We honor the life of Ivan "John" Filcich.

(By Mark Angel on Facebook) - BACKGROUND Information:

( Friends of John Filcich - https://www.facebook.com/groups/805390721409665/ )

Ivan Petar "John" Filcich (Filčić), producer of sound recordings, organizer, author, and teacher of Balkan dance. Ivan was born in Pehlin, Italy, in 1924. When Ivan was born, the village of Pehlin, in the hills above Rije, the post World War I "free city-state" which was later annexed by Italy. For his father it was in Hungary, for his grandfather it was in Austria, and even earlier the area was part of Napoleon's Illyrian Provinces.

In 1932, he immigrated to the United States when he was eight years old. His family settled in Gary, Indiana, the steel mill city with Croatian, Serbian, Polish, and other Slavic cultures and has had many years of experience with thier music. He later moved to Arizona.

In 1935, when his father gave him an old phonograph and a stack of Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Serbian Records, his interest in international music was fostered. In 1941, Ivan's family left Gary, the huge European immigrant city, to Arizona for Ivan's health.

In 1946, the family moved again to California where Ivan saw foreign dancers in their native costumes. By 1947, Ivan was folk dancing every week in Oakland, California. With singleminded dedication, Ivan devoted himself to the study of the origin, history, dance, music, and language of his people. Then, in 1948, the International Institute of Oakland asked him to form a Yugoslavian dance group to perform at the Festival of Nations. He did even more, he formed two groups – Croatian and Serbian – and he was also dancing six nights a week!

Seeing a great need, he opened his first record shop in 1949 in the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in Balkan and international music and folk dance records (he later opened another record shop in Los Angeles). That same year, he attended the College of the Pacific Folk Dance Camp in Stockton, California, which was later renamed the Stockton Folk Dance Camp.

This led to his teaching of Yugoslav "Kolo" (circle) dances at the camp and his subsequent founding of the San Francisco Kolo Festival. According to his niece, Sharen Skorup, "And my mother's brother, my Uncle Ivan, was in the music business and was into dancing. As a kid I worked in his record store in Oakland. Uncle Ivan started the whole kolo movement here in the Bay Area back in 1940. He had a performing dance company of mostly Croatians. That was before I was born.

In 1952, he started the Kolo Festival as a benefit for a friend and well-known folk dance teacher Vyts Beliajus. Ivan was a credited advisor on the feature documentary film "American Rom: A Stranger In Everybody's Land," written, produced, and directed by Jasmine Dellal. He speaks five languages. To his many folk dance friends, he is known as "Kolo John," a moniker that Millie von Konsky solidified in print in "Let's Dance!" magazine in November, 1957. Ivan, with his Festival Records label, was a principal supplier of folk dance recordings to North America and the world.ohn was a prominent musician, participant spotlighter and copy editor in VDR events. He was a personal friend of mine for over 50 years.

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Paul Collins Tribute to Ivan Filcich:

• It was a pleasure to have known and danced with Ivan "John" Filcich over the years. We first met over the telephone (and via snail mail) as I used to buy records from him and Ed Kremers back in the 1960s. I think I may have met Ivan in person at Croatian or Serbian events he attended in the Midwest in the mid to late 1960s or when he dropped into Chicago Folk Dance groups when he was visiting relatives in Indiana. I was a small-scale re-seller here in the Midwest as I purchased from him for the University of Chicago Folk Dancers workshops we had for instructors who didn't sell their own records. I now recall that we met over the phone much earlier when I worked for the Chicago Record Center owner by V.H. Andersen who introduced me to Ivan over the phone. Andy sold folk and square dance records in Chicago and did tons of business with Festival records. Ivan and I did meet face to face in California when I started going out there for events in the 1970s. But we had met earlier in the 60s.
• Ivan had a wry sense of humor and I remember he pulled a prank on Yves Moreau at Stockton in 1972. Ivan (the record seller) had a reputation for coming up with records that were hard to get or had limited distribution and sometimes making copies of them available to dance leaders and dancers outside of "normal" distribution channels. At Stockton that year, Yves walked into the Festival Record Shop with a hotel cart filled with the BHA-734 LP (The "Red Album") and as he brought them into the store, Ivan was stamping some of his "private label" (blank label) 45-rpm records with the dance names. As Yves walked in with the cart full of LPs, Ivan looked up at Yves and said (with a straight face), "Hi Yves, How do you spell Dospatsko?"
• For a brief moment Yves thought Ivan was stamping copies of a 45 rpm recording of Dospatsko Horo to sell in the shop when Yves had invested beaucoup bucks in importing the "Red Album" from Bulgaria. Then Ivan broke out in a smile and everyone who understood the joke had a good laugh.
• Ivan and I continued to connect at various events around the folk dance world including the Tamburitza Extravaganza where he had a traveling Festival Folk Shop for many years. One year at the Ganza, both Ivan Kuo and myself (both non-Croat and non-Serb) were invited to teach dancing at the Ganza dance workshops in Chicago. Ivan attended my session and complimented me on my choices of dances and on my teaching.
• I was extremely flattered when Ivan came up to me at the Ganza and (I cannot remember the year) and invited me to teach a with him during his session at the Kolo Festival the next time I was able to attend. Ivan kept his word and the next time I was able to attend the Kolo Festival (I can’t recall that year either) he had me teach the session with him. Počivaj u miru Ivan c.

Sincerely,
Paul Collins - Chicago, IL
pcollins@virtualdanceroom.net - 847-846-8139