We are thrilled to have the following friends join us for our 75th Folk Dance Camp. You can check out each artist’s biography below.
DANCERS
SONIA DION and CRISTIAN FLORESCU
ROMANIAN DANCES
Sonia and Cristian are known for their vibrant energy, warmth and exciting choice of dances and music.
Cristian Florescu was born in Bucharest, Romania. He started dancing in 1982 with different Romanian folk ensembles and studied with various specialists, including Theodor Vasilescu. Cristian was principal dancer with the National Ensemble Cununa Carpatilor. In 1990-91, he received his certificate as a recognized solo dancer and choreographer in the field of folklore from the Romanian Ministry of Culture and the ACAFR. In 1993, he joined Les SortilËges, a professional folk dance company based in Montreal Canada, where he has danced, taught and choreographed. During his time in Canada, Cristian has acquired multiple skills in various dance forms, including modern dance, ballroom, jazz and tap, as well as French-Canadian and Irish step dancing.
Sonia Dion was born in Quebec and has been a professional dancer for over 20 years. She was lead dancer, choreographer and artistic director, among other roles for Les Sortileges dance company; Canada's oldest professional folk dance ensemble, with whom she developed several new productions. Sonia has toured worldwide and has been exposed to a wide range of dance techniques, including Romanian folk dance, Scottish Highland dancing, French-Canadian step dance and ballroom dance.
It was at Les SortilËges that the two met and formed a professional and personal partnership. They have taught at lí…cole SupÈrieure de Danse du QuÈbec, and have been part of the Artists in the Schools program sponsored by the Quebec Ministry of Education.
In recent years, Cristian and Sonia have developed a specific interest in working with recreational folk dance groups. Theyíve been teaching in Brazil, Canada and the United States, Europe (Austria, Belgium, England, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland and the Netherlands), Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan) to share their love of Romanian folk traditions. They have taught workshops in Canada and the United States and choreographed Romanian suites for performing groups, including the world-renowned BYU Folk Dance Ensemble in Utah.
BRUCE HAMILTON
ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCE
Bruce Hamilton is a well-respected teacher of English and Scottish dancing with 50 years’ experience across 5 countries. He has launched classes, trained teachers, programmed camps, coached performing groups and adjudicated festivals.
A retired research scientist, Bruce is always looking for new ways to understand and present ideas. He tries to weave many threads besides technique and choreography into his lessons. Music, sociability and physiology are his current favorites. People often say they come away with things to think about and ways to grow. His weekend teacher’s class also draws high praise.
Bruce lives in Menlo Park, California with his wife Jo and as many dogs and cats as her rescue operation happens to have on hand. He runs a biweekly English dance class, and is a past president of the Country Dance and Song Society.
ERICA GOLDMAN
DANCES OF ISRAEL
Erica Goldman has been an engineering linguist, a high school English teacher, an Israel exchange program coordinator, a nonprofit Chief Program Officer, and alongside it all: an Israeli dance teacher.
A two-time Brandeis University graduate, she holds an MBA and a Masters in Jewish Professional Leadership and is a grateful Wexner Fellow. Erica is an Educator for the Cornerstone Fellowship, a program of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, and in May 2015, she launched Ma’agal, an initiative to improve Israeli dance education at schools and camps across the nation.
Erica spent years performing with the Mandala and Collage Folkdance Ensembles, as well as many Israeli dance troupes including B’yachad and Zikukim. Having inherited her love of dance from her father, she can’t wait to pass on the passion to her toddler, Emerson. Erica made her Stockton debut in 2011 and it absolutely changed her life.
STEVE KOTANSKY
BALKAN DANCES
Steve Kotansky was raised in the San Francisco Bay area where he started international folk dancing as a high school student. Besides, regular folk dancing, he performed with the Westwind International Folk Ensemble (North), and the SF Russian Dance Ensemble. In 1970 he made his first research trip to Hungary and former Yugoslavia. He returned to study dance and Slavic Languages at UCLA. While living in Los Angeles, he performed with AMAN Folk Ensemble and Vincent Evanchuk's Ukrainian dance troupe. He was also a regularly featured teacher at many of the folk dance "cafes" popular in the 1970's.
In 1972, Steve received the "Rubi Vucheta" scholarship to study dance in former Yugoslavia, where he traveled with Robert Leibman recording and filming village dance throughout the country. He remained in Europe, living in Munich, Germany, where he worked with ethnic communities, taught regular classes, organized workshops, and co-founded the GAJDA Folklore Ensemble. He took advantage of his proximity to the Balkans and Eastern Europe, pursuing his study and research of their dance cultures. He taught dance all over Western Europe, choreographed for various groups, and began to organize folk dance workshops and tours to Hungary, Serbia, and Macedonia.
He returned to the U.S.A in 1980 to teach at SFDC as well as most major North America dance camps/weekend workshops. Steve lives in NY with his wife Susan and their two (grown) children. They co-founded the GUZSALY Hungarian Dance Ensemble and have choreographed for many Hungarian and International Dance Ensembles in North America. Steve is know for his passion for dance and extensive knowledge of dances and style of Eastern and South-Eastern European Dance. Currently, he has been teaching dances from Macedonia, Serbia, the Albanian diaspora, Bulgaria, Romania (Csángó), and the Roma populations from these areas.
AHMET LÜLECI
DANCES OF TURKEY
A native of Turkey, Ahmet is an accomplished choreographer, dance teacher and performer as well as a researcher of Anatolian culture. He is currently the artistic director of the Boston based Collage Dance Ensemble, which allows him to further his goal of making folk dance and music accessible to a wider audience.
He is the winner of Crash Art's " Dance Straight Up! 2004 and 2006", " Ten's the limit 2005" and Boston Dance Umbrella's " Boston Moves 2001" awards for choreography. His choreography set for Budlet dance company won the Gold medal at "Hong Kong open Dance Competition 2004". He was also recently presented with the 2002 Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts & Humanities by ATAA (the Assembly of Turkish American Associations. His company Collage has won the fifth place at the world dance competition in year 2003.
Since arriving in North America in 1985, he has taught many workshops and camps throughout the United States as well as Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Holland, England, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain and Australia. He has set innumerable suites of dances for the stage working with dance organizations around the world.
Some of the notable performing ensembles with whom he has worked include AMAN of Los Angeles, BYU dancers of Provo, BUDLET of Hong Kong, LES SORTILEGES of Montreal, and VINOK of Edmonton. In his native Turkey, he choreographed for HOYTUR and TURHOY of Ankara, ANADOLU UNIVERSITESI of Eskisehir. In 1991 Ahmet joined the Artistic Staff of AMAN as resident choreographer.
From 1974 to 1985, he taught in several excellent ensembles in Ankara, Istanbul, Eskisehir and Bursa. For nearly five years prior to his departure for north America in 1985, Ahmet also served as Director of Dances for HOY-TUR, long considered Turkey's leading folkdance association. Since the age of eight he has danced with numerous school ensembles and private associations, many of which won outstanding awards in city-wide and National-International competitions. Between 1973 and 2003 he participated in International dance festivals and competitions throughout western and eastern Europe. In edition, him and his ensembles appeared in more than 60 programs broadcast nationally in countries such as Turkey, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, USA, Canada, Brazil and Germany.
MAURITS VAN GEEL
ROMA AND OTHER DANCES
Maurits Van Geel lives in The Netherlands and holds a degree in Arts and Crafts and Art History. He graduated as a folk dance teacher in 1977 and received his degree at Dance Academy level from the Ministry of Culture in 1986. He taught at folk dance clubs in Amsterdam and worked as a dance consultant for the City Council 1986-1988, initiating dance projects in schools in combination with setting up dance projects and festivals. Also in the 1980s, he specialized in the Appalachian clogging, worked as guest teacher in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany, and was invited to be a guest teacher at the Rotterdam Dance Academy.
He was employed by Het Internationaal Danstheater, a professional dance company in Amsterdam, first as choreographer and later as artistic director for 23 years (1988-2011). During his career, he produced over 47 theatre programs in the field of world dance for this company. Part of this job involved several months of dance research each year in order to prepare for these programs. His travels have included India, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Cherkassy, among many other countries. His archive consists of almost 900 DVDs, with research material from all over the world, most of it recorded by himself. He has also choreographed folk dances, among them Syrtós Kitrínou.
Since 2011, Maurits has been teaching, often with his wife Tineke. They have traveled to many European countries, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, and were guest teachers at a number of folk dance camps and workshops in North America.
In November 2017, Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, appointed Maurits Knight in the Order of Oranje-Nassau for his extensive contribution to dance.
Maurits first attended Stockton in 1986, as a camper, with his wife, Tineke.
TINEKE VAN GEEL
DANCES OF ARMENIA and INTERNATIONAL DANCES
Tineke van Geel received her degree as folk dance instructor in 1977. She specializes in Armenian dance and works as a teacher and choreographer. Since 1985 she has regularly visited Armenia to study folklore at the Pedagogic Institute and Choreographic School in Yerevan. Part of each research trip was devoted to working with several amateur groups in Armenia and doing research on costumes. Two of those research trips were supported by scholarships of the Dutch government. On several occasions Tineke visited the United States to observe the dances performed by the Armenian communities there.
Tineke conducts workshops for students at various levels, beginning to professional, and has taught classes in international folk dance, Dutch and Armenian dances in many countries of the world, a fact that didn’t remain unnoticed in Armenia. In 2006, she received an award from the Armenian government for her extraordinary devotion and energy in promoting Armenian dance, music and culture. All her research in Armenia has made her a world-renown specialist of Armenian dance.
In addition to a pleasant sense of humor, Tineke is an excellent teacher who can break down dance patterns step by step to enable every student to master the dances and to experience the joy of both learning and executing this exciting material. Combined with a vast knowledge of Armenian dance and culture, these qualities have contributed to her worldwide success and popularity. Besides giving workshops in 14 European countries she taught in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.
The music for a lot of dances that were researched in Armenia had never been recorded. Therefore, Tineke invited bands from Armenia to make recordings in a Dutch studio and she produced a number of compact discs on her own Van Geel Records label, established in 1989. Recently these programs are also made available on DVD.
Tineke has also conducted over 40 successful dance and culture tours to Armenia which have been attended by hundreds of participants from all over the world. Recently Georgia was also included in some tour programs.
Although Tineke is known as an Armenian dance specialist, she is sometimes asked to teach international folk dances because she has mastered a variety of styles and learned from many master teachers. This year Tineke will be presenting a package of dances from various countries, mainly non-partner dances, with a few exceptions.
Tineke first attended Stockton in 1986, as a camper, with her husband Maurits. Since then, she has been on the teaching staff five times.
RICHARD POWERS
VINTAGE PARTNER DANCES
Richard Powers has taught 80 dances at Stockton Camp, and is returning to teach at Stockton for the twelfth time since 1988.
Richard is currently a dance historian and social dance instructor at Stanford University’s Dance Division. His focus since 1975 has been the research and reconstruction of American and European social dance forms, working from a personal collection of over 2,000 historic dance manuals. He is one of the world’s foremost experts in American social dance, noted for his workshops in Paris, Rome, Prague, London, Venice, Vienna, Geneva, Seville, Edinburgh, 22 dance workshops in Russia, and 25 teaching trips to Tokyo, as well as leading workshops across the U.S. and Canada.
Richard has choreographed folk and vintage dance suites for many major companies, including AMAN Folk Ensemble, the Ethnic Dance Theatre of Minneapolis, the BYU Folk Ensemble, Ahmet Lüleci’s Collage Dance Ensemble in Boston, Westwind, the Narodno Folk Dance Ensemble, and the Beseda Dance Theatre in Prague. Richard was recently invited by Buckingham Palace to see the waltz quadrille that he was asked to choreograph for the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth commented that she loved it.
Besides Stockton Folk Dance Camp, Richard has taught at many of the major dance workshops and camps, including Mainewoods, Pinewoods, the National Folk Dance Federation of Japan, several of California’s Statewide Festivals, Idyllwild, the Flurry Festival, Texas Camp, Mendocino Folklore Camp, and Buffalo Gap, as well as many regional folk dance groups. During the pandemic, Richard has been busy presenting Zoom lectures for historical dance conferences and organizations in New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver and Bar Harbor, Maine.
TONY PARKES
AMERICAN SQUARES AND CONTRAS
Tony Parkes has been calling square and contra dances for more than 50 years. Starting in the 1960s, he learned from many of the leading callers and teachers of the day, such as Don Armstrong, Don Durlacher, Michael and Mary Ann Herman, Dick Kraus, Dick Leger and Ralph Page. He has taught at Mainewoods, Mendocino, Ontario, and Texas folk dance camps, as well as at Augusta, Brasstown, Buffalo Gap and Pinewoods square/contra camps, and innumerable state and regional weekend festivals. His calling has taken him to 35 states, Canada, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England and Germany.
Tony specializes in the contra dances and quadrille-type squares of New England and the “transitional” squares of the 1950s, when traditional Western square dancing was developing into the modern variety. Like his illustrious mentors, he believes in keeping these dance forms accessible to as many people as possible. He has beginners doing real dances within seconds, and can keep experienced dancers entertained with a bit of challenge or elegance.
Using traditional basic movements, Tony has composed over 90 square and contra dance routines, some of which have become modern classics. He is the author of a standard text on calling contras and is writing a companion volume on calling squares. Several recordings feature Tony as caller, pianist, director and/or producer. He is a core consultant to the Square Dance History Project (www.squaredancehistory.org), a virtual online museum of over 1,500 videos, audios, photographs, and articles documenting both traditional and modern square dancing.
Tony and his wife Beth, also a caller, live in the Boston area. When not at a camp, they divide their calling time between appearing at weekly and monthly dance series throughout (and beyond) New England, most with live music, and presiding at corporate, civic and private parties for people who are dancing for the first time.
ukulele class
MELANIE KAREEM
UKULELE LESSONS
The ukulele music sheets with the lyrics and chord pictures for the songs that will be taught at Stockton this year are available at https://getstartedplayingukulele.com/
Melanie Lawson Kareem, a folk dancer since childhood is Founder and Creative Director of Get Started Playing Ukulele, a daily Zoom class, born out of the pandemic. After 40+ years developing cleaver methods to teach dance and music in person, for recreational pleasure, Melanie focused all her teaching skills on creating a delightful Zoom curriculum to learn ukulele. The “Melanie Method” is specifically designed for retired folks who have never played an instrument before in their lives. By placing colored dots on the fretboard that correspond to the pictures on the “large-print” song sheets and selecting well-loved songs from our favorite eras, students with no previous musical experience caught on quick and have become musicians. These Zoom students report the fun of learning with the “Melanie Method” fosters camaraderie which grows into a “Life-Style” of daily ukulele joy.
As of July 2022 Get Started Playing Ukulele has broadcasted over 787 daily live Zoom classes since the Pandemic and is set to go on indefinitely. Stockton Campers get to experience the “Melanie Method” of learning ukulele, either as a “Newbie” or player with some previous ukulele experience.
musicians
BILL COPE
MUSICIAN, BANDLEADER, SING-ALONGS
Bill has the honor this year of putting together our house band, Orkestar Unbound. He is a multi-instrumentalist who is drawn to play music w/o borders, that will get people on their feet, dancing!
This year, you will also find him at balkanalia!, World Camp and Kolo Festival. He is currently director of the San Francisco Kolo Festival.
Please see:
for more info!
RIAN HOLMES
ORKESTAR UNBOUND MEMBER
From a young age, Rian Holmes knew he wanted to become a musician, even against all of his good sense and his parents best wishes. He spent most of his life playing guitar and violin as his primary instruments, but also plays various string instruments, percussion, piano, and bass. Rian began studying classical and American music, but later moved to various folk music of the world, mainly focusing on Balkan and Maqam based folk music for the last 13 years. He has a Bachelors and Masters degree in music and performs and teaches music for a living, working for various bands, orchestras, colleges, public schools and private music academies over the years.
Recently, he finished building a home studio for writing, recording and teaching music. His summer projects include performing, recording and releasing an EP of original instrumental compositions in the fall of 2022.
What brought Rian, even as a child, to music, was the feeling it gave him and seemed to give to others—joy. The very nature of music has an intrinsic value, hard to explain, yet hard to think of life without it.
For more info about Rian check out these links:
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=74807400&fan_landing=true
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnpV8sdpy32MVZswK72HSHA
https://open.spotify.com/user/1220329156://
JONATHAN KIPP
ORKESTAR UNBOUND MEMBER
Jonathan Kipp is a percussionist, accordionist, teacher, and accordion repairman based in San Francisco. He plays a wide variety of styles, from classical to folk, acoustic to electronic, jazz to pop to avant garde. These days you can find him accompanying the Turkish bands Nakarat and Metanastys.
This will be Jonathan’s first time at Stockton Folk Dance Camp.
ASAF OPHIR
ORKESTAR UNBOUND MEMBER
Asaf Ophir began his career as a woodwind player in musical theater, performing on some of the most distinguished stages in Israel. Currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ophir is often invited to collaborate with artists from a wide variety of cultures, including Jewish, Arabic, European, Persian, Kurdish, and others. Equally at home with classical, jazz, and world music, Ophir has shared the stage with Miri Mesika, Avi Kushnir, Galit Giat, David De'or, Ustad Mahwash, Rana Farhan, and Barbara Streisand.
CORINNE SYKES
ORKESTAR UNBOUND MEMBER
Corinne is a performer known in the Bay Area and beyond for her signature vocals and energetic performance style. Incubated on the East Coast in the Yale Women’s Slavic Chorus, Corinne graduated to Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble with whom she toured and performed for 8 magical years. Her regional specialties in Eastern European and Balkan folk music were further developed with Zabava! Izvorno and Fanfare Zambaleta Brass Band, as well as countless workshops and field experiences with master singers of Bulgarian, Ukrainian, and myriad other styles. In addition to vocals and instrumentals, Corinne is an avid folk dancer and seeker of village-style communities. She currently lives in small-town Belleville, Ontario with her Ukrainian family, and is working tirelessly to support Ukraine via their non-profit Humanity For Free Ukraine. She will be donating her honorarium to Ukraine.
