Although this website is primarily about Moveable Feet, Sally is eager to bring folk dancing to any venue that will have her. She has taught dances to several different Girl Scout troops, Vacation Bible School, the Creswell Farmers' Market, church groups, the library's Summer Reading Program, and ElderHealth, besides conducting Moveable Feet dances. She has taught and led folk dances in Coos Bay and led some dances at her own family reunion. Sally consults regularly with other folk and community dance teachers and leaders on a dedicated online forum and attends workshops and conferences when she can. Fitting folk dances into a school curriculum is a challenge she is willing to take on. Homeschoolers, anyone? (That said, Sally prefers some adult helpers to be present - she is a dance teacher, not a kid-wrangler!) She has lately been calling private dances for churches, graduations, conventions, and birthday parties, and loves it!
Sally started folk dancing late in life and has been making up for lost time ever since. After a one-semester folk dance class in Nebraska in the mid-70's, a long hiatus ensued, but in 1998 she attended a “one-night-only, just-for-old-times'-sake” folk dance in Kalispell, MT, where she lived; those still standing at the end of the night agreed they had to keep meeting, so a new folk dance group was born, and her own folk dance life blossomed. A core group of fellow dancers encouraged her from her first clumsy efforts and believed in her ability to learn. One of those friends served as a model teacher, and to this day Sally tries to teach like that friend.
In 2001 she moved to Bartlesville, OK and joined Tulsa International Folk Dancers and Texas International Folk Dancers. She married dance enthusiast Alan Jenkins, who had likewise started folk dancing relatively late in life (1997). Besides folk dancing, he introduced Sally to the pleasures of Contra and English Country Dancing. And since then, they have together expanded into Community Dancing and even Square Dancing and Line Dancing. Sally also acted on an idea she'd heard years before and for three years conducted weekly "chair-dancing" sessions at a nursing home. Besides bringing cheer and exercise to the residents, she was surprised to find herself making friends with the staff and the residents' family members.
Upon Alan's retirement, the couple moved to Creswell, OR to be near family (and away from tornadoes and chiggers!), and started a monthly event called Moveable Feet Family and Community Dance. They also folk dance twice a week in Eugene, and contra danced twice a month in Eugene for years.
One of the greatest pleasures Sally and Alan find is in dancing in other towns and other states, wherever their travels take them. Workshops and camps are great, but there is nothing like dancing with a group at its regular weekly dance. Sally in particular enjoys seeing the variations in dances and learning new dances. As the Teaching Director at Tulsa IFD, she often taught the dances she had learned on out-of-town trips.
Her other passion in folk dancing is the collection of “whole sets” of information on dances; that is, for every dance, the ideal is to have the music in some audible form; written instructions; video or DVD; words and/or transliteration in original language and English, if applicable; and sheet music. With such a “complete set” for any given dance, a person should be able to learn or reconstruct a dance.
In 2006, Sally started the Bartlesville (Oklahoma) Community and Family Dance in an effort to expose non-dancers to the pleasures of recreational social dance. From the 200+ people who danced there over the years there arose a sub-group, the Village Folk Dancers, who performed at retirement homes, social clubs, and Bartlesville's OK Mozart festival. Other activities involving both performing and teaching included presentations at the library, several Girl Scout troops, and the MUTUAL Girls Club, as well as 4-H, homeschool groups, and a couple of after-school care organizations. Sally passionately believes that folk dancing is a positive force in making the world a better place. She has taught at an Orff workshop in Tulsa and presented a program at the Musical Research Society in Bartlesville. Sally attends Pourparler, a national gathering of dance and music teachers, and contributes regularly to its year-round online forum. In September 2016, Pourparler was held in Eugene, with Sally chairing the local planning committee.
When Sally and Alan are not on the dance floor, you may find them paddling their kayaks on the small lakes and slow rivers of Oregon, or reading and resting at home. Sally also makes bobbin lace and is a member of the Oregon Trail Lacemakers Guild.
Other dance-related activities:
co-founder of Kalispell International Folk Dancing, 1998 secretary, Tulsa IFD, 2003 teaching director, Tulsa IFD 2004-2012 Texas IFD quarterly newsletter editor 2006-2012 Texas IFD board member 2009-2012 founder & organizer of Bartlesville Community & Family Dance, Bartlesville, OK, 2006-2012 founder of Moveable Feet Family and Community Dance, Creswell, OR 2013 member of Veselo Festival board, Eugene, since 2015 programmer for Eugene Folklore Society, 2014-2019