Guest Artists Winter Weekend 2024

Anna grew up in a small town in Northern Bulgaria where the lively local festivities (sabors) and traditional ceremonies kindled her interest in folklore at an early age. Anna’s dance adventures started when she joined the town’s folk dance ensemble where she learned from esteemed choreographers and performed along experienced dancers throughout her youth years.

Upon coming to Boston to further her education, Anna got introduced to the internationally acclaimed Ahmet Luleci’s Collage Dance Ensemble: a unique experience that unlocked passion and appreciation for the greater Balkan magic, and beyond. The 8 years Anna spent performing with Collage on local and national stages were instrumental for her growth as a dancer – from professional attitude to stage presence to polished style to authentic connection with our ancestors through Ahmet’s vibrant choreographies. In 2022, Anna was honored to teach Bulgarian Dance at Ahmet Luleci’s annual World Camp in Rock Hill, New York.

With the start of her own family in Boston, Anna felt the need to be more involved in the local Bulgarian community. This is when she joined Ludo Mlado, a Bulgarian folk ensemble led by Pepi Petrov and Marieta Mircheva. Anna connected with Ludo Mlado’s mission to preserve the rich dance traditions of Bulgaria. An outstanding moment with Ludo Mlado was the opportunity to participate in the Chicago Folk Festival VEREA.

In addition to her continuous dive into the richness of authentic Bulgarian folklore, Anna has been intrigued by the expressive and passionate rhythms of the Romani dances, thus seeking to acquire further dance knowledge of their intricate folklore.

Andrew Carnie is professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona, where he specializes in the syntax and phonology of the Celtic languages. He also teaches a General Education class in folk dance and is a affiliated faculty member of the Applied Intercultural Arts Graduate Ph.D. Program.

When he was younger and fitter he danced with various performance groups around the country and he now runs the Shala Folk Dance club in Tucson which offers hybrid in-person/zoom classes every Tuesday evening.

He is perhaps best well-known in the international folk dance community for his documentary website folkdancemusings.blogspot.com. In the spring of 2023 he was recognized with an honorary lifetime membership in the National Folk Organization for his work in documenting folk dance.

In linguistics, he has been awarded over a million dollars in National Science Foundation Grants and he is the author of many research articles and 13 books, including the primary textbook in his field called Syntax: A Generative Introduction, now in its 4th edition from Wiley-Blackwell.

Fusae was born in Oita, Japan. She began folkdancing as a college student in Tokyo, engaging in a broad array of international dances. In the mid-1970’s, after her graduation, her interest focused on Balkan dancing. She began traveling abroad to learn more about the dances and their cultures. She has studied dance in Romania and Macedonia and has taken additional classes in Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.

For the last thirty five years, fusae has regularly taken foreign dance teachers on tour in Japan where they have taught workshops and weekend camps throughout the country. She moved to Sacramento in 1984, but returns to Japan three or four times a year for the tours. She was invited to camps throughout Canada and United States to teach as an assistant to Atanas Kolarovski, the now-legendary Macedonian dancer and choreographer.

Bill has the honor this year of putting together our house band, Orkestar Unbound, for the fourth 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.!

Let Bill know what dances you want him to play at the Stockton WW dance voting site!

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. In her spare time, Erica is the Deputy CEO for the Bronfman Fellowship, a pluralistic leadership program for Jewish high school seniors.

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 deeply hopes her kiddo Emerson will get the bug as well. Erica made her Stockton debut in 2011 and it absolutely changed her life. In 2023, she taught Israeli dancing on her fifth continent (so far!).

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 Jan Wollring. Jan was the regular accompanist of Bulgarian singer Galina Durmushliyska during the years she lived in the Netherlands. Jan’s music and his band also appear on several of Jaap’s recordings and teaching CD’s.

Tijn Boissevain, is in charge of the team’s technical support, sound and video. He is also a passionate Balkan dancer himself, and professional in the ICT business. A perfect combination to assist Jaap and Jan, and to make sure everything looks and sounds right.

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.

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.