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The Mountain View class has an excellent teaching staff. Each of our teachers has a deep and abiding love for Scottish country dance and enjoyment of the dance is the chief goal of the Mountain View class. All of the teachers hold certificates from the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland). The certification process is quite rigorous and assures that instructors are both accomplished dancers and thoroughly grounded in style, technique, and teaching skills.

  Lin Pettengill   Alan Twhigg Armin Busse   Paula Jacobson 

  Lin Pettengill

Originally from Cardiff , South Wales, Lin began Scottish Country Dancing in Miami Florida when she and her husband Don first moved to the U.S. in 1974 and were unable to find an English Country Dance class in the area. There was no looking back!

Since 1975 she has lived in the San Francisco Bay area, except for five years in Corvallis, Oregon and six months in Singapore , when Don's job moved. While in Corvallis , Lin decided to become a Scottish dance teacher, obtaining her Full Certificate in 1997. Ever since her family moved back to the San Francisco area in 1998, Lin has been an active San Francisco branch teacher. She joined the Mountain View teaching roster in 2008 and enjoys teaching all levels of classes from the basics with beginners to the finer points with more advanced dancers. She especially likes high energy dances with lots of pas de basque.

Lin dances everywhere she goes and very much enjoys the friendships and camaraderie of Scottish Country Dancing. She has been a performance dancer with Red Thistle Dancers for more than 30 years.  Her Scottish dancing high points are with the Red Thistle Dancers in the Czech Republic in 2002, and with the Singapore St. Andrew’s Society team at the 1996 Jakarta Highland Gathering!

When not dancing, Lin enjoys attending Broadway type musicals, community theatre events and Gilbert & Sullivan operas (particularly if Don is in the cast), visits to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, reading mysteries, and spending time with her family, especially her three grown-up children. Oh yes, she’s also pretty busy with her day job in advertising sales!

Contact Lin

In addition to Scottish country dancing, Alan is an accomplished Highland dancer and performs frequently in public. He does both Scottish country dance and Highland dance with the Red Thistle Dancers, a performance group based in Palo Alto. Alan frequently travels to Scotland to attend dance training schools, and broaden his knowledge of the culture.

Alan has also taught the San Jose and Stanford classes and he's a frequent guest instructor with other Bay Area groups. His experience includes teaching Scottish country dance at workshops across the Western US and Canada.

Elsewhere in life Alan works as an information developer in the computer networking industry. Other interests include foreign languages, literature, travel, and history.

Contact Alan

Armin Busse

Armin Busse, formerly of Bielefeld, Germany, brings a wealth of teaching experience to the Mt. View class.

Though a frequent visitor to the Bay Area in the past, Armin, now lives and works in the Bay Area. Armin began teaching the Mt. View class in spring, 2000.

Armin performs with the Red Thistle Dancers, a non-profit organization performing the dances and music of Scotland throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and at international festivals around the world.

Paula Jacobson 

In 1991, that I came across a little notice in the newspaper: “Come Scottish Country Dancing, Thursday nights in Santa Cruz”. I went to that class, and on the very first night I knew I had found my passion in life. A few months later, I enrolled in the Mountain View Class, dancing in both classes for four years. I have been performing with the Red Thistle Dancers since 1995, including tours to Norway in 1998, and the Czech Republic in 2002. I passed my preliminary test for teaching SCD in 1996, and gained my full certificate in 1999, both in St. Andrews, Scotland. I co-taught the Soquel Class with Bob McMurtry from its inception in 1996 until its demise in 2007, and joined the teaching staff of the Santa Cruz Class that summer. I started the Santa Cruz Youth Class in January 2008, and took our little group to their first Children's Ball last May.

Scottish Country Dancing has my heart and soul because, well, it just has everything.

There is as much challenge as anyone could want, yet dancers of a wide range of ability are welcome in the set. The people are friendly, supportive, and accepting. The music is superb. The dances are exciting, elegant, powerful, and evocative. The social aspects are full of fun. What more could one possibly ask?

In my everyday life, I worked for our local PBS television station, KTEH, as a Master Control Operator (that’s the person who physically runs the TV station on the air) for over twenty years. I am now retired from television, and work as sound engineer for the Scottish Dance community while continuing my teaching of Scottish Country Dancing to all who will.

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Last updated: August, 2007