Ted Sannella (August 14, 1928 – November 18, 1995) was a professional
square dance
A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances contain elements from numerous traditional dances and were first documente ...
,
contra dance
Contra dance (also contradance, contra-dance and other variant spellings) is a form of folk dancing made up of long lines of couples.
It has mixed origins from English country dance, Scottish country dance, and French dance styles in the 17th c ...
and
international folk dance
International folk dance includes Balkan dance, Middle Eastern dance, contra dance, Hungarian dance, polka, Chinese dance, and Japanese dance. Clubs featuring these ethnic dance genres are enjoyed by non-professional dancers for entertainment. Ma ...
caller and choreographer who was active in the region surrounding
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
, in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. He was a seminal figure in the contra dance folk revival in the United States in the mid to late 20th century.
Early life and career
Ted Sannella was born in
Revere, Massachusetts
Revere is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States, located approximately from Downtown Crossing, downtown Boston. Founded as North Chelsea in 1846, it was renamed in 1871 after the American Revolutionary War Patriot (American Re ...
. He graduated from Revere High School in 1945, and in 1949 graduated from
Tufts College
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
in
Medford, receiving degrees in
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
and
chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
. He worked as pharmacist at Richardson Drug in
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the conflu ...
, for many years. He retired after 35 years as a pharmacist and moved to
Wiscasset, Maine
Wiscasset is a New England town, town in and the county seat, seat of Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The municipality is located in the state of Maine's Mid Coast region. The population was 3,742 as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...
, in 1989. He died November 18, 1995, at the age of 67.
Dance career
Sannella devoted much of his adult life to traditional
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
dance as a
caller,
choreographer
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...
,
dancer
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoi ...
, and leader. He began calling professionally in 1946 and organized dance series in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
,
Westport Point, and
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the conflu ...
, and in his final years,
North Whitefield, Maine. He was influential as a revered and well-liked caller, as a choreographer through his social dance compositions and books, and via his cheerful attention to teaching about the pleasures of joy and style in social dance. His vigor, energy and perspective influenced many callers and dancers, and his dance compositions are regularly seen today at contra dances, 20 and 30 years after their original composition.
Sannella was long involved with the
New England Folk Festival Association (NEFFA) as a leader and board member. He served as president of NEFFA and the North of Boston Callers Association and was also on the board of the nationally-oriented Country Dance and Song Society. His contributions to social dance were recognized via honorary or life memberships in the Folk Arts Center of New England and the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre. His multi-faceted and generous involvement with dance and dance leadership, experience and longevity, earned him the moniker ''The Dean of New England Callers.''
One of Sannella's memorable choreographic innovations, inspired by the three-couple
English country dance
A country dance is any of a very large number of social dances of a type that originated in the British Isles; it is the repeated execution of a predefined sequence of figures, carefully designed to fit a fixed length of music, performed by a g ...
set dance, was to compose "triplets" suitable to contra dance tempo reels and jigs. His 41 published triplets were commonly known as ''Ted's Triplets.'' Triplets are still composed, and sometimes seen on the dance floor.
Sannella was very interested in the history of dance, and he possessed an extensive collection of 500-plus dance books and more than 3,000 recordings. He was a careful note-taker, and his dance cards indicate his opinion of the best tunes to go with each dance. His archive consisting of published materials, 50 boxes of personal papers and his dance cards, invaluable to any American folk-dance researcher or present-day caller, is now in the possession of the
University of New Hampshire
The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...
special collection entitled the ''New Hampshire Library of Traditional Music & Dance.''
UNH New Hampshire Library of Traditional Music and Dance
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Publications
*
*
*
*
References
External links
* University of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Library of Traditional Music & Dance
Ted Sannella
* David Smukler'
Index of Ted Sannella's published dances
* The annotated bibliography fo
Ted Sannella's ''Swing the Next''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sannella, Ted
American choreographers
Folk dancers
People from Revere, Massachusetts
1928 births
1995 deaths
People from Wiscasset, Maine
Dancers from Massachusetts
20th-century American dancers
Contra dance callers