorian Society through Dance’, a collection of children’s games including skipping traditions, ‘Dancing; Round the Maypole’ and ‘Traditional British and Other Dances’. Diana is keen to introduce the dance, song and games traditions of the British Isles to a wider audience.