Rousing tunes, and lively steps from Ireland, England, and North America. Walser and Enblom blend traditional folk melodies and rhythm in fresh and exciting ways. The combo of fiddle music and foot percussion, with piano and melodian create a lively, joyful, and sophisticated sound. Bob Walser and Danielle Enblom are lifelong students of traditional arts, performance, and history. Ethnomusicologist (music), and ethnochoreologist (dance) respectively, this duo brings the richness of their studies, and individual performance careers that span the globe, together to explore sounds, textures, and rhythm.
Bob and Danielle have known each other through their shared love of traditional dance music and history for years. They first joined forces to play for contra dances at the Tapestry Folkdance Center. Danielle's repertoire and percussive elements from her dance steps, paired with Bob's accompaniment and deep relationship with contra dance and dance music from New England proved to be a new favorite for dancers. The fresh tunes and approach paired with Bob's solid and lively dance rhythms make for a wonderful evening of dancing! Since then Bob and Danielle have performed together throughout the Twin Cities at parties, weddings, and breweries.
Musician, scholar and educator Bob Walser’s musical career spans decades and continents. In the early 1980s he made his living as a shantyman (!) at Mystic Seaport, one of the largest maritime museums in the USA. Since then he has presented Folklore In Action folk music and dance programs as an artist-in-residence in schools across the USA, and performed as a singer, dance leader and dance musician from Maine to California and overseas.
As a scholar, Bob earned his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. His research in Folk Music and Music Education has been published in the Folk Song Journal (UK) and publications by World Music Press. Since 2002 he has worked with an international team of scholars on the James Madison Carpenter folksong collection in a project based at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, Scotland. In addition, he has three CDs on The Old and New Tradition label to his credit as well as guest appearances on another dozen recordings in the US, France and England.
Danielle Enblom is a Minneapolis-based step dancer, fiddler, and ethnochoreologist (dance anthropologist). She specializes in the old styles of dance in Ireland and their relationship to early European dances and regional styles of dance in North America. Danielle's depth of experience and knowledge in the Irish traditions, her connections to a number of North American dance forms, and her history in other movement modalities such as ballet, Alexander technique, and modern dance, and her family heritage in the Métis and Quebecois traditions bring a unique and fresh perspective to the world of traditional step dance and fiddling.