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It is with a full heart that The Red Thistle Dancers announce the retirement of founding directors Jennifer and John Kelly.
Assuming leadership of a small demonstration group in 1973, Jennifer and John proceeded to build a wonderful community of devoted dancers, friends, and supporters spanning more than four decades of Scottish Country and Highland Dance and music in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Their body of work, including nearly 500 performances, an instructional video series for teaching Scottish Country Dance, and production of music albums, concerts, international tours, and general promotion of this art form is a lasting tribute to their dedication, hard work, and ability to inspire.
In 2015, Jennifer and John Kelly were specially awarded the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society's "Scroll of Honour," the society's highest accolade, as recognition for their tremendous contribution to Scottish Dance.
Jennifer Kelly is a prolific dance devisor, and has created many original and well-loved dances for performance, social dancing, and special occasions.
We look forward to seeing Jennifer and John on the dance floor at branch and other dance functions and hearing about their continuing adventures and travels with their family and grandchildren.
The Red Thistle Dancers are extremely fortunate to welcome Fred DeMarse as our new artistic director and are looking forward to his leadership and visions for the future.
On behalf of Red Thistle Dancers past and present, with much gratitude to Jennifer and John for all that has been experienced and accomplished on this incredible dancing journey, we thank you.
Please leave a message, memory, photo, video for Jennifer and John!
The Red Thistle Dancers has been an important part of my Life for the last 7 years. I can't thank Jennifer and John Kelly enough for this wonderful group they created and led for so many years. Jennifer pushes you to be a better dancer and do more. This is a photo from the 2017 Pleasanton Highland Games where I led the Red Thistle Dancer's Adjudication Team. Jennifer expected a lot from us and gave us valuable feedback at intervals during the Summer. She also trusted us to work independently for our practices on the medley. In the end we had a dance that she found worthy of our group and we performed under the RTD banner...granted we performed i…