Laguna Folk Dance Festival 2023

Southern California’s premier folk dance festival! Dance and instrumental workshops with master teachers, parties with live music, the famous Sunday Dance Concert, catered food… what’s not to like? The Laguna Festival is one of Southern California’s premier annual folk dance events. You can bet all your friends will be there. You should be too!

Instructors

We are proud to announce that our teachers this year are:

Asya Gorska

Asya Gorska is a Ukrainian-born artist. She is a choreographer and singer. As a singer she performs a variety of musical styles in different languages. She is also a social worker, a volunteer and a community activist. Asya has almost 25 years of dance experience in various dance forms, such as: folk stage, ballet, Bailey dance, and ballroom dance, modern. For the past 12 years, Asya has been the Art director and choreographer of the Ukrainian ensemble “Chervona Kalyna” in Los Angeles. The Ukrainian dance ensemble “Chervona Kalyna” was founded in 1997. Their main goal is to preserve, educate and convey to the modern generation of Ukrainians in America: the history, culture, features and regional origin of Ukrainian dance. Another mission of the ensemble is to introduce and popularize Ukrainian culture and traditions among Americans and immigrants from other countries.
In addition, “Chervona Kalyna” actively participates in various international festivals and concerts and in many charity events supporting Ukrainians in this challenging time.

Svitlana Selska

Svitlana Selska is from a small village in the region of Ternopil (Western Ukraine). She started studying Ukrainian folk dance at the Terebovlya College of Art. Later Svitlana joined the student ensemble “Ternotsvit” and also danced in the regional amateur Ukrainian folk dance ensemble “Chervona Kalyna” in Ternopil. One year later she came to Chicago where she joined the ensemble “Hromovytsia.” She then started to work as a dance teacher in the “Vyshyvanka” school of dance and continued teaching there for 8 years. Svitlana also danced in the ensemble “Horlytsia” and the “Mazurdance” school. In 2020 she moved to Orange county and in 2021 she joined the ensemble Chervona Kalyna in LA.

Besides Ukrainian folk dance, Svitlana has 4 years experience in salsa dance and she is also trained in ballet, ballroom, modern and other styles.

Sonia Dion and Cristian Florescu

Romanian Folk Dance

Cristian and Sonia have been guest performers with the Collage International Dance Ensemble of Boston, have been regular teachers at l’ École supérieure de danse du Québec and have been selected to be part of the Artists in the Schools program sponsored by the Québec Ministry of Education. In recent years, they have developed a specific interest in working with recreational folk dance groups in Canada and the United States, Mexico and Brazil. They have been teaching in Europa (Austria, England, Poland, Germany, Italy,  Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands, France) in Asia (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia) and Australia  to share their love of Romanian folk traditions.

Bill Cope

Sing-alongs & Multi-Instrumentalist

Bill has the honor this year of leading our sing-a-long sessions! For the few folks on the planet who don’t already know too much about him, he is a multi-instrumentalist who is drawn to play music w/o borders, that will get people on their feet, dancing! And in the regard, he hopes to sit in with some of the live bands during our event!

Melanie Lawson Kareem

Ukulele playing and jamming

Returning to The Laguna Folk Dance Festival, Melanie Lawson Kareem, a folk dancer since childhood, shares her lifetime of enjoying music with others by teaching ukulele on Zoom, everyday. She is well-known in the folk dance world as “The Folk Dancer’s Ukulele Teacher” having taught at Stockton Camp since 2019.

Hotel

Ayres Hotel within walking distance of festival. Phone (949) 588-0131 and ask for “Laguna Woods” discount. Available with the local operator only. (Do not use 800#). For other options, including assistance regarding roommates, additional hotels or in-home hosts, please contact Shana at ms.winokur@yahoo.com.

Covid Policy

At this time we have no restrictions. People can decide their level of risk and wear a mask or not and/or take other measures as they deem appropriate to their particular situation. Please do not attend the Festival if you are feeling unwell. If you are feeling unwell, stay home and contact us for a refund.

More Details

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