Celtic Community Instructor
Biographies 2024
Dawn Berg
sings traditional and contemporary folk a capella style (without instruments) live around town and on zoom song circles. She leads monthly song circles, and likes to encourage others to sing for pleasure.
Allison Fiscus
is from Palmer, AK and loves the Scottish culture, food, and all traditions. She initiated the opportunity to have a spurtle competition at the Alaska Highland Games in 2023 and the competition was a huge success. Allison loves baking bread with all grains, especially ancient grains. Living in Alaska, she forages, gardens, enjoys bike riding, and skiing. She has mini horses, and enjoys community outreach to help improve the opportunities for children in the community.
Anne Freitag
is a retired librarian with an interest in history. She also designs and makes costumes, and does many other crafty things.
Greg Henrikson
is a longtime volunteer with the medieval living history group HRG, and has been reconstructing the life of a medieval scribe over the past decade. He can be found in the scribe’s hut at Three Barons Fair and the Scottish Highland Games.
Emma Huffman
is a student in Anchorage who has an interest in paganism. She loves learning about new things and talking to people about their craft. She looks forward to teaching this class.
Jim Kerr
has been doing this stuff for over forty years (No, he’s not that old; he’s been juggling ever since he was a big kid!).
Sean McGrane
is an amateur historian of Irish history, ranging from ancient to modern. He has a historical preservation project documenting the Irish during the Gold Rush period of 1867-1917.
Elise Manolas
teaches Highland dance lessons in the valley with Fireweed Fling Highland Dancers. She started Highland dancing as a teenager and is now a certified Highland Associate of the Scottish Dance Teacher's Alliance.
Dr. Philip Price
is a native of Dublin, Ireland and a retired logistics professor from the University of Alaska Anchorage. He is also an Irish singer who has been collecting, performing, and writing Irish ballads since he was a young lad busking in the streets of Dublin. Throughout his career, Philip has played traditional Irish, American bluegrass, folk, and contemporary music with many bands and artists, including the original Blasket Sound; Turlough with Terry Malone and Tommy Walsh of "Inisheer" fame; Ireland’s banjo sensation Derek Duff; Fir Og with John Walsh, Ben Saylor, and Tom Walker; and Anchorage’s favorite band of pirates, the Rogues and Wenches. He appears on many recordings with other artists over the years, including Turlough in the 1980s; The Derry Aires in 2009 on the holiday album Frozen Assets; and The Rogues and Wenches in 2016 in the CD Three Sheets to the Wind. Philip’s solo CD and companion songbook, In Dublin Town, are available on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify.
Jocelyn Paine
was raised on Greek and Roman myths and is now enjoying Celtic stories. She has been a professional writer/photographer/fine artist/theatre costumer, which gives a lot of options for self-expression.
Linda Pavey
has worked with fiber arts for over 20 years. She relishes turning pretty fabrics into ordinary things, such as potholders and wall art, selling her works at fairs and markets. In 2023, she helped make and decorate 17th Century costumes for Cyrano Theatre Company’s Tartuffe. She also makes cloth dolls and quilted postcards.
Mark Ransom
grew up in Alaska, and worked as a TV journalist in Anchorage, Fairbanks and statewide. Most recently, however, he retired from the Alaska Aviation Museum where he had been the historian and tour director. He and his wife, Panu, represent Clan MacLeod in Alaska for Clan MacLeod USA.
Dixine Schiavi
began clog dancing in Southern California in 1980, regularly attending classes, workshops, and national clogging conventions. She was a member of several Southern California performance teams, and has competed and won numerous intermediate and advanced state-level clog dance competitions in the individual, duet, and precision team categories. In 1994 she moved to Anchorage and, in 1998, started her own clog & percussive dance team, the Midnight Sun Cloggers. A few members of the team should be on hand for a demo performance, and to help out during this class.
Pati Thomas
has been decorating baked goods for 16 years, was a Wilton instructor for 8 years and worked for Super Star Bakery as a decorator for two years. She continues to create cakes, cookies and a variety of patisserie items.
Geoffrey Woods
is director of Irish Dance Academy of Alaska, and has been dancing for 20 years! He was the 2012 U15 Boys Western U.S. Regional Champion and a six-time world qualifier. He now teaches Irish Dance throughout the state of Alaska and loves seeing his pupils accomplish their dance goals!
Linda Yarborough
learned to play the harp as a young adult, and has performed in the Anchorage area for many years, including for many Celtic Community and Irish club events. She plays and teaches classical, Celtic and contemporary music on both lever (Celtic) and pedal harps.
