Laguna Folk Dance Festival 2021
March 5 – 7, 2021
The Laguna Folk Dance Festival
Southern California’s premier folk dance festival! Dance workshops with master teachers, parties with live music, sing-alongs to live music, the famous Sunday Dance Concert, catered food… what’s not to like?
The next Laguna Folk Dance Festival will be held March 5 – 7, 2021 in Clubhouse 2 in Laguna Woods.
Our Teachers – to be announced
Do you play a MUSICAL INSTRUMENT? Would you like to play along during our rousing sing-alongs? Then you should bring your instrument to the Laguna Festival and attend the INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC WORKSHOPS. They will be held in a side room in parallel with the dance workshops. Participating in one or both of these workshops will allow you to play along during the sing-alongs. You can DOWNLOAD THE SCORES and practice beforehand by clicking the button below.
LAGUNA FOLK DANCE FESTIVAL – 50 YEARS YOUNG!
The 2020 Laguna Folk Dance Festival was held March 6-8, 2020 and it was the 50th anniversary, so it was a doozy! Legendary YVES MOREAU (who taught at our 25th Festival) taught Bulgarian dances as one of the main teachers, as did young and energetic AARON ALPERT who taught Israeli dances. There were CAMEO appearances by former Laguna Festival teachers TOM BOZIGIAN and LEE OTTERHOLT. And the National Folk Organization (NFO) held its annual conference in conjunction with the festival, so many dance leaders from all over the United States were there.
The Festival, as always, included dancing to LIVE MUSIC (three bands: Madison Avenue Folk, Sans Frontieres and Zimzala) Friday night, workshops all day Saturday, a very happy Happy Hour (with dancing to 50’s style pop and rock music!) and a gala dinner that evening followed by dancing to live music with “VESELBA”, then reviews Sunday morning, a concert after lunch (catered meals are available onsite both Saturday and Sunday so we didn’t have to leave the beautiful clubhouse where we danced), and again dancing to live music by “INTERFOLK” Sunday afternoon.
Our popular SING-ALONGS were led by both TERY GUCWA and MELANIE LAWSON and the Southern California Lifetime Achievement Award was, for the 6th time, awarded, this time to Dick Oakes, who has made an exceptional contribution to the Southern California folk dance scene.
A room was set aside for instrumental music workshops and jam sessions, enabling musicians to play along during the singalongs.
There was be a display of historic photos from previous Laguna Festivals.
In honor of our 50th anniversary every participant received a charming, complimentary souvenir of the event – a wine tumbler with the 50th anniversary logo on it – to remember this certainly very memorable event by.
And many of us DANCED ON THE BEACH on the Monday after the festival – a very unique experience not many other festivals can offer!