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Teachers

We've been proud to host many amazing teachers.

Andi Kapplin
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Andi Kapplin leads the Israeli group in Tampa and has been the teacher of the Grapeviners in Sarasota since 2005.  She has spent part of the past 18 years in Vancouver, BC where she is involved in the folk-dance community and is often a guest teacher.

Randy Best
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Randy Best has been international folk dancing for over 50 years.  He has performed with the International Folk Dance Associations Performing Troupe (St. Louis), the Grinnell College Folk Dancers, and Mandala (Boston).  He has also lived and danced in Washington DC, New York City, and Durham and Chapel Hill, NC.

Mary Goodman
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Mary Goodman was introduced to folk dancing at the age of 5 and fell in love. She danced regularly in Chapel Hill and is one of the founding members of the Raleigh IFD. Moving to the DC area, she danced with the Columbia MD and Wheaton/Greenbelt dance groups. She now lives in Asheville and is an active member of the Asheville IFD.

Paul Taylor

 

Paul Taylor has been doing international folk dancing for 44 years and has been the dance leader for the Oak Ridge Folk Dancers for over 35 years.  Paul enjoys gardening, hiking and traveling and lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Beth Zweigoron

 

Beth Zweigoron established her dancing legs at University of Illinois IFD and then moved on to Minneapolis where she danced through a few decades with University of Minnesota IFD and Tapestry Folk Dance Center where she eventually served as President. She now dances with Greenville IFD which she founded in 2000 and keeps up her skills and repertoire by attending local, national and international workshops as often as her other life allows. She will be sharing favorite selections from Tineke and Maurits van Geel’s 2018 Caucasus Tour.

Mike Schafale

 

Mike Schafale has been doing international folk dancing since a chance encounter with it in Durango, Colorado in 1983.  He has danced with the Raleigh group since late 1983.  He also enjoys playing guitar with Svirachi and other folk dance bands, as well as other instrumental and vocal music.  Other interests include paddling, hiking, backpacking, ecology, and botany. 

Ruthy Slann

 

Ruthy Slann is a native of Israel and an avid dancer. She travels in the Southeast and beyond to teach Israeli Folk Dance workshops for adults and children, and attends many dance workshops in the US and Israel.  Ruthy hosts the Karmiel USA  workshop at The Mountain in Highlands, NC on Labor Day weekend.  She was the assistant course coordinator for the annual Karmiel Summer Course for foreign teachers and dancers for 16 years.  She was on the Fred Berk Blue Star staff from 1990 until its last summer of 1998. She is cheerful and friendly, and her enthusiasm for dancing can be dangerously contagious.

Stephen Kotansky

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Stephen Kotansky began folk dancing in the San Francisco Bay Area back in the late 1960’s. He quickly took an interest in Balkan and East-European dances and even began teaching as a teenager. He performed with the Westwind Folk Ensemble and Vladimir Perfiloff’s Russian Dance Company before moving to Los Angeles as a dance major at UCLA. While in Los Angeles, Stephen danced with the renowned AMAN Folk Ensemble as well as Vince Evanchuck’s Ukrainian Dance Group and Robin Evanchuck’s Liberty Assembly. Stephen was also a regular teacher at the Intersection Folk Dance Café and Zorba’s in the San Fernando Valley.

 

In 1970, Stephen made his first research trip to Hungary and Yugoslavia where he worked with the Hungarian State Ensemble and collected village dances in Croatia. He returned to Yugoslavia in 1972 where he stayed for 6 months researching, collecting, and recording village dance with Dr. Robert Leibman. He spent 8 years in Germany where he taught, choreographed, and performed ethnic dance from Central and South-Eastern Europe and Turkey.

 

Upon returning to the states in 1980, Stephen settled in New York City where he taught regularly for the Ethnic Arts Center (now the Center for Traditional Arts), and the American-Hungarian Folklore Centrum. He co-founded, with his wife Susan, the Guzsaly Hungarian Dance Ensemble and was an adjunct teacher at the Hunter College Dance Department. Stephen and Susan continued to make research trips to Europe and became popular teachers at all the major folk dance camps and seminars in North America. During the late 1980’s Stephen worked with top professional dancers, choreographers, and researchers in Hungary.  In 1994, Stephen became a teacher at the Renaissance School in Jackson Heights, Queens, where he piloted a World Dance Program for grades 1-10.

 

Stephen continues to be a much sought-after teacher and choreographer known for his joyous and unique teaching style, and extensive knowledge of the cultures and styles of dance he teaches.

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