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The 11th Biannual Arcata International Folk Dance Festival 2008!
April 4th-6th, 2008 | ||
OVERVIEW OF EVENTS
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Billy Burke has taught traditional dance in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for more than 25 years and currently instructs teachers how to introduce traditional and recreational dance into their class curriculums. The California Arts Project has awarded him several opportunities to increase other teachers' awareness of traditional dance and the arts in general. The University of Phoenix provides him the setting for teaching nearly 100 teachers at a time. He teaches at dance and physical education conferences around California and was a contributing member of the team that wrote the LAUSD Performing Arts Standards and had input into the current state standards. Billy has directed a folk dance performing group, Tanza, for many years and is currently on the staff of the Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks, California, where he also directs the Millikan Dancers. Billy is an author, dancer, performer, choreographer, and world traveler. He took a seminar in Badija, Yugoslavia, in 1971, where he learned dances from from Rezija, a remote, isolated valley just across the border in Italy. He presented two Resijan dances at the 1972 AMAN Institute. Billy is currently one of the directors of the Mendocino Folklore Camp, where he has helped institute some changes, such as, widening the teaching staff to include "experiential" classes in singing, drumming, tinwhistle, and other non-dancing activities. | ||
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Jerry Duke, Ph.D., returns to our festival to teach a yet-named variety of dances. Jerry is Professor of Dance Ethnology and History and Coordinator for the Dance Program of Studies at SFSU. He also serves as Coordinator of Academic Program Review for the university. Jerry's research on dance and ritual extends through the U.S. and Europe, and to parts of Asia and the Pacific. He is former president of the Congress on Research in Dance. He has set folk and historical choreographies for dance companies, theater productions and opera. His folk choreographies have been performed in seven European countries and at Carnegie Hall in New York, Ahmanson Theater, Royce Hall, and Mark Tabor Forum in Los Angeles, Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and the Seattle Opera House. He produced three dance specials for educational television and choreographed for a Bob Hope Special at Hollywood Bowl. |
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John Filcich For over 50 years John Filcich has been at the center of the California folk dance scene. He was the first kolo teacher in California and the first to introduce Balkan dance at the Stockton Folk Dance Camp. In 1952 he started the Kolo Festival in San Francisco as a fundraiser for his friend Vyts Beliajus who was ill. Today Balkan dance at the Stockton camp and the Kolo Festival have become a tradition for folk dance enthusiasts. John was born in a region that has gone through several political changes. He was born in 1924 in Fiume, Italy, now known as Rijeka, Croatia. When John was 8 years old, after his father had been saving up for ten years, his family came to the USA. The family settled in a Polish suburb in Gary, Indiana, a steel industry town packed with Eastern European immigrants who carried on their culture through music and dance at picnics and church bazaars. | ||
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Wayne Kraft and Ildikó Kalapács return to teach dances from Hungary and Hungarian peoples. Wayne Kraft and Ildikó teach Hungarian dance throughout the United States and lead the Hungarian dance ensemble Erdély in Spokane, Washington. They will be accompanied by the trio Jómóka from Salt Lake City, Utah. | ||
