BYU Folk Dancers Enlightened at Conference

National Folk Organization Conference, March 2020

By: Amy Jex

In early March the National Folk Organization held its annual conference in Laguna Hills, California in conjunction with the Laguna Woods Folk Festival’s 50 anniversary. For the first time, the BYU World Dance Area was able to send 14 students to the conference.

The 2020 conference highlighted presentations and workshops from many American pioneering researchers who began their work in the Balkans in the 1960’s including Elsie Dunin, Martin Koenig, Yves Moreau and Janet Reineck. Students from Jeanette Geslison’s “Dance: A Reflection of Culture” class were especially excited to meet and hear Dr. Dunin, whose work in dance ethnology they had studied in class. Colin Anderson, a member of the International Folk Dance Ensemble commented, “I enjoyed the chance to learn about the various research projects that actually document folk dance. We always perform “authentic” dances and I hadn’t really considered the work that went into recording and preserving those cultural styles.”

Other exciting workshops included a giant lace-making demonstration that the explored the similarities between contra dancing, dancing to live music with the Laguna Woods dancers, and instruction from respected guest instructors at the conference and the festival.

Student Levi Hancock expressed, “The conference and festival that we attended opened my eyes to a whole different community that I never knew existed. The people that participated in this conference and festival were so passionate about appreciating culture and expressing themselves through dance. I absolutely loved learning so many dances from around the world, but even more enjoyable to me was talking to the people. Each person had a unique story about how they came to love folk dance and had all sorts of personal experiences to share about when they have traveled around the world and experienced the cultures that we were doing dances from. I wish more college-aged students like myself could get this same experience to see and experience this community of amazing people in the future.”