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Bruce Taylor
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Bruce Taylor was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was educated in Oregon and Washington, and was in Germany in military service when he decided to bicycle around Europe and through Scandinavia. It was on this journey that he came to Bergen, where he became so enthralled by Norwegian dance that he decided to settle down there.
Bruce was one of the founders of the Seattle Folkdance Festival in 1969-71. He was active in Skandia, Elvfotter, and Leikaringen. In 1973, Bruce taught several Norwegian dances at the Stockton Folk Dance Camp.
He returned to the United States to finish his education and to learn Norwegian language and culturte, then went back to Bergen, Norway in mid-1971, which became his hometown for the rest of his life. Bruce taught a class in international dance and was a steering member of a Norwegian dance group that only performed Norwegian dances. He worked as a computer programmer at the university in Bergen.
Bruce took a master's degree in ethnology with dance as a theme. But he did not use this education in his professional life. Although he had great interest in and versatile knowledge of humanistic subjects, special music and dance, it was the technical subjects that became his professional career. For a time he was a sound engineer for Puddefjord Radio. He then came to the University of Bergen and worked in the IT section at The Historical-Philosophical Faculty, where he was from 1991 until he had to quit work because of illness in 2006.
He was in the Bergen international folk dance club.
Bruce Taylor passed away on August 9, 2014.
Dances Bruce taught include Åttetur med Mylne, Eg Rodde meg Ut, Feiar med Vals, Firetur frå Romerike, Flaks frå Meråker, Masurka, Parisarpolka, Polka med Støyt, Reinlender, Rørospols, Seierstad-Hopsa, Stegvals, Stegaren, Sunnmøres Reinlendar, Varsouvienne, Vesle Kari Vår, Vossarull, and Wienerkryss frå Hardanger.