We are excited to present the following artists at 2023 Winter Weekend

Andy started International Folk dancing at a young age under the guidance of her parents, Marianne and Conny Taylor, cofounders of the Folk Arts Center of NE. Her mother, Marianne Taylor, was on Staff at Stockton many times.

Andy was certified in Scottish Country Dance at 17 and graduated with a BFA in dance and a minor in Social Anthropology. She continues to teach International Dance in schools through Dance Collective/ Mass Movement & BalletRox through residencies. Andy is the artistic director of Mladost Folk Ensemble, which she founded upon the death of her father in 2006 and continues in the spirit of her parents’ work. She recorded and produced a CD of Austrian jodels printed in a book by Werner von Trapp and produced by Conny Taylor.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Andy’s generous students have stepped up and assisted her to get on Zoom. She has continued as artistic director to the Wheaton College Dance Company on Zoom. In addition, she teaches her youth performing group, Mladost Folk Ensemble, both virtually and returning to in-person. They have produced two video collages.

Andy has continued to teach both her Modern 55+ and Modern/Jazz classes online and has begun to teach select classes in-person. She has taught Focus on Form virtual classes for the RSCDS NoVA and Boston Branches. These classes help dancers to get ready for the physical demands of in-person dances. The silver lining for Andy and the Tuesday Community Dance is that they have been welcoming participants from all over the world, just as Stockton and so many other festivals and local dances have done.

Simon Chang lives and dances in Taiwan, and is a member of committee and instructor of the "Asian Folk Dance Camp". until now.

Simon is especially fond of Balkan dances. Balkan dances and also teaches Taiwan aboriginal dances. During Stockton Winter Weekend, Simon will be teaching International dances.

Wen-Yen Chang started his folk dance study since high school period, and participated in Taiwan "Asian Folk Dance Camp" from collegehood, extensively learning folkdances from various countries with many folkdance masters.

Between 2005 to 2018, Simon taught Balkan dances at the "Balkan Folklore in Hong Kong" workshop in HK. From 1994 to 2018, he held the "Israeli & Balkan folkdance workshop” in Taiwan.

Starting in 2010 Simon began studying Taiwanese aborigines, including ethnic music, dance, culture, and ceremonies. Simon travels Taiwan aboriginal tribes villages to conduct fieldwork frequently, and promote the beautiful Taiwanese aboriginal cultural, music, and dance to everywhere.

Maya Chen lives and dances in Taiwan and will be teaching Aboriginal dances during Winter Weekend.

Maya started learning international folk dance during junior college. She has served as the instructor of many college folk dance clubs. Now Maya serves as senior teacher of the ORO International Folk Dancers, Member of Asia Folkdance Camp, Deputy Head of Pojas European Folkdance Ensemble, and the Vice President of the Taiwan International Folkdance Association and has 32 years of experience in teaching dance.

Invited to our 2023 Winter Weekend, Fang-Chich Chen will be showcasing four of her students teaching a wide variety of dances live from Taiwan. The students who will be teaching are:

💖 Maya Chen - Aboriginal dances

💖 Ming Chu Wu - Taiwanese dances

💖 Simon Chang - International dances

💖 Carol Chen - Aboriginal Dances

Fang-Chich Chen, born in Japan and educated in Taiwan, started learning international folk dance during high school years, and began to teach folk dancing in college. As a couple, Fang-Chich Chen and Ching-Shan Chang were invited to teach Taiwanese dances at Stockton Camp in 1980、1981、2010 and at San Diego Camp in 1979 and 1980. The couple established Asia Folkdance Camp in 1981, and the camp has been hosting annual activities ever since. Fang-Chich was invited to teach folk dancing in Singapore in 1984, 1990, and 2005; she was also invited by Japan Folkdance Federation to teach Taiwanese dances in 1996. Fang-Chich retired as a junior high school teacher in 2000, and then became the chairperson of the promotional committee of International Folk Dance Association in 2001. Now the chairperson of Asia Folkdance Camp, executive director of the board of Taiwan International Folkdance Association.

Alix Cordray is an active Norwegian dance instructor in Oslo and internationally. She currently teaches two recreational groups in the Oslo area plus numerous workshops. Both groups, “Hordaringen” and “Springar’n”, perform regularly and have visited the US.

Alix grew up in international folk dancing in the San Francisco Bay Area. She danced with and later directed Westwind International Folk Ensemble and taught at The Mandala in San Francisco.

Alix is also a trained dancer, including extensive training in modern dance (Graham technique), a Masters of Arts in dance from Mills College, Royal Scottish Country Dance Society teacher certification, and university work in Norwegian dance in Norway.

She moved to Norway in 1975, where she has gradually focused more and more on Norwegian dance. Starting in 1977, she has often toured the US teaching Norwegian dance, including several appearances at Stockton Folk Dance Camp. In recent years, she has taught Norwegian dances to enthusiasts in many countries including the USA, Canada, Great Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia.

Roo Lester began folk dancing as part of rainy-day phys ed at school and hasn’t stopped since. A college folk dance class subsequently inspired her to pursue and complete a Master of Arts in Dance Ethnology from UCLA; she later turned toward a specialty in Scandinavian dance after taking a class in Norwegian folk dancing from Ingvar and Jofrid Sodal.   

Since 1983, Roo has traveled extensively in Norway and Sweden, studying dance and participating in dance and music festivals, competitions and other events. Known in Scandinavia for her keen interest and knowledge of music, dance and cultural traditions, she has served as the American coordinator for several dance and music camps in Sweden and Norway. As a dance educator and ethnologist, Roo has taught Scandinavian dancing throughout the U.S. and beyond for many years and has published a number of articles on Norwegian dances, as well as a guide to Scandinavian Dance Basics. 

Roo's life work in dance has taken many interesting twists and turns, from teaching folk dance in the Los Angeles area public schools, to a 3-month research trip to Spain to study Basque dance. Roo was a director of Barátság Hungarian Music and Dance Camp, and for over 20 years has served as a director of Scandia Camp Mendocino. She had a stint in the television industry working on an episode of M*A*S*H called "Inga." During the pandemic, Roo has worked with dance in a variety of ways over Zoom, both as a teacher and assisting other dance programs to reach widespread, house-bound audiences.

When she is not traveling, Roo lives in the southwestern suburbs of the Chicago metropolitan area with her husband and frequent dance partner, Larry Harding.

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, he 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.

His college major was music, specializing in voice. Just as his love of folksongs guided him toward academic study of music, Ahmet's fascination with dance led him to conduct scholarly research into the historical, social and cultural background of the costumes and spoon dances from Turkey's Mediterranean coast. His efforts resulted in an exhaustive, 400 page study for which he was awarded First Place in the 1985 national competition in research on the folkdances of Turkey by the Turkish ministry of Youth, Sports, and Education. In 1997 Ahmet completed a second degree in Fine Arts.

He is an adjudicator at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod held yearly in Wales.

He is currently the Artistic Director of Collage Dance Ensemble and served as an International Art Director of "Outside the Box" International Arts Festival in 2015 in Boston.

Gergana Panova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and graduated from the National High School for Dance in Sofia, the Academy for Music and Dance Pedagogy in Plovdiv, the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen and the Technical University of Dortmund. She received her D.Sc. in cultural philosophy and communicative sciences with special awards in Germany and a Habilitation in ethnomusicology from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). 

From 1988 to 1994 she choreographed and was a solo dancer with the National Ensemble of Bulgaria “Philip Koutev”, while also working with children and youth doing stage performances and establishing dance therapy for children in Sofia. She also co-founded the Theater Department of the New Bulgarian University and still works with the Theatre Total in Bochum, Germany. 

Gergana devoted herself to the research of folk dance traditions, and for 23 years, she directed the Dance Archive and the Ethnochoreology Department at the Institute for Art Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) in Sofia. Currently she is professor for International Dances at the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen, Germany and still a member of the BAS.

Gergana has published over 70 articles and two books on various aspects of Bulgarian traditional dance, ethnology and non-verbal communication and has lectured at numerous universities in Europe, Asia, South and North America. She has initiated theatre and dance therapy projects in different European countries, leads dance courses for refugees and locals in Germany and has taught over 300 Bulgarian and international folk dance workshops in many countries around the world.

Gergana is trained as a folk dance pedagogue, stage performer and director, contemporary dance choreographer, ethnologist, Laban notator, cultural anthropologist, philosopher and expert of intercultural communication.

Her special interest are the chances and challenges of the contemporary multicultural societies, and these were the main topics of her Fulbright research and teaching project on dance at the UCLA in 2016.

Since April 2022 she works in the strategic overhead of the new State Programm for Management of Communal Integration in Oberhausen, Germany.

She visited Stockton Folk Dance Camp in 2016 during her Fulbright project with UCLA and was a faculty member in 2019 and in 2021 (the winter edition). 

Richard 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

Emily Saletan’s biography can be found below as she is also part of this year’s Orkestar Unbound.

Check out Richard Power’s website for more info.

Ming Chu Wu lives and dances in Taiwan and will be teaching dances from Taiwan

Since 1981，he has been learning world folk dances. He has served as a club instructor in many universities in southern Taiwan and also served as the president of the famous folk dance group "Happy Dancers" in Kaohsiung

He has been teaching folk dance for more than 35years and is currently a member and teacher of Asian Folk Dance Camp, and an experienced teacher of Happy Dancers.

PLUS OUR AMAZING WINTER WEEKEND BAND

💖 FEATURING (with more to be announced)💖

Bill has the honor this year of putting together our house band, Orkestar Unbound, for the third year in a row! Bill is a multi-instrumentalist who is drawn to play music w/o borders, that will get people on their feet, dancing!

Orkestar Unbound will once again be hanging out together at the Cope-a-cabana, eating, drinking, talking and best of all, getting to play music for your dancing pleasure, live!

I do have to add, I’d much rather be playing music for you or dancing with you right now, rather than writing another bio!

Please see Cope-a-cabana and Kolo Festival for more info about what he’s up to!

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.

Check out Asaf’s website.