By Cara King, the unofficial Monrovia ECD historian

The origin of Monrovia English Country Dance is lost in the mists of time…or so it sometimes seems!  It certainly existed by March of 2006, so it was likely founded either in early 2006 or in 2005.  (If anyone has any record of it before 2006, please contact me!)  It was started by Marsden Macrae, who was our first caller…and what a caller!  Marsden was the dance mistress for the Jane Austen Evening in Pasadena for a long time, and did a marvelous job. However, not longer after Monrovia ECD began, Marsden moved to another state, and so the wonderful Kris Jensen took over as caller, organizer, and she-who-does-everything.

Kris Jensen ran Monrovia ECD for seven years single-handedly, while also being one of the Country Garden Dancers at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire…and also working and raising children! (I have no idea how she did it!) She introduced many of us to a great range of dances, from the vigorous 1651 small sets, to Regency elegance, to “another great Gary Roodman dance,” and so many more.

Monrovia ECD dancers at the 2011 Jane Austen Evening.

In those years some dancers came and went, and some came and stayed…and as a group, we just kept learning. The local Jane Austen Evening was certainly a high point of the year for most of us, held as it was every January in Pasadena (which meant that we were the closest ECD group to the event.) Many of our dancers started out with the Jane Austen Evening, and when they discovered they liked that sort of dancing, they found us!

Monrovia ECD dancers at the 2011 Playford-to-the-Present Ball.

Many of our regular dancers soon became adept enough to attend the Playford-to-the-Present Ball, the annual Los Angeles-era ball for devoted English Country Dancers. This ball has been held every year since 2000, and has for a long time been produced by Culver City ECD. Every year they find an amazing caller and band, and we practice the dances ahead of time at Monrovia. Many of our favorite dances were introduced to us at a Playford-to-the-Present Ball! (Luckily for us, although the ball is produced by Culver City ECD, it generally is held in or near Pasadena.)

In late 2013, Kris Jensen announced that she would be stepping down as the caller and organizer of Monrovia ECD as of the beginning of 2014, so a group of regulars came together to form a committee and take over the running of the group…and the calling! Kris gave us amazing advice, and the new callers learned as they called, with helpful guidance from James Hutson and Annie Laskey from our neighbor group Culver City ECD.

Our first five callers after Kris left were Shari Herzfeld, Susan Taylor, Todd Brun, Helen Yeo, and Cara King. As we’ve always danced to recorded music, one of our first tasks was acquiring music and dance directions. So, on the advice of James Hutson, we started with two book/CD combos published by the Country Dance & Song Society, “21 Easy English Country Dances” (with music by the Claremont Country Dance Band) and “Classic English Country Dances” (which has fun recordings by Marshall Barron & Phil Merrill as well as other musicians). We shortly added the wonderful Boston Centre series, which contain 15 marvelous CDs by Bare Necessities together with booklets with dance directions and tips. Monrovia ECD’s new phase was launched!

Bit by bit, our library of dance books and music grew (particularly when the program for each year’s Playford-to-the-Present Ball came out, and we found we needed a new CD or two or three!) We now have quite a collection, including wonderful recordings by bands like Persons of Quality, The Flying Romanos, The Dancehall Players, Roguery, MGM, Reunion, Cilantrio, The Assembly Players, The Pemberley Players, The National Folk Dance Orchestra, and so many more. An evening at Monrovia ECD can have a delicious musical variety!

In 2016, Cara and Todd were set to spend the fall semester in Princeton (giving them the glorious opportunity of dancing with Germantown Country Dancers, and attending their ball where Bare Necessities provided the music!) This seemed a good time to add more callers to the calling pool, so Kathy Powell, Peggy McIntosh, and Liz Levine started calling for Monrovia ECD as well.

On June 23, 2017, we had a special treat! Nationally-known caller Bob Green was touring the country with the band Ladies at Play (joined by fiddler Martha Edwards), and they were going to be in our area on our dance night…. So could we fit them in as guest caller and guest band?

The answer might seem an obvious “yes,” because Bob was an amazing caller who brought a rollicking sense of humor to liven up the room, and the four musicians (Miranda Arana, Kathy Dagg, and Shanda McDonald of “Ladies at Play” plus Bob’s fiddler wife Martha Edwards) created heavenly music together, but…could we quite literally fit them in? We were often rather crowded in our room as it was, with all the sofas and easy chairs and tables and the piano and any other miscellaneous things that might be in the room…so did we also have room for a four-piece band, with instruments and music stands and everything else?

We resolve to do it, by hook or by crook! We moved all the sofas and other miscellaneous items outside or into the hallway, and put the food table and check-in table outside as well. We were crowded, but not too crowded, and we all had such an thrilling time!

Bob called some of our favorite dances, including Midwinter Maggot and Barbarini’s Tambourine, and also introduced us to some wonderful dances we had never seen before: three dances of his (the rousing Trip to Cincinnati, the lyrical Waves of Grain, and the jolly & punny Jack’s Sparrow), plus Dance With Me (choreographed by Rebekah Valencia, who accompanied him on his tour.)

We all have very fond memories of that day, and much gratitude to everyone who made it work! And whenever Bob was back in town, it was always a joy to see him again…he had such life and joy and love.

And so it was with great sorrow that we learned that Bob passed away in November of 2024. We miss you, Bob!

The years moved on, and Monrovia ECD kept dancing, with some of the same folks, and some delightful new folks, yet always missing those who moved away (though it is beyond me why anyone would move far away from Monrovia ECD!)

In time, many of us started attending not only the Jane Austen Evening and the Playford-to-the-Present Ball, but also the Admiral Nelson Ball in Orange County, and some of us even voyaged up to Santa Barbara for the annual Winter Dreams Ball each February!

In 2019, two of our callers (Todd Brun and Cara King) and some of our dancers attended Hey Days Dance Week up in the Bay area, something that was happily repeated! Hey Days, produced by the Bay Area Country Dance Society, is a solid week of ECD classes and dances, plus singing, music, and miscellaneous offerings. We’ve found when our callers attend dance weeks and weekends, they bring back some great dances! And our callers and dancers bring back new ideas to the group.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, our group shut down for a while, as did the whole world. Some of us tried to keep our dance minds sharp by trying some online dancing offered via Zoom by groups such as Odd Sundays (called by Sharon Green and Kalia Kliban) or by watching dance videos, while others of us just took a break and did other things, or were extra-busy at their jobs due to the crisis. Meanwhile, Monrovia ECD had occasionally Zoom chats so our regulars could keep in touch with each other.

In early 2021, when we were still not dancing in person, several of our callers (Todd Brun, Kathy Powell, Susan Taylor and Cara King) had the opportunity to take a lengthy and in-depth online calling class from Brooke Friendly, which kept our minds in dance mode and made us much better callers!

When Monrovia ECD finally resumed dancing, our committee (along with all the other ECD groups in the country) had to decide what, if any, new rules they would adopt to try to minimize the chance of someone catching Covid at one of our classes. It was a stressful time! Such decisions are difficult to make, and any choice will leave someone unhappy…but our dancers were game for anything, and incredibly supportive, and we made it through those difficult times! Now, thankfully, our class is back to normal, and it’s like old times again.

Our location never changed: the Guildhall of St Luke’s Episcopal Church in Monrovia, California, which has always been such a welcoming and wonderful place to dance. (We are truly indebted to them.) However…when I say our location never changed, I mean we were always in the Guildhall….but the Guildhall itself did change over the years. For a long time there were multiple sofas in there, plus easy chairs, and wood-paneled walls. (See the photos above of when Bob Green called, to see the old decor.) And then at one point there was a refrigerator in the corner! (Ah, the memories.) But at some point the room was entirely remodeled, and ever since then the sofas are gone, the brown and white has become white and blue, the floor and ceiling are new, and we have elegance throughout. (But there are still chairs to sit on, never fear.)

The following photo is of us dancing in the Guildhall with its current look. (Isn’t it lovely?)

Dancers at Monrovia ECD in 2025.

As far as we can deduce, Monrovia ECD turns 20 years old this year (2026)! It’s been a wonderful twenty years, full of great music, dance, and friendships. This sort of dancing creates a real community: folks who want to know how you’ve been doing, and who are glad to see you when you arrive. It’s something that can be hard to find in a big city, and that’s one reason so many of us work so hard to keep the group alive.

Monrovia ECD dancers at the 2025 Jane Austen Evening in Pasadena, California.

Well, that’s the story of Monrovia English Country Dance… So far! If you know of anything I missed, please email me at  MonroviaECD@monroviaecd and let me know! And if you’ve been thinking of dancing with us (or doing so more often), please do!!!! We would love to have you…

Monrovia ECD dancers at the 2025 Playford-to-the-Present Ball.