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Laguna Folk Dance Festival 2025

February 28 - March 2
$30 – $150

Clubhouse 2

Southern California’s premier folk dance festival! Dance workshops, parties with live music, the famous Sunday Dance Concert, ice cream social, happy hour, and the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award… 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 Tineke and Maurits Van Geel

Tineke van Geel

Tineke Van Geel

Tineke Van Geel

In 1977 Tineke van Geel received her degree as folk dance instructor. She specializes in Armenian dance and works as a choreographer. Tineke conducts workshops for students at various levels, beginners to professional, and has taught classes in international folk dance, Dutch and Armenian dances in many countries around the world. Her main focus is to break down complicated steps and movements to basic elements and slowly ‘rebuilding’ them to the original dance form. This skill is part of her worldwide success and is combined with a vast knowledge of Armenian dance and culture.

Since 1985 she has regularly visited Armenia to study folklore at the Pedagogic Institute and Choreographic School in Yerevan. A part of each research trip was devoted to working with several amateur groups in Armenia and doing research on costumes. Two of those research trips were sponsored by the Dutch government. On several occasions Tineke visited the USA to observe the dances performed by the Armenian communities there. Read more…

Maurits van Geel

Maurits Van Geel

Maurits Van Geel

Maurits was artistic director of the professional Dutch dance performance group The Internationaal Danstheater for 24 years. During this interval, the group performed 47 different evening shows. Part of this job involved several months of dance research each year in order to prepare for these programs.

Maurits has traveled extensively in his dance research that has emphasized the Roma culture and those in the Caucasus. These travels have included India, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, England, France, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ossetia, Dagestan, and Cherkassy. He has also choreographed many dances.

In the last several years, Maurits has been teaching often with Tineke, and this has included workshops in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. In North America, the couple have taught at Oktoberfest in Montreal, Pinewoods Camp in Maine, and Stockton Folk Dance Camp. Read more…

Melanie Lawson Kareem

Ukulele jamming and sing along

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. She is well-known in the folk dance world as “The Folk Dancer’s Ukulele Teacher” having taught at Stockton Camp since 2019.

Registration

Online Registration is available on or before February 21st. Passport and Event tickets will be available at the door.Meals are available to purchase by pre-order only separately on or before February 21st. Meal purchases are not available at the door.

  • Friday Evening $30
  • Saturday Workshop $60
  • Saturday Dance Party (5 pm and after) $45
  • Sunday All Day $40

More Details

Details

Organizer

Venue

  • Laguna Woods Clubhouse 2
  • 24112 Moulton Parkway
    Laguna Woods, CA 92637 United States     + Google Map

Federation members can add or update their upcoming dance events to the calendar by sending event details to events@folkdance.com