Steps Across Cultures : International Folk Dancing Appeals to Diverse Group of L.A.-Area Enthusiasts

What do some scientists, real estate investors and insurance account executives have in common?

Folk dancing.

“Folk dancing has an appeal for everyone,” says master dance instructor Beverly Barr of the West L.A. Folkdancers.

“It’s a particularly good activity for shy people because they don’t have to talk. Singles like it because they don’t need a partner,” adds Barr, who’s also president of Folk Dance Federation South, a loosely knit group of dance clubs here.

Even before glasnost, folk dancing was a dance craze of sorts in the Los Angeles area for people like Barr, an account executive with the State Compensation Insurance Fund, and her husband Irwin, a real estate investor. For the Barrs, folk dancing is a major part of their lives.

“At first Irwin couldn’t even clap to the rhythm of the music. He went from a real non-dancer to an outstanding one,” says Barr, who teaches folk dance three nights a week. The Barrs also attend folk dance festivals and camps and have led trips to other parts of the world on the art of the dance.

Folk dance groups have been active in Southern California since 1946 when Folk Dance Federation South had its first festival in the streets of Ojai. However, during the McCarthy era, some groups had difficulty booking halls and some were asked to sign loyalty oaths because they did dances from the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries.

McCarthyism is gone, but Eastern Europe remains the place where folk dancing is mostly associated.

“If you had the world map drawn according to folk dance, Eastern Europe would be one-third of the world,” says Marshall Cates, an avid folk dancer, who is active in the Pasadena Folk Dance Co-op. (When he’s not folk dancing, he’s chairman of the mathematics department at Cal State L.A.)

Some folk dance groups in the Los Angeles area cater to specific ethnic dances, while others offer a more international flavor and the opportunity to learn dances from many cultures.

“Some of my favorite dances are Balkan,” says Gloria Harris of Santa Monica. Her interest in folk dance started when a blind date took her to the dance group in West Los Angeles. It was there that she later met her husband, retired atomic physicist Wes Perkins.

One Friday evening, she wore a pleated Hungarian blouse, Hungarian boots and a full skirt. Others in the group were dressed in costumes from Yugoslavia and Romania, souvenirs of folk dance trips to those countries.

The style of dancing varies from culture to culture. Hungarians, for example, prefer couple dancing, while many Eastern European and Middle Eastern dances are performed in a line--a style that is preferred by novices who often dance behind the line.

“It took me awhile to get used to the movements,” Irwin Barr recalls. “The beats of the music meant nothing to me. I was klutzy. Dancing behind the line helped me feel the movements.”

Although weekends are big dance nights in the Los Angeles area, a dedicated folk dancer can dance with a group every night of the week. Some folk dance groups are teacher-led. Others are “cooperative” with members taking turns teaching dances, playing the tape recorder and organizing refreshments.

“Folk dances transcend political boundaries,” says JPL physicist Marc Rayman during a pause in the dancing.

Rayman’s wife, Jan, who teaches at UCLA, has Polish and Ukranian costumes she made when she was part of a performing group in Colorado.

“Doing the embroidery myself made the costumes special. The costumes and the dancing give me a glimmer of what a culture might have been like 100 years ago,” she says. “A drawback is that they are very hot to dance in.”

The Raymans met as graduate students in Colorado when they were part of a folk dance performing group. Folk dance was a part of their wedding reception.

The challenge of intricate steps seems to attract many academics and scientists to folk dance.

“The dances make me use the other side of my brain,” says Don Kroster, a geophysicist who dances with the Pasadena group every Friday. “I can’t remember all the dances intellectually, but I flow along with the music.”

Susan Ounjian of Burbank learned traditional Armenian dances from her grandparents, who emigrated from Armenia many years ago.

“Most of the dances performed at celebrations such as weddings are circle dances with finger holding,” she says.

Ounjian says that many emigrants from Soviet Armenia are not familiar with these older dance forms.

“They know the solo dances and those done by couples, but they come to me to learn the more traditional dances,” she says. “Armenian dancing goes back 4,000 years. People always danced at celebrations such as weddings. Men would dance after winning a soccer game. Interestingly, today, at our picnics, women do the men’s dances.”

* For information about folk dance groups and coming dance events, call Beverly Barr at (213) 202-6166.