Karen Sandler

Karen’s Blog

  • Dance Camp – Once-a-Year Friends

    Stockton CA, where Folk Dance Camp takes place, is fairly close to where I live (about an hour-and-a-half drive). That means that many of my local dance community also attend. It’s nice to see at camp the familiar faces of those I dance with on a regular basis. But even more special are the friendships I renew with those who I see only for a week, once a year at camp.

    There are several in particular I feel a special connection to. First, there’s Tony. My first year at camp, my husband couldn’t attend. That left me without a ready partner for the couples dance classes.

    Not only did Tony pair up with me in several classes, he’s such a great dancer that he pulled my fumbling feet through many a tricky step. His wife, Lynn, is a delight too and it’s great to see her at the Saturday party each year.

    Next is Valerie, who started attending Folk Dance Camp the same year as me. She would sometimes partner with me, taking the man’s part so I could learn the ladies part.

    She was such a friendly face for me that first time and it’s really great to see her, if only once a year.

     

     

    Karen (left) and Nila (right) are two more lovely ladies who I renew friendships with each year at Stockton. My connection with Karen is pretty obvious (same first names). But she’s also such a friendly, happy & generous person (obviously a trait of all Karens).

    I haven’t known Nila as long, but she is a love. She’s Thai, but lives in Japan. Since my son lives in Osaka, whenever I see Nila I feel a little bit of a connection to him.

    Last, but certainly not least, are Randi & Murray from New Jersey. First of all they’re great dancers and love folk dance. Second, they’re glad to share their joy of dance. Since they teach folk dance in New Jersey, they can offer tips and assistance when I’m having trouble with a step. Third, they’re hysterically funny. The skit/song they regularly perform at the Saturday night talent show is not to be missed.

    It can be sad saying goodbye to all these folks I only see once a year, but I’m grateful to know them. And if I’m ever in Japan, or New Jersey or Spokane, WA, I know I’ll always have someone to dance with.

  • Dance Camp Traditions

    Yeah, dance camp is about dancing. Like yesterday’s dances–a smoking hot Israeli dance I barely kept up with (Orot Ve Ashan), or the cool Bulgarian during the afternoon workshop or the tricky English Country dance, Chocolate for Breakfast. The delightful Canon Polska Schottische and the challenging Vira Cruzada. Plus the always frantic fun squares.

    But Stockton Folk Dance Camp also has its traditions. The picture day on Tuesday night where we all shared our finest costumes. The Wednesday night live auction, which always includes a chocolate Kahlua cake that this year went for something like $175. Our squares caller, Jerry Helt, runs the auction with his trademark patter.

    Then there’s Hat Night on Thursday. We all don our most beautiful, most outlandish, craziest and just plain ugly headwear and proudly dance around the room showing them off. What a great opportunity for a bunch of adults to just plain get silly.

    Here are a few of my favorites:

  • Dance Camp International

    One of the coolest things about international folk dancing is that it’s, well, international. Not only are the dances from all over the world, but the dancers themselves, both the instructors and the campers, are from all over.

    The picture at left depicts people who came here from outside the US to dance this year. Countries represented are Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Italy, Japan, China and Canada. In other years, we’ve had Taiwanese instructors teaching fabulous Taiwanese dances. One of our favorite instructors lives in Canada, is originally from Romania and teaches wonderful Roma dances. We’ve had Dutch instructors teaching Russian dance, a Japanese instructor teaching Macedonian and one year one of our workshop instructors taught some Indian (Punjabi) and African dances.

    And I have to tell you, folk dance people are the nicest people in the world. I don’t know if the dancing attracts nice people or if all the endorphins make people feel so good they can’t help but be nice. They’re just so much fun to be around.

    I also love the fact that folk dance pulls young people in and they often become lifelong folk dancers. It’s so much fun to see their energy on the dance floor, but it’s also very cool that they interact so easily with a wide range of ages. The young men ask older women to dance, the young women gladly step out on the floor with older men because they love dance so much and wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity.

    Here’s a photo of my daughter-in-law enjoying a line dance with my baby granddaughter. This is my granddaughter’s first dance camp and I hope there will be many more. There’s a precedent she can follow. In the photo above, the young man in the red shirt has attended camp every year since before he was born 🙂 . He’s a fantastic dancer and one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.

    I think if everyone started folk dancing, we’d have much less trouble in the world. Dance allows us to learn about each other’s cultures, to interact with each other, to see “the other” as someone very much like ourselves. We should make dance, not war.

  • Dance Camp – Costumes!

     

    The general schedule of classes here is four sessions in the morning from 8am to about 12:30, then lunch, then cultural assembly and workshops from 1:30pm-5pm, then time for dinner (or naps if you haven’t gotten one earlier). Some nights after dinner there are lawn parties with dancing and special activities, then one more class from 7:30pm to 8:30pm. Old Favorites with the live band starts at 8:45pm, then OOL (Once Over Lightly) where we review everything we thought we learned for the day but probably forgot.

    Tuesday has a particularly fun lawn party. It’s Picture Day, so everyone dresses in their most fabulous costumes and everyone takes everyone else’s picture. There’s also an official photographer who takes photos of the various groups. Campers from other countries, campers from back East, campers from Southern California & Northern California. Pictures of the staff/instructors, campers who got scholarships, pictures of the band. The photographer has to stand on a 15-foot ladder to get everyone into the image.

    So I took pictures left and right. Here they are.

  • Dance Camp – Sore Feet

    It’s only halfway through Tuesday and my feet are already sore! And my back, and my hips. But I’ve learned some fun, fun dances just since Sunday. Great Portuguese, cool vintage, the completely confusing Israeli dance Debka Medabeket (I swear, just give me another 20 times or so and I’ll get it!), and some cool English set dances.

    My husband and I have been asked to be the demo dancers for the DVD taping of the English dances. Which means we have to learn the whole week’s worth of English dances by tomorrow. We’ve learned half of them, so the rest shouldn’t be too bad. It’ll be kind of strange knowing we’ll be on the DVD for “eternity,” teaching other dancers the proper way to do Cockle Shells or Chocolate for Breakfast.

    At Monday night’s party, I was allowed to take photos of some of the dancers and the band while we did warm up dances (pictures below). After the warmup came Once Over Lightly (OOL) which is review of all of Monday’s dances, with the addition of a few square dance rounds. OOL ended about 11:10pm. I went to bed around midnight, but the after party went on until 2pm.

    That's my son on the far left and my daughter-in-law is in red.

     

    The band, Miamon Miller & Friends. Great band.

    Good friends enjoying a line dance.