Librarian Dances Her Way to Other Cultures

Debbie Webb took a folk dancing class in college, and it changed her life.

She has become a world traveler and performs in folk dance festivals throughout Eastern and Western Europe.

Webb said it’s the only way she and her husband, Michael Webb, 36, can find places to dance.

“There are still some folk dancing spots in Los Angeles, but the boom time of folk dancing in the ‘70s and ‘80s is over,” said Webb, 38, a librarian at Orange Coast College.

“In those days, you could dance every night of the week if you wanted to,” she added, noting that folk dancing is not big in Orange County.

During the ‘70s, she continued, “people weren’t so much into the ‘me generation.’ Seems like people today are more interested in other things and not doing the dance thing as a social outlet.”

For Webb, folk dancing is a way to better understand people of the world. “When you gather for folk dancing, you understand different cultures better, even if you can’t speak the language,” said Webb.

She is recovering from a knee operation she hopes will put her in “world class shape” for the August, 1991, Bulgarian Folk Dance Festival, which is only held every five years.

“When we go to a country, people have been very accepting, especially in Turkey and Bulgaria,” said Webb, who is in charge of periodicals for the college library. Her husband is a psychiatric social worker.

She said people in those countries “deem it an honor that we know their dances and are interested enough to come to their country and seek it out.” When they travel, the couple attempt to find not only dance, but its music. “We ask the locals where we can find it,” she said.

They also look for costumes, since there are few outlets in the United States for authentic folk dance costumes, she says.

“When we do find them in America, the cost is very high,” she noted. “We buy most of our costumes in Europe.”

Folk dancing is a lifetime commitment for the Webbs.

“It’s a very good way to meet people with the same interests, and we do learn so much about other people when we experience their dance and music,” she said.

They made their first international folk dancing trip in the late 1970s, when they backpacked their equipment and camped out.

“We hunted up the best dancing spots we could find,” she said. “There’s a strong folk tradition in Ireland, and we ended up dancing every night.”

The following year they danced in festivals in England and Scotland and later danced in Bulgaria, taking part in the famous Koprivschtitsa Festival in the little mountain town of the same name.

“It’s a huge event in Bulgaria. They close the country down for one week,” she said. “Peasants come from all over to participate.”

Webb said they became celebrities of sorts since few Americans go to Bulgaria to folk dance. While they enjoyed dancing in Bulgaria, the Webbs, who live in Los Angeles, also found happiness two years ago dancing in Turkey during a four-week vacation there.

They took part in a three-day folk dance festival in the small Black Sea fishing village of Arhavi.

“The Turkish people were wonderful,” she said.

Although they continue to travel, the Webbs still folk dance every Tuesday night at Cal Tech in Pasadena. They have been dancing there since 1973.

But Debbie has other talents. She has studied Japanese classical dance and is a belly-dancer.

Veteran Fullerton College track and field coach Jim Kiefer is in Calcutta until Aug. 5 coaching coaches there on the latest techniques in field events.

“There have been tremendous cultural, educational and technological changes in sports in the past few years,” said the Yorba Linda resident, who was recruited for the assignment by the Indo-USA Commission. “We will not only show the latest techniques in coaching, but also what is being done administratively and technically to keep on top of things.”