About Me 

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Welcome! 
I am Robin Russell, and I
thank you for visiting my site! Please be patient as I re-design and update the information.  If you would like to receive my Newsletter, please go to the Contact page and I'll add. you to the list!

I invite. you to explore the Store, where I have wool products still for sale  made with natural wool from  Coopsworth sheep, the Gallery where you can find my promotional photos, and the Services page where I'll be updating my offerings. 

 I would love to hear from you and explore any way in which I can be of service. 

I'll also be updating the Facebook page: New Acadia Music and Dance. 

If you have an interest in
"High Flow Coaching", please reach out with your interest for an introductory session! 


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About New Acadia
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 Motivated by a deep belief in the community-building power of music, nature and village life, I founded Happy Hearts Camp at New Acadia Farm in Tunbridge VT in 1995 where I hosted guests and campers and stewarded a 260 acre historic hill farm. 

In 2013, New Acadia Farm was relocated to Randolph Center, VT in the geographical heart of Vermont, and provided a more simple and nurturing home for teaching, studio and creative work, hosting guests and co-stewarding the agricultural landscape of the local community with neighboring farmers.  As I began teaching music from my home studio more regularly and leading dances more regionally,  I re-named the business New Acadia Music and Dance. 

In 2020, the farm was sold. I took to the nomadic lifestyle -teaching, performing and calling community dances in towns and villages throughout New England.  In 2022, I moved to Sarasota, FL to be nearer my children and their growing families. 

New Acadia continues on as a spirited endeavor to carry on the cultural heritage and wisdom traditions while evolving and adapting to a rapidly changing world. 

The name "Acadia" was inspired by the intimate relationship I developed with the historic farm in Tunbridge - once a 500 acre farm in a region that many felt energetically and geographically akin to the Celtic lands of Ireland and Scotland. In a several year search for a word to describe it, the fragmented stories of the Acadian people who were deported from their settlement in New Brunswick in a genocide attempt by the British were being pieced back together by ethnomusicologists and historians. People's who claimed this heritage began to have a voice and find each other.  The heart-breaking story of their fragmentation is expressed through the poetic tale "Evangeline" penned by Longfellow, yet the true stories were lost through generations of hiding a unique identity formed at that settlement in present-day Canada. 

 The origins of the word "Acadia" can be found here: 
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/history-of-acadia#:~:text=Acadia%27s%20naming%20(Acadie)%20may%20also,refers%20to%20a%20fertile%20land.

In the years that followed while living there, and then moving to Randolph, I delved more deeply into my own English heritage, as well as my Irish and Scottish roots. What I discovered was an ancestry that interestingly was not shared with the Acadians, but my ancestors would have been neighbors and shared in the early settlement heritage of people's inhabiting those regions. The multi-cultural blend of new settlers are one but hundreds of stories throughout human history that demonstrate the evolution of languages, music and culture to become something "new". 

What has fascinated me most on this journey of past to present is the transporting nature of music and dance to carry our stories, share them, connect with one another, and find meaning that is relevant and life-enriching along the way. In most of these traditions, at the heart of a culture, music and dance were inseparable. 

It is this in this space that my creative interests lie. In the synapse....the place between the notes, between the events, between the connections....the essential mysteries of HOW we connect. 

In today's world of scientific research and neuroscience, we are beginning to find many definitions for what is termed "Flow". Flow is a state of being, an experience that offers us a craving for more. We want to repeat, again and again, and when practiced with moderation and connection to others, the overall effect is one of bonding, of increasing the capacity for love, kindness, empathy and productivity, and offers us experiences of joy.

Flow can be found in nature, in story-telling, in music and in dancing. The is the purpose of New Acadia Music and Dance....to educate, facilitate, and participate in the Flow and restore, re-balance, and sustain states of well-being. 

This I know - that my Soul is happiest and most free when dancing. I love sharing this joy and happiness with others.

 "Robin brings to her dance leadership a contagious enthusiasm and passion for the joy of movement to music, along with a respect for the unique musical soul of individuals and the diversity of socio-cultural expression.  Whatever the dance figures – be it square dance, long-lines, contras, couples or circles – Russell’s love of dance shines through"
 


aps from the Mi'kmaq word for camp, or “Algatig”. Alternatively, from the Indigenous term “Quoddy” which refers to a fertile land.

Co-Creativity
how we can work together

Flow - that's the goal. Well-being. 

The fluidity of inner and outer work is what I enjoy most when collaborating with other's to manifest a common vision. I believe we are truly better together.

I call this Participatory Creativity. In this space, I will talking more about what that looks like with different audiences, clients and students.