Guest Teachers 2006

Meg Maabs & Bill Gooch

Bill Gooch and Meg Mabbs love to dance and include Scandinavian dancing as one of their special interests. They have led weekly Scandinavian dance evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee since they married in 1991. Their dance research, study, and fun-seeking have carried them to many workshops and camps across the USA and in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. They have successfully completed two of three dance performances before a jury at the annual Polska Medal Testing in Sweden on their way to earning the Large Silver Medal.

Meg is a director of Nordic Fiddles and Feet, a camp featuring music and dance instruction and involvement in the hills of West Virginia during the week of July 4 each year. She is also an accomplished singer of Swedish and Norwegian songs for dancing. Bill (with Meg's help) has authored and published, 'Glad i att dansa!', which includes detailed descriptions of about 150 Swedish dances, as well as province/parish maps showing the locality of those dances.

Steve Salemson

Steve Salemson's first exposure to folk dancing was in 1962, when he spent a year living on a kibbutz in Israel, but it wasn't until he moved back to New York City in 1974 that he discovered Balkan dancing and really got hooked. Soon he was dancing 4, 5, and 6 nights a week, and attending workshops taught by Yves Moreau, Dick Crum, David Vinski, Jaap Leegwater, George Tomov, Moshe Eskayo, Atanas Kolarovski, Pece Atanasovski, Moshiko, Mihai David, Bora Ozkok, Michael Ginsburg, Joe Graziosi, Ron Wixman, Theo Vasilescu, Erik Bendix, David Henry, and others.

In 1977 Steve joined George Tomov's Yugoslav Folk Dance Ensemble, dancing with the group for eight years, including trips to what was then Yugoslavia in 1979 and 1981 to perform at the Ilindenski Denovi Festival in Bitola, Macedonia. Steve's first love is Macedonian music and dance, and he speaks passable Macedonian and plays the kaval (although Mile Kolarov wouldn't have to worry, were he still alive!).

In 1999, while working as Associate Director of the University of Wisconsin Press, Steve published Christina Kramer's Makedonski jazik, a Macedonian textbook for beginning and intermediate students, complete with a companion CD, and in 2000 he was responsible for the UW Press' publication of Ronelle Alexander's authoritative two-volume Intensive Bulgarian: A Textbook and Reference Grammar. Steve is retired and lives in Madison, where he spends his time making music, biking, and, of course, folk dancing twice a week.

Larry Marcus

Larry Marcus has been doing folk dancing since September, 1955. That was when he started going to a Hebrew High School in Rochester, NY, twice a week, and Israeli dancing was part of the curriculum. Larry was asked to be in a performing group and performed during his high school years. In 1959, when he graduated from high school, he was pronounced old enough to join the International Folk Dance group, and caught that bug as well. Because there was not an Israeli group at the time in Rochester, Larry started one in Sept, 1963.

In Sept, 1966 Larry moved to Pittsburgh, PA, where he joined the International Dance Group there and eventually became its main instructor for the last 3 years hewas there (Larry left in Sept., 1972). Dick Crum lived in Pittsburgh at the time and used to teach at the International group, especially in the year before he left for California. He even had a course for folk dance teachers in which he not only talked about how to teach Balkan dances but also about the differences in styling between the various regions. Larry's styling and teaching methods today are mainly based on Dick Crum's. Also, because there was no Israeli group in Pittsburgh either, Larry started one in Sept, 1968.

Larry Marcus lived in Israel for three and a half years doing not only Israeli dances but co-instructing an International group in Jerusalem that became nationally famous because we did Balkan dances with the Balkan styling that is familiar here in the States.

In 1978, he moved to Connecticut and eventually became the leader of the Hartford International Folk Dance group, which he led for 15 years until the group became too small to continue. In 2001, Larry moved to Raleigh, NC, and has been dancing International and Israeli here ever since.

And, oh yeah, Larry is our camp videographer as well, as well as the videographer for several Israeli dance camps. You can order our camp video through his site: Israeli Dance Videos.

Please contact us for more info.