Biographies

Shannon Bennett
Shannon is Siamsa's Alaskan transplant, who provides a cheerful nature and, often, mimosas, to Siamsa. Shannon is one of our Sean Nos dancers, a very old style of Irish dancing which we have renamed Shannon Nos in her honor.

Christopher Berner
Christopher Berner started dancing at age 10, after seeing Morris dancers performing at a May Day celebration. He took several weeks of classes over the next few years, and especially liked the "stick dances" involving the clashing of sticks. He has retained his love of making noise while dancing, and now takes Irish step dancing. He also takes Scottish highland, Scottish step, and Scottish country dancing.

Shirleigh Brannon
Shirleigh "Fearless Leader" Brannon was a border collie in a previous life, and behaves accordingly. She is a talented and creative choreographer, in spite of possessing advanced degrees in theater and history. She likes cats, rats, memento mori, dancing with ghosts, and her heroes are Eugene Debs, Harpo Marx, and Fat Freddie's Cat. She is most controversial for her claim that the Five Major Food Groups are Ginger, Cardamom, Whiskey, Garlic and Chocolate. Her life's ambitions include learning the long versions of at least ten traditional Irish hardshoe set dances, and choreographing a Siamsa le Cheile revue to the tunes of Ry Cooder, David Lindley and Jerry Garcia.

Seán O'Brien
Seán "Uncle Seánín" O'Brien has let his interest in history go to such extremes as growing his own horehound and marshmallow to make candy. He is striving to learn both Sligo and Donegal fiddle stylings, and hopes to infuse them with the musical influences of his youth: J. S. Bach, Dave Brubeck, Jimi Hendrix, and David Seville. Due to his childhood ambition of being an astronaut the band allows him to "countdown" before tunes. He collects dead leaves and lives in a damp cardboard box.

Patti Cobb
While earning her music degree, Patti focused on Early Music with the UC Berkeley Collegium Musicum, the SF Chamber Singers and at Renaissance Faires. Her love of folk music led Patti to play for various dance groups, including Siamsa le Cheile. Patti's dance music ensemble, the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa and Strathspey Society Band has played for numerous Scottish, English and Contra dance events, including the Aloha Weekend in Honolulu. Patti has enjoyed Scottish Country Dancing since age 19 and is now a fully certificated teacher of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.

Deborah Doyle
Deborah Doyle is a rarely sighted Siamsa member. Without the grace that the gods gave a grackle, she has been known to croak out a tune for the group on occasion. An amazing distillation of Brennans, Rooneys, O'Neil's, Fosters, Gartlands, and Doyles, she was born singing "Cockles and Mussels;" mercifully, over the years, Shirleigh Brannon has knocked some sense into her head and the damn song out of it. Ms. Doyle is pleased to assist the troupe in non-dancing ways and hopes some day to learn to tie her own ghillies.

Del Eckels
Del has been playing drums for nearly 50 years. He has inspired the creation of "Del's Dolls", a group of Siamsa women who have been inspired to play the bodhran.

Kirsty Fitch
Kirsty "Warp Speed" Fitch has pertinent (and occasionally impertinent) information on almost every Scottish song that's been recorded, written down, or was mentioned by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She engages in historical research for the delight of knowledge and the "blood lust thrill of it, ya know?" Her hobbies include herding bunnies, training cats, and practicing the Scottish Tea Ceremony on rainy afternoons. She sings in a clear and deceptively gentle soprano.

Elheran Francis
When not cyber slaving for his employer, Elheran divides time between many Scottish past times and has been known to be passed out at times due to Uisgeba consumption. Two of his favorites involve that favorite Scottish activity known as denial of pain: Highland Dancing and Camanachd aka Shinty. When not attempting to dance over things that could injure people, he puts himself in harms way of things that could such as Camans (Shinty Sticks) and fast hurtling Shinty balls. Being an old relic himself, he has taken to trying to resurrect older Highland and National Dances to prevent them from being lost, though some wish they would get lost after attempting them.

Frank Giachino
Frank Giachino, Bodhran; "Snarling" Frank Giachino combines a passionate love of music with a lifetime compulsion to hit things. Californian by birth, he is scotch by consumption. A deeply spiritual man, his philosophy of life can best be summed up as "You should just shut up." He enjoys eating, drinking and sleeping, and when not playing music is kept on a short chain in the back yard.

Joshua Haiman
Josh, aka Angus the Beef… has become well known in some circles for his flashy undergarments. Willing to go any length for the good of the show, Angus has at times attached rocket boosters to his backside to increase the height of his jumping to cloud touching proportions. Be warned though, the amazing skill and nerves displayed by Angus, during his cloud touching acrobatics, has been known to cause some onlookers to faint (or maybe that was swoon over the flashy undergarments).

Aaron Hendel

Robert Hill
Robert "Little Bobby" H. is a quantum object, with all that that implies. His fingers are also quantum objects. Stern-Gerlach measures of his fingers indicate 50% probability that they wil be wrapped around either a glass of beer or a musical instrument.

Christy Hobza
Christy "Tigger" H. successfully overcame an inability to walk while in infancy by having springs permanently grafted onto her ankles. This, plus her lifelong devotion to developing a cross between ferrets and pirahnas, has led to a stellar career in Highland dance, Irish dance, and the pole vault. Rumors that her legs are composed of an isotope of rubber are completely unfounded.

Rachel Levin
Rachel is a tri-celtic dancer, performing Irish, Scottish and Cape Breton dancing in Siamsa performances. When viewing our shows, you may see the illusive Rachel smile.

Zuriah A. Meacham
Zuriah A.(for Attitude) Meacham has been dancing since she was 4 years old. However, since her first (and most often repeated) sentence was, "All by self!" usually accompanied by a stamp of her foot, and since she quit preschool because people kept telling her what to do, she didn't actually take any dance classes until age 9. Since then she has taken Scottish, Irish, Cape Breton, ballet, modern and jazz dance. When not dancing, she retains her dislike of people telling her what to do, so she homeschools herself.

Chris McMurray
Chris McMurray, aka "Twitch" is one of our premiere Irish dancers and our resident photographer.

Darcy Noonan

Margaret Olney

Richard Page

Janelle Perrine
Janelle Perrine, Whistle: Janelle "Fishface" Perrine provides a calming and steadying influence on the rest of the band, as well as the occasional biscuit. She is a leading exponent of blues pennywhistle and likes to sing through her nose. In spite of being married, she likes men, and believes that many of them are capable of thought. She subsists entirely on a diet of moonbeams, dewdrops, and cobwebs woven on a solstice.

Imogen Poropat

Micheal Riemer
Micheal "Heels" Riemer: Though widely rumored to be schizophrenic (due to his incessant flitting about among Irish Set dancing, juggling, solo step dancing, flute playing, and in situ determination of dynamic soil properties), this melange is really only an indication of his Very Short Attention Span. He prefers most of these activities in a rather traditional style, which has led to a broadly held, but somewhat exaggerated opinion that he is Stodgy. While he enjoys the camaraderie, joie de vivre, and foie gras of the Siamsa le Cheile Experience, he remains secretly convinced that whenever he leaves the dance floor and picks up his flute, the band subtly but dramatically picks up the tempo...

Avery Risling-Sholl

Nicole Sivell

Deirdre Stretton
Deirdre Stretton has enjoyed making lots of noise with her feet since she was a child. She started Irish step dancing at the age of four and has returned to it as an adult. She has been practicing Irish step dancing for a total of ten years and Irish ceili dancing for eight. She has been with Siamsa since 2002.

Douglas A. Walter
Douglas A. Walter (“Donal’ O’Connell”) has been dancing for over twenty years. His grandparents took him to folk dance gatherings as a child. He rediscovered the scene as an adult when Shirleigh Brannon convinced him to take a Scottish Country Dancing class. He has since studied English country dance and performed in Patti Blanco’s Merrie Pryanksters at Renaissance Faires, and studies Irish ceilidh and step dancing. He is proud to be one of the Deadly Douglas Duo of Siamsa.

Douglas A. "Dougie" Worley
The life of a dance junkie is a sad, sad tale. Douglas Worley started experimenting at the age of five with Scottish country dance, his parents being themselves hooked and offering no help or recourse.

From there he moved on to the basic "gateway" dance forms in classical and modern ballroom. This lead him down the slippery slope to the harder, more rigorous disciplines of swing dance and Scottish highland. In order to "get his fix," Dougie has learned the basics of Irish ceili and step, Greek and Balkan folk dance, Morris dance, Contra dance, English country, and in a moment of extreme need even a workshop in Medieval court dancing.

Hopelessly lost in his addiction, Dougie has lost himself in it and has come to identify primarily as a dancer; despite his studies at San Francisco State University in Anthropology and History. He can be found at Highland Games, pubs, concerts and dance nights all over the Bay Area either flingin' or swingin' the night away.