Guest Artists Winter Weekend 2025

Bill has the honor this year of putting together our house band, Orkestar Unbound, for the fifth 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! See musician page for the list of Orkestar Unbound band members.

Please see Cope-A-Cabana and Kolo Festival for more info about what he’s up to!
Want an Orkestar Unbound t-shirt? Buy t-shirts and swag here.
Visit Bill’s website for Balkan Noyz Boyz CDs, Orkestar Unbound swag, and lots of other free stuff!

“Live” on zoom from Plovdiv, Bulgaria, exclusively for Stockton Winter Weekend!

Jaap Leegwater is known worldwide for his fun teaching and having introduced dances including Karamfil, Dobrudžanska Pandela, and Mari Marijko. He began his dance career in the Netherlands, where he earned one of his degrees in international folk dance, specializing in Bulgarian folk dance and choreography. Jaap studied at the State Choreographer’s school in Sofia and Plovdiv, living there for two years; he regularly returns to Bulgaria to update his studies and make new recordings.

Accompanying Jaap will be accordionist Angel Nazlâmov from Plovdiv Bulgaria. He is no stranger to many folk dancers throughout North America. At the invitation of the Center “New Jersey” he attended a seminar together with Bulgarian folklorist and dance teacher Daniela Ivanova in 2003. After that they went on a teacher tour together in the USA. More invitations followed again in 2004, 2005, 2009, 2012.

In 2012 Angel accompanied Jaap’s dance classes for the first time at the EEFC Balkanalia Weekend in Oregon. They have been friends ever since and meet regularly when Jaap is visiting his son Lubomir (who now lives in Bulgaria) and the Academy of Music and Dance Art in Plovdiv. Angel was born on July 22, 1964, in the village of Dalbok Izvor, Bulgaria. He started playing the accordion when he was 12 years old, and graduated from the Shiroka Luka Music School in 1986.

Angel started his professional career as “co-répétiteur” (rehearsal musician) with Ensemble “Trakia” and the “School for dance ensemble leaders” in Plovdiv Bulgaria. That is the same school Jaap graduated from when he lived and studied in Bulgaria. Mr. Nâzlamov founded the orchestra “Slavyani” in 1987, of which his wife Dinka Nazlâmova is the lead singer. They are one of the most popular folk orchestras in Bulgaria, and in great demand at many weddings and local “sâbors” (seasonal folklore festivals).

In addition Angel is a long time staff member and teacher at the Stambolijski Chitalishte (Cultural Center). As a recording artist Angel recorded for Daniela’s teaching CD’s, with his own orchestra Slavyani in Bulgaria, and on Bulgarian TV and YouTube.

In his two classes with Angel, Jaap will introduce all new material that he learned and collected in Bulgaria during his frequent stays there in the past 2 years.

Jaap and Angel’s Bulgarian Zoom team furthermore consists of:
Lubomir Leegwater, sound engineer, and
Dimitâr Petrov camera and logistical support

Jaap Leegwater, website: jaapleegwater.com

YouTube Links:
View Аngel Nazlâmov playing here
Video of Angel with his orchestra “Slavyani” here
Listen to the entire “Автограф” CD here
Read all the CD Details here

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.

Lee Otterholt, born in the US of Norwegian-American parents, lived and worked most of his life in Norway as a professional dancer, dance teacher and choreographer. In Norway he founded and led the Center for International Folk Dance in Oslo, Norway. He was a professor of folkloristic dance at the Norwegian National College of Ballet and at the University College of Oslo. He was responsible for the establishment of 4 still-active folk dance clubs and 3 performing groups in Norway. He led these groups to festivals all over Europe. He also produced teaching materials (videos, books and CDs) on folk dance for use in the Norwegian school system. He has a professional education in choreography and was one of the choreographers of the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway in 1994.

The last 20 years Lee Otterholt has been active on the international scene, teaching international folk dance (“Balkan and Beyond”) at festivals, workshops and camps in Europe, the US and Asia and leading folk dance cruises and tours to many part of the world. He moved to the US, to Laguna Beach, California in 2003. There he founded and led the international folk dance performing group “SYRTAKI,” and he is the lead singer in the BalkanBeat band “Zimzala.” He teaches regularly at local folk dance clubs in the area and teaches his own recreational folk dance group every Wednesday and Sunday evening at Laguna Woods. He is the chairman of the Laguna Folk Dance Festival. In 2015 he received the National Dance Award, presented at the San Antonio Folk Dance Festival.

Check out Lee’s webpage for more information

A dancer, instructor, and choreographer for 49 years, Maurice Perez has worked in modern-jazz ballet with Matt Mattox and in corporeal mime with the great master Etienne Decroux; he has studied Israeli dance with Shalom Hermon, Jonathan Karmon, Moshiko Halevi, Moshe Eskayo, and Gédeon (who was his first professor back in 1967).

From 1978 to 2015, Maurice has given numerous workshops and taught in many dance camps in Canada, France, and the United States, in addition to touring biannually in France since 1978.

In the past, Maurice has led The Harimon Israeli Dancers. For twenty years he was the director of the famous Danse Montréal, an Israeli dance camp which was much appreciated in North America. Maurice has choreographed for a host of troupes, including Les Pieds Légers, the Bons Diables, Les Arlequins, La Couette, Les Chamaniers (Québec), Hamakor (Boston), and Nitzanim (Canada).

Maurice has produced choreographies for the Montreal Yiddish Theatre (Fiddler on the Roof, Lies My Father Told Me, Shlemiel) and presented numerous shows for television in Canada. In the past 30 years or so, he has also choreographed a large number of dances, of which the best known are Achat Sha’alti, Simchat Yerushalayim, Zehuvat Hataltalim, He Rokedet, Yesh li Chaver, Shalom Leben Dodi, Le artsi be Ahava, Hora Gil, and, more recently, Israel Ahuvati, Rikud Moledet, and Halayla hazeh. His dance Hora Gil earned him the New Dance Award in Caesarea, Israel.

Maurice remains very active in the world of Israeli dance, working daily in Montréal and in the province of Québec, where he is dubbed The King of Israeli Dancing.

He continues his immense work with children in schools and colleges, in addition, of course, to his two nights a week with adults in Montréal. The public is also very fond of his two summer night dances in parks, where people enjoy dancing under the stars in Montréal.

Richard has taught 101 dances at Stockton Camp, and counting these Winter Weekends, is returning to teach at Stockton for the nineteenth 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 2,500 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. A few years ago, Richard was 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.

Daniel Sandu’s journey into the world of dance began in 1971, when his parents took him to a dance evening in Bucharest. As soon as he heard the music, he felt an undeniable urge to move. The rhythm captured him completely, and he couldn’t sit still. Seeing his enthusiasm, his parents enrolled him in a children’s dance group. At age six, he auditioned and was accepted into the children’s dance group Românașul, an accomplishment that filled him with pride. This group was based in the grand former royal palace in Bucharest, now the presidential palace.

Daniel’s talent for picking up complex dances quickly led to a remarkable opportunity in 1978: he was chosen to join the adult delegation representing Romania at a world festival in Cuba, the only child in any of the delegations.

By age fourteen, he dreamed of becoming a professional dancer and later a dance teacher. In 1985, after a demanding audition, he was accepted as a trainee in Romania’s most prestigious dance company, Rapsodia Română in Bucharest. At the time, his parents were unaware of his plans, expecting him to pursue technical studies. To satisfy them, he took the entrance exam for the technical university—hoping to fail, which he almost didn’t accomplish!

After seven challenging yet rewarding years in Romania, Daniel sought a more favorable social environment. In May 1992, he auditioned for Het Internationaal Danstheater in Amsterdam. The company’s response was an invitation to a trial period in the Netherlands—a dream come true and the start of a new chapter in his life.

From 1992 to 2000, Daniel performed with Het Internationaal Danstheater for nine memorable years. Here, he had the chance to learn and master a wide range of dance styles, from Indian Kathak and Armenian dances to tap, drum dancing, and Argentinian baleadores to Balkan gypsy dances. He credits his versatility and skill to his foundation in Romanian folk dance, which he describes as varied, technically challenging, and rhythmic. To Daniel, Romanian folk dance serves as a perfect base; mastering it, especially the gypsy style, prepares one to be a truly complete dancer.

In 2003, Daniel graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Dance Education from the Rotterdam Dance Academy, with a specialization in tap dance. This accomplishment marked the realization of the final part of his lifelong dream.