Balkan Music & Dance Workshops
Mendocino Woodlands, 440 Alger Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437
About
Balkan Music & Dance Workshops offers instrumental, vocal, ensemble, and dance classes, along with kids’ dance and singing classes and a youth band. Participants take part in folklore presentations, panel discussions, group sings with musical accompaniment, live-music dance parties, evening dance parties, and late-night Kafana activities. The program also includes a student concert, an auction, hiking in the forest, and swimming in a swimming hole in a nearby river.
• Ages: 6–18 years old
• Schedule: Two week-long workshops are presented every summer; the West Coast Balkan Music & Dance Workshop in Mendocino runs June 27 – July 4, 2026, from Saturday evening to the next Saturday morning, with classes beginning Sunday morning and running each day through Friday.
• Price: The cost to attend just the evening parties is $50 per person.
The Balkan Music & Dance Workshops are presented by the East European Folklife Center, which was established in 1982 through the work of a core group of musicians and dancers and is also known as Balkan Camp. Since 1977, the West Coast edition of the workshop has run annually, and the first week-long Balkan Music & Dance Workshop was created by Mark Levy in 1974. The organization states that it brings together an inclusive, celebratory, and welcoming global community of passionate amateurs and professionals to respectfully share the richness and complexity of Balkan music, dance, and cultures.
The workshop offers a broad array of instrumental, vocal, ensemble, and dance classes at all levels across five daily 75-minute class slots, and it has an instrument-lending program for harder-to-find village instruments. The early evening program includes folklore presentations, panel discussions, group sings with musical accompaniment, and a community-building auction, and live-music dance parties with staff musicians continue late into the night in the Kafana. The week closes with a Balkan-style lamb roast and the last evening parties, and evening parties can also be attended without overnight accommodations for a per-person fee with advance registration, with check-in and payment at the Kafana no earlier than 7:30 p.m.
Families are welcomed, with a youth band and kids’ dance and singing classes, and children are encouraged to take adult classes according to their capabilities. The workshop provides three meals a day and an evening snack, with selections for omnivores and vegetarians. Part-time attendance options are available, work exchange campers can receive partial or sometimes full tuition waivers in exchange for labor, and full scholarships are awarded to in-person workshops. No registrations are accepted within a week of the start of the Mendocino workshop on June 27, 2026.
Staff at the workshops include musicians and teachers such as Angel Dobrev, who plays the Bulgarian gadulka; Valeri Georgiev, who studied kaval in Kotel and holds a BA from the Plovdiv Academy of Arts; and Bobby Govetas, an accomplished percussionist on daouli and drum kit. Other staff include Christos Govetas, who joined the Rebetiko band Taxími as a bouzouki and baglama player in 1978; Eleni Govetas, who began performing with her family at age nine; and Greg Masaki Jenkins, a second-generation American Balkan folk dancer who grew up at the Balkan Music & Dance Workshops and performs regularly in the San Francisco Bay Area. Additional long-time contributors include tapan/daouli player and EEFC teacher Jerry Kisslinger; Bulgarian tambura player Stoyan Kostov, who studied at the folk music school in Kotel and the Plovdiv Academy of Music and Dance; violinist Ari Langer, who studied classical violin in Ashland, Oregon; and Mark Levy, who created the first week-long Balkan Music & Dance Workshop in 1974.
Last updated March 23, 2026.
• Ages: 6–18 years old
• Schedule: Two week-long workshops are presented every summer; the West Coast Balkan Music & Dance Workshop in Mendocino runs June 27 – July 4, 2026, from Saturday evening to the next Saturday morning, with classes beginning Sunday morning and running each day through Friday.
• Price: The cost to attend just the evening parties is $50 per person.
The Balkan Music & Dance Workshops are presented by the East European Folklife Center, which was established in 1982 through the work of a core group of musicians and dancers and is also known as Balkan Camp. Since 1977, the West Coast edition of the workshop has run annually, and the first week-long Balkan Music & Dance Workshop was created by Mark Levy in 1974. The organization states that it brings together an inclusive, celebratory, and welcoming global community of passionate amateurs and professionals to respectfully share the richness and complexity of Balkan music, dance, and cultures.
The workshop offers a broad array of instrumental, vocal, ensemble, and dance classes at all levels across five daily 75-minute class slots, and it has an instrument-lending program for harder-to-find village instruments. The early evening program includes folklore presentations, panel discussions, group sings with musical accompaniment, and a community-building auction, and live-music dance parties with staff musicians continue late into the night in the Kafana. The week closes with a Balkan-style lamb roast and the last evening parties, and evening parties can also be attended without overnight accommodations for a per-person fee with advance registration, with check-in and payment at the Kafana no earlier than 7:30 p.m.
Families are welcomed, with a youth band and kids’ dance and singing classes, and children are encouraged to take adult classes according to their capabilities. The workshop provides three meals a day and an evening snack, with selections for omnivores and vegetarians. Part-time attendance options are available, work exchange campers can receive partial or sometimes full tuition waivers in exchange for labor, and full scholarships are awarded to in-person workshops. No registrations are accepted within a week of the start of the Mendocino workshop on June 27, 2026.
Staff at the workshops include musicians and teachers such as Angel Dobrev, who plays the Bulgarian gadulka; Valeri Georgiev, who studied kaval in Kotel and holds a BA from the Plovdiv Academy of Arts; and Bobby Govetas, an accomplished percussionist on daouli and drum kit. Other staff include Christos Govetas, who joined the Rebetiko band Taxími as a bouzouki and baglama player in 1978; Eleni Govetas, who began performing with her family at age nine; and Greg Masaki Jenkins, a second-generation American Balkan folk dancer who grew up at the Balkan Music & Dance Workshops and performs regularly in the San Francisco Bay Area. Additional long-time contributors include tapan/daouli player and EEFC teacher Jerry Kisslinger; Bulgarian tambura player Stoyan Kostov, who studied at the folk music school in Kotel and the Plovdiv Academy of Music and Dance; violinist Ari Langer, who studied classical violin in Ashland, Oregon; and Mark Levy, who created the first week-long Balkan Music & Dance Workshop in 1974.
Last updated March 23, 2026.
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