| Bob Leibman
has been interested in ethnic dance since 1961, when began dancing as a
junior at University of Chicago. He was born and raised on
near and far west side of the city. He moved to St. Louis where he
got MA in Math. He continued to dance and founded a dance group at
Washington U. He then moved to Boston where he was co-leader of the
MIT Folk Dance group (1965-1969) and also was the first director of the
Mandala Folk Dance Ensemble that continues on to the present.
Bob traveled to Yugoslavia
in the summers of 1965, 1967, 1968, 1972, and 1973. He was there
for a full year on a Fulbright scholarship during 1970-71. He studied
wedding customs, translated many articles and attended and filmed a number
of weddings - in particular, in s. Peshtani on Lake Ohrid where he had
attended weddings in 1965 and 1968. He also traveled through East
Serbia and South Serbia with his first wife who was writing a dissertation
in Slavic Lingusitics on the Torlak dialects. Here, he attended weddings
in Halovo area and in Pirot area.
He also did a lot of filming
and recording of music during these trips. He attended the Ivancan's seminars
in 1967 (Pula) and 1968 (Badija) where the teachers included Ivancan, Dopudja
(Bosnia), Desa Djordevic (Serbia) among others. He also attended
a folklore seminar at Ramovsh (Slovenia) and the seminar on Macedonian
dance put on by Pece Atanasovski and Zhivko Firfov at Oteshevo (L. Prespa)
in 1971 and 1972. He wrote the booklet of dance notes for Pece's
first US tour and has taught many of those dances around the U.S.
Bob devoted a good portion
of his trip of the summer of 1972 to recording music of good sound quality
and subsequently released an LP/CD with dances and songs from the Soko
Banja area, including Rumenka, Osamputka, Sokec, Stara Vlajna and Ostraljanka.
He also taped and filmed dancing at weddings among Tosk Albanians in s.
Krani on Lake Prespa. He issued an LP/CD of music from there
and taught dances from this area, including Devolliçe, Beraçe,
Nesho and Grchkoto. Bob did some of this research with Steve
Kotansky and they recorded music and filmed dancing among Serbs in S. Koretishte,
Gnjilane. He has yet to issue the music from these sessions (zurles)
and has taught few of these dances with the exception of Memedo.
Since the middle 1970s, Bob
earned an MA in Folklore from UCLA where he focused on dance and the Balkans.
Bob later received a Ph D in Folklore from University of Pennsylvania in
1993 - although he did most of his work in late 70's. He wrote his
dissertation on the structure of dance in the Balkans - a semi-mathematical
analysis, describing dance families - thus combining his knowledge and
love of both mathematics and folklore.
Bob did a lot of dance teaching
in the early 70's, and toured around the U.S. in mid-70s. He
has taught several times in Chicago and at the Bay Area's Kolo Festival,
and was brought to Seattle by Dennis Boxell to teach his group in mid 70's,
etc. He has taught much less in the 80s and 90s since getting married again,
running a math department at the University of Texas at Austin, writing
a book, etc. But he's getting the itch to teach again and hopefully
will release some more of the music he recorded. Bob has often been
able to drop in to dancing at St Josaphat on Fridays while visiting relatives
in Chicago.
NOTE: Bob will also be teaching
a workshop on Tuesday, May 14, 2002, from 7-10:00pm, at the Serbian National
Defense Council of America, 5782 N Elston Ave., Chicago, (practice hall
for "Sloboda" Serbian Folklore group), Donation is $5.00, He will teach
Serbian dances from Kosovo (Gnjilane and Koretiste), and Vlah dances from
Halovo. There also will be some videos and super 8 films shown. Everyone
is welcome! Nikola Krcadinac, (630)-244-5380,
DELIJA@corecomm.net,
krcadinac@yahoo.com
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