The Teaching Staff

Armin Busse

Armin Busse started his dancing, and then teaching, in Germany with international folk dancing, Scottish Country Dancing and German folk dancing. Other forms of dancing followed suit. He has both attended and taught at workshops throughout Europe, which brought him in contact with the more global scene of Scottish Country Dancers.

Since moving to the Bay Area, Armin has been enjoying teaching together with the other teachers of the Mountain View class for over 10 years--though being asked how long he has been teaching, he might simply say "a few years," even though "a few decades" would be more accurate. Armin's teaching philosophy is that "dancing is more about having fun and dancing better (i.e. having more fun) through improved technique."

In addition to teaching the Mountain View class, Armin is also a regular teacher of the Campbell class (currently also located in San Jose) and recently co-tutored the successful teacher candidates class for the RSCDS San Francisco Branch. Along with his teaching schedule, Armin is also a longtime member of the Red Thistle Dancers, with whom he has performed extensively and toured both the Czech Republic and Skandinavia, and enjoys playing rhythm with a Scottish Country Dance band in San Jose.

Outside of dancing, Armin enjoys his work and believes that a successful work life provides additional experience and training to be a better community member.

Denise Babin

Denise started dancing in 1999, coming across Scottish Country Dancing in a recreation class catalog at a university in Milwaukee. She was instantly hooked. She met her husband at a Scottish Ball in Ann Arbor and moved to Sunnyvale in 2013. She has been performing with the Red Thistle Dancers since 2016. She started training as a teacher in 2025.

She studied tap and ballet as a child and dabbled in swing dance, contra dance, and Mideastern dance as an adult, but Scottish Country Dance is by far her favorite. The combination of the steps, the interactions with other dancers, the music, the figures, and learning to remember what you're doing does fascinating things to the brain. She feels lucky to live here, where there's a vibrant and active dance community and where there are so many excellent chances to dance to the best live musicians. She loves to welcome new people to this community of dancers.

Geoffrey Wood

Geoffrey has loved to dance since a young age. He started Scottish Country Dancing in 2001 and kept at it through high school even though he was frequently the only boy. When he moved across the country for his first job he was delighted to find a very active dance community and quickly started dancing multiple times a week. He had his first dance published in 2016 and continues to write the occasional dance. In 2017 he started teaching and got his full certificate in 2022.

In his life outside of dancing Geoffrey does presilicon verification of computer chips. He also enjoys hiking, reading books, and visiting his dancing friends around the world.

Alan Twhigg

Alan's involvement in Scottish Country Dancing goes back to the late 1970's and he's been a Mountain View class teacher since 1987. Scottish country dance first caught his interest in college; but the seeds were planted much earlier. When he was a youngster, his parents were Scottish country dancers and often took him to bagpipe concerts and Highland Games. (Perhaps the Scottish music, imprinted at so early an age, stimulated the MacNeil and MacGregor genes in his heritage?)

Alan has also taught the San Jose and Stanford classes and he's an occasional guest instructor with other Bay Area groups, including outreach efforts with the contra dance, international folk dance, and country western dance communities. His experience includes teaching Scottish Country Dancing at events across the US and Canada and training prospective teachers.

In addition to teaching, Alan dances with the Red Thistle Dancers, a performance group based in San Mateo. From time to time he attends workshops and dance training schools to hone his skills and broaden his knowledge of the culture.

Elsewhere in life Alan worked for many years as an information developer in the computer industry. Current interests include foreign languages, literature, travel, history, and yoga.