Keeping in Step With the World : Groups and Classes in Ventura County Teach Dances From Different Cultures and Countries that Span the Globe

Mirko Juricev tries to be humble when fellow folk dancers praise his footwork.

It’s not that the Thousand Oaks resident isn’t proud of his abilities in Greek, Croatian, Romanian and other international dances. It’s just that more than proud, he feels honored to take part in these traditional--often ancient--performing arts.

“People created these dances to reflect their joy and their sadness,” said Juricev, 61, a former professional folk and ballet dancer in his native Yugoslavia. “It reflects their culture, their lifestyle. You respect that.”

He’s not alone in his appreciation.

Hundreds of dancers attend classes and take lessons locally to learn the dances of Brazil, Bali, Africa, Israel, Scotland, Ireland, Turkey and other regions of the world.

Some take it purely for the dance itself, others for the music, some for competition and performance and some simply for the exercise. But whatever their reason, if you talk to them at length, you will find that many have formed a kind of emotional attachment to the dances.

“I’m amazed and touched to see people who have never been in Croatia or the Balkans so in love with the traditional dances,” Juricev said.

Not that Juricev doesn’t get emotional about the dances. He said he wishes his feelings weren’t so strong at times. As a Croatian, he said, it’s difficult for him to dance festive Croatian dances while a war is going on in Yugoslavia.

Juricev is a member of the Conejo Valley Folk Dancers. Like groups in Ventura, Camarillo and Ojai, the Conejo Valley contingent does a variety of dances from around the world.

Though Juricev has danced since he was a teen-ager, it was only in 1989 that he began to enjoy it. Before that, dance was work--in fact, it was the way he managed to defect from his homeland in 1956, while he was a dancer performing in Vienna with the Ballet Opera of Sarajevo.

It was 10 years before he finally made it to America. Here he quit dancing and went, instead, into computers.

Then four years ago, he met his future wife, Ellie, and Juricev returned to dancing. Reluctantly. Ellie dragged him to a folk dance class the day after they met, and they’ve been going strong ever since.

“The music to me is so happy,” said Ellie. “I went to Greece in 1978 and had my first exposure to it. When I heard the music again I just fell in love. I had no idea Romanian music, or any other music like that, existed. Suddenly a whole world opened up for me.”

It’s a whole world that can be found within the confines of Ventura County. The following is a look at some of the local ethnic dance groups.

SCOTTISH HIGHLAND

“I don’t hear the accent. Boom. Boom.”

Susie Eskridge bellowed out instructions to her Scottish Highland dancers, four girls, one boy, all between the ages of 12 and 15. The children’s calf muscles bulged as they high-stepped, leaped and bounced to the quick tempo coming from the recorded bagpipes.

On this day, in the early moments of class, the dancers concentrated on a step that involves jumping in the air and slapping the ankle of one leg against the calf of another, first two times in one jump, then three times. It’s a move that easily can double as part of a boxer’s training regimen.

“You’re OK, you’re alive,” said the 24-year-old Eskridge, a student-instructor at the MacKinnon Dance Academy of Oxnard, as her class worked on another step. This one called for the dancers to leap, legs apart, and land firmly on the balls of their feet.

“Don’t look tired even though you are. Don’t let me see it in your face,” she said. “Nice, very nice.”

Scottish Highland dancing is characterized by a series of precise, staccato dance steps, done high on the toes. The slapping sound of the balls of the feet hitting the floor is part of the show.

Most of the MacKinnon dancers, age 4 to 24, dance competitively in the United States. A group led by studio owner Joy MacKinnon is currently performing at colleges throughout China.

“You only want to do it if you want to compete,” said Eskridge, who has been Highland dancing since age 11. “It’s ten times harder than aerobics. . . . It’s too technically difficult to take just for exercise.”

Vanessa Campos supplements her ballet and jazz dancing with the Highland form. “It builds stamina,” said the 14-year-old. “It makes you stronger. It’s not like other dances, it’s more athletic.”

MacKinnon brought the traditional Scottish dance to the county 12 years ago, taking up the trade of some of her Scottish relatives, who have Highland dance studios around the world.

Many of the dances have ancient roots. The Sword Dance that the MacKinnon dancers perform used to be part of the victory celebration, after one Scottish clan defeated another in war. It is still danced today, with minor variations.

“The clan that won made the other clan dance around their swords. If you touched the swords, they would cut your head off,” said Eskridge. “They stopped that tradition a long time ago.”

BALINESE

“I’ll never be Balinese.”

That’s Susan Lyon’s concession to Balinese dance. It’s her only concession. Though the Ojai resident will never have that inborn feeling for the traditional dance of Bali, she has spent more than a decade trying to perfect the art form.

Lyon recently brought her talent and knowledge to Ventura County and over the past couple of months has taught several workshops. Last Friday she began a Balinese dance class through the Ojai Art Center.

“I would like to preserve the forms from the villages, things that would more easily die or get lost,” Lyon said. “I see it as a real important educational tool, exposing people to this. I’m interested in bridging the gap between the cultures.”

Balinese music has a quick, punctuated beat, led by the drum and a stringed instrument called the rebab , said Lyon. The dance that accompanies the rhythm is characterized by “shimmering and fluttering” movements.

“There is a lot of upper body movement, head movement, eyes, hands, shoulders,” she said. “It can be very aerobic and it can be graceful.”

Balinese dance has very sacred, religious roots. One dance, called Le Gong Kraton, is a traditional legend about social values and religious philosophies.

“It’s an attitude you have, a feeling,” said Lyon, who teaches a secularized version. “There’s a spiritual inspiration behind the dance.”

HAWAIIAN

San Nicol asks just two things of her dance students. “That they love Hawaii,” said the Thousand Oaks resident, “and that they love the hula.”

Learning the hula from Nicol is more than just learning the Hawaiian dance. It’s also learning the language, the history, and the culture of the area.

“A lot of people think the hula is just getting up there and looking seductive. It is not,” said Nicol. “People are entertained by it, but they learn something too.”

As with other older dances, the hula represents the oral tradition and the long history of an entire population.

“The hula was the (Hawaiians’) history book, their newspaper, their Bible. It was their physical expression and their way to remember,” said Nicol. “They were non-literate until the missionaries came over in the 1820s. The chants and the dances that went with them helped keep their history alive.”

Nicol said learning the hula takes a commitment, not to mention a certain amount of coordination. But to really do it right, she said, one must understand the story being told by each dance.

“I want the ladies and girls to understand what they are doing,” she said. “You’re telling the story with your hands, your arms and your heart. If you don’t feel the story, you can’t tell it. You can’t just get up there and move your arms to the music.”

Nicol, who also goes by her Hawaiian name, Pua Mohala, commonly refers to her dancers as Hula Sisters. But, she said, a brother will drop in on occasion. “I don’t teach a class of men,” she said, “but once in awhile I’ll get men who want to learn a dance for a specific function.”

Quite a few of Nicol’s students are Hawaiian and attend her classes to reconnect with their roots. Others students are just interested in learning something new. She said she usually has prospective students sit in on a class before signing up, to glimpse of what they’re getting into.

“A lot come with very limited knowledge and we try to expand it,” she said. “Many quit because it’s a lot tougher than it looks.”

AFRICAN

The evening started out calmly enough.

There, sitting on the wood floor of the Ojai Art Center studio, sat nine dance students and their instructor, Ayanna, all of them stretching and singing a gentle tune.

They added some soft, rhythmic clapping, some snapping of fingers, as they limbered up for the 1 1/2-hour African dance class. It was placid, even meditative.

Of course, it was hard not to notice the five conga drummers, led by Sartuse, situating themselves along a side wall--a promise of louder things to come.

The musicians soon joined in with a soft beat, accompanied by Sartuse’s pleasant vocals. The stretching increased in intensity and then, suddenly, the dancers were on their feet, lined up in pairs, ready to follow Ayanna’s every move.

Then the drumming began in earnest. It was a booming, frenzied beat that all but moved the dancers’ feet for them. Not that they needed any help.

Ayanna led the dancers in increasingly difficult movements from one end of the dance floor to the other and back again, for the remainder of the evening, barely pausing for breath.

The steps Ayanna teaches are primarily West African--from Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast. They involve head, upper body, arm, hand and leg movements. “The movement encompasses a fluidity of the spine,” said Ayanna, “rolling and pelvic movements.”

Student Rene Price described the dancing. “It looks hedonistic, but when you do it, it’s natural,” she said.

“What I try to make the dancers aware of is that just as the drummers hands on the drum make rhythms, the dancers feet on the floor do the same,” said Ayanna. “There’s a point where they let go with the mind and just start to really feel it, and be moved by it. It’s a real release. . . . It’s really spiritual.”

The dancers run the gamut in ability, but that is of little concern to Ayanna.

“My role as a teacher is to get them to listen and respond,” she said, “to get them more secure and comfortable about bringing out their feelings.”

MOVING TO THE BEAT

The following is a partial listing of some ethnic dance opportunities available in Ventura County:

GENERAL INTERNATIONAL

Ojai Folk Dancers, Wednesdays 7:30-10 p.m., Ojai Art Center, 113 S. Montgomery St., Ojai, $3. Call 649-1503.

Haverim Dancers of Ventura, Sundays 7-9 p.m. (instruction the first hour, general dancing the second hour), Temple Beth Torah, 7620 Foothill Road, Ventura, $2. Call 643-2886.

Ventura Folk Dancers, Thursdays 8-10 p.m., E.P. Foster Elementary School, 20 Pleasant Place, Ventura. Call 642-3931 or 654-1200.

The Camarillo Folk Dancers meet the second and fourth Fridays each month, 8:15-10 p.m. at the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District Community Center, 1605 E. Burnley St., $2 suggested. Students may sign up for six classes at $13. A new session will begin in January. Call 386-4348.

AFRICAN

“Dance Experiences with Sartuse and Ayanna,” Thursdays 7:30-9:30 p.m., Ojai Art Center, 113 S. Montgomery St., Ojai, $8. Call 646-5394.

AZTEC DANCE & MEXICAN FOLKLORICO

El Centrito de la Colonia offers Aztec dance classes Thursdays 6-7 p.m. and Saturdays 3-4:30 p.m., and Mexican folk dance classes Mondays and Thursdays 6-8 p.m., at the Ramona Center, 804 Cooper Road, Oxnard. Classes are free and size is limited (with preference given to students from the Colonia area).

BALINESE

Classes with Susan Lyon, Fridays 10:30-11:30 a.m., Ojai Art Center, 113 S. Montgomery St., Ojai. Call 646-0117.

BELLY DANCE

Georgia Fizdale of Thousand Oaks teaches Egyptian, Azerbaijani, Turkish, Armenian and other Mideastern styles of belly dance, along with the cabaret style seen in nightclubs and restaurants. Private lessons are $15 per hour, group lessons are $10 per hour. Call 498-5274.

BRAZILIAN

Lynn Sotos will teach an eight-week course on Mondays, 7:30-9 p.m. beginning Jan. 10, at the Arts Council Center, 482 Greenmeadow Ave., Thousand Oaks. Total cost is $64. Advance registration required. Call 499-4355.

FLAMENCO

Classes with Antoinette Lopez, Wednesdays for experienced flamenco dancers beginning at 6:45 p.m., Saturdays 11 a.m.-noon (castanets), noon-1 p.m. (clapping and footwork), 1-2:30 p.m. (beginning). An advanced class is being planned. Ballet Ventura, 1718 Main St., Ventura. Call 643-8909.

HAWAIIAN

Classes taught by San Nicol, Mondays through Thursdays, 372 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., $25 per month. Call 495-1774.

Flora Robb teaches Hawaiian dancing out of her studio in Oxnard. Call 483-5810.

IRISH

The Claddagh School of Irish Dancing, 3077 Bayshore Ave., Ventura. Call 644-3927.

SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCING

In Camarillo Wednesdays 7:30-10 p.m., Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District Community Center Room 6, 1605 E. Burnley St., $3.50. Register in advance by calling 482-1996.

In Ventura, Tuesday evenings 7:30-10 p.m., E.P. Foster Elementary School, 20 Pleasant Place. $5. Call 389-0063.

SCOTTISH HIGHLAND DANCING

MacKinnon Dance Academy, 880 Wagon Wheel Road, Oxnard. Call 485-0115.