More great dances!

Here's a great photo of Bob, Paul, and Steve dancing in Petaluma. We started off this month by traveling to Northern Greece with these dances that I learned from Yannis Constantinou:

• Sofka, a wonderful lively dance from the Florina area
• Tsotso, also known as Aloniotikos
• Baidushkino, a Greek version of paidushko that typically alternates between lift-steps and step-steps, but in 2/4 rhythm rather than the Bulgarian 5/8

Next we'll be digging into the repertoire with these old favorites:

• Sestorka ("Dance in Six"), a wildly aerobic dance from east Serbia that gets faster and faster
• Mogilce, a two-part Macedonian wedding dance in 11/16 rhythm introduced by Atanas Kolarovski
• Koljovo Horo ("Kolyo's Dance"), a Tropanka-style dance from Dobrudza introduced by Yves Moreau

In the Israeli dance class in San Rafael, we've been tackling the complex but so very fun Bati Elecha, choreographed in 2011 by Eyal Ozari - and at the College of Marin we're working on Ciganskoto ("The Gypsy's Dance") which is a a big new favorite in the Bulgarian dance scene.

Note that beginners,and newcomers are always welcome in all my classes; and you can drop-in any time on Monday nights at Herman Songs Hall, 860 Western Avenue, Petaluma or Thursday afternoons at the Osher JCC, 200 N. San Pedro Road, San Rafael.