Guest Artists Summer Camp 2025
In Person in Stockton California!

Edwin G. “Ed” Austin, Jr. served as the Artistic Director of the world-renowned BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble (IFDE) for 27 years, from 1985 to 2011, and now holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Dance at Brigham Young University.

A native of Laguna Beach, California, Ed’s introduction to folk dancing began in the 1960s when a high school teacher introduced him to a local international folk dance group. Raised in a home where music was always present, Ed’s passion for cultural dance grew alongside his love for the arts. As a university student, he performed with the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble, where he met his sweet wife, Vickie. Together, they have three sons and 11 grandchildren. Ed loves the ocean, lives in the mountains, speaks Samoan, and plays the bones.

In addition to his role as Artistic Director of the BYU IFDE, Ed taught various folk dance courses, including those in dance ethnology/ethnochoreology, until his retirement in 2018. His expertise spans the globe as a producer, director, choreographer, master teacher, and cultural dance specialist. His creative works have been shared with audiences in more than 40 countries. For over two decades, Ed and Vickie co-directed the BYU Cougar Clogging Classic, a popular BYU dance camp focused on Appalachian clogging and percussive dance.

Ed’s influence extends far beyond teaching and choreography. With more than 30 years of experience as a dance adjudicator, he has judged at both national and international dance competitions. He also served two terms as president of the National Folk Organization of the United States (NFO). His research has taken him to the Appalachian Mountains, Wales, and the Samoan Islands.

Most recently, Ed and Vickie served missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in Serbia (2019–2021) and France (2022–2024), where, in addition to their other assignments, they taught dance to people of all ages throughout Europe.

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.

Richard Powers has taught 101 dances at Stockton Camp and is returning to teach at Stockton for the sixteenth time since 1988. Richard has taught dance in Paris, London, Rome, Venice, Prague, Vienna, Geneva, Seville, Edinburgh, Krakow, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tokyo and Kyoto, including 29 workshops in France (teaching in French), 28 in Japan (teaching in Japanese), and 22 in Russia (not teaching in Russian). Richard is currently the full-time social dance instructor at Stanford University.

His principal focus since 1975 has been social dance forms, from the Renaissance to today. Specializations include 19th century American and European social dance, dances of the Ragtime Era and Jazz Ages, and currently evolving vernacular dance forms. His research is drawn from a personal collection of over 2,500 historic dance manuals, the largest personal collection in the world, supplemented with a twelve thousand-title collection of period dance music. Other resources include ongoing exchanges of information with dance historians in the U.S and Europe.

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.

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.

Check out Richard Power’s website for more info. www.richardpowers.com

Emily Saletan has been dancing international folk dances all her life, since she was an infant! Emily taught international folk dance classes at Stanford throughout their undergraduate education, in which they studied neuroscience with minors in music and dance. They are now in a master’s program at Stanford focused on music, science, and technology, a flexible category that includes everything from performing audiology research at the Stanford Ear Institute to performing her own songs around campus. Emily first appeared at Stockton in 2022 as the band vocalist and is thrilled to be back partnering Richard’s classes. She extends infinite thanks to her dad, Tony Saletan, for his compassionate legacy of arts education.

Read more about Emily Saletan on her website: www.emilysaletan.com

Stacy Rose, a long time SFDC camper, is a dedicated folk dance instructor based in Coos Bay, Oregon, with a rich background in traditional dance and music. Since 2009, she has been teaching international folk dance classes at Southwestern Oregon Community College, celebrating over 15 years of instruction.

Beyond her teaching, Stacy is an active member of the South Coast Folk Society, where she organizes events that promote traditional American music and contra dancing. Her efforts to unite communities through dance were highlighted in the documentary film “Take Hands,” which follows her work in organizing a week-long celebration of these traditions in Coos Bay.

In addition to her dance endeavors, Stacy is recognized as a traditional Jewish cook, baker, and musician, reflecting her diverse cultural heritage and commitment to preserving traditional arts.

Stacy’s passion for dance and community building continues to inspire many, fostering a deeper appreciation for folk traditions in the Coos Bay area and beyond.

Stacy will be calling contras, squares and mixers at camp.

Andy Taylor-Blenis 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. Her intergenerational group, Back Pocket Dancers, have finished one video for virtual festivals but look forward to an in-person performance in Sep. 2021 at the Dance for World Community Festival in Cambridge, MA.

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.

Andy will be teaching a unique group of dances from Carpathian Europe. These dances were collected in the 1890s by an Austro-Hungarian soldier who served the Carpathian and Galician regions. He taught the dances to his son, who passed them on to his own son, folk dancer and instructor Michael Protenic. Mike rediscovered the inherited dance instructions in 2009 and spent the next several years reconstructing the figures and finding the music that would reflect the steps and spirit of the dances.

These are primarily the dances of the Carpatho-Rusyn communities, (Prešov Slovak, Lemko, Boyko and Hutsul ethnic groups – although the “Hutsuls” would rather be known as гірські люди – girsky lyǒde – mountain people), stateless peoples too often left out of history. The destruction of World Wars 1 and 2 tore many of these communities and their cultures apart, with emigration adding to the loss. Andy is honored to introduce these dances to the folk dance community for the first time.