Since 1977 the West Coast edition of the EEFC’s Balkan Music & Dance Workshop has been gathering amidst the towering redwoods of the Northern California coast. Each year we welcome new friends along with old, as musicians and dancers and those who love them come together with our extraordinary teaching staff for a memorable week. Our rustic setting makes for a true getaway. Our programming offers numerous opportunities to learn, and our welcoming and warm atmosphere creates a friendly setting for your week at camp.
The Mendocino Woodlands is located in a beautiful redwood forest near the Northern California coast, 175 miles north of San Francisco. A half an hour inland from the scenic town of Mendocino, our camp has three clusters of rustic (no electricity), four-person enclosed cabins on somewhat hilly terrain with stone fireplaces and balconies, a spacious dance hall, and plenty of tenting sites. Each cluster has its own bathhouse with lights and hot showers. Between classes you can hike in the forest or take a dip in the swimming hole in the nearby river.
The Mendocino Workshop runs from Saturday evening to the next Saturday morning. Classes begin Sunday morning, and are held each day through Friday. Following a review session Friday morning, participants have the option to perform in a student concert. The week closes on Friday with a Balkan-style lamb roast and the last of the week’s great evening parties. We have part-time attendance and evening party-only options available.
A broad array of instrumental, vocal, ensemble, and dance classes at all levels are offered across five daily 75-minute class slots. We provide an instrument-lending program to enable new students to get started on harder-to-find village instruments. In the early evenings the program includes folklore presentations and panel discussions, group sings with musical accompaniment, and our fun, community-building auction. Live-music dance parties featuring our world-class staff musicians will rock your socks in the dance hall, and the party continues late into the night in our more intimate cafe-bar, the kafana, featuring a variety of staff and camper musical sets, from the sublime to the floor-stomping. See a sample daily schedule.
The workshop features three delicious meals a day and an evening snack, with selections to please both omnivore and vegetarian tastes.
We welcome families! The Mendocino workshop features a youth band and kids’ dance and singing classes; and children are also welcome and encouraged to take adult classes, according to their capabilities. Find more info on Kids at Camp.
A few partial-tuition-waiver work exchanges may be available for full-week participants. You may apply once registration is open (see below).
Workshop registration for 2023 will be open in early spring of 2023. Stay tuned! Workshop updates are announced through our email Newsletter (sign-up if you haven’t already), the EEFC listserv discussion group, and on our Facebook page.
Our teaching staff is still in process. Please check back often as we add names to the list! Staff and class description listings are subject to update and change.
Greek Dance
Joseph Kaloyanides Graziosi was born and raised in the greater Boston area. Of Greek and Italian ancestry, Joe was exposed at an early age to Greek music and dance through both family contacts...Read More
House Bassist (non-teaching)
Paul Brown has been playing music for 44 years, studying bass and improvisation at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and oud and makam with Haig Manoukian and Necati Çelik. Comfortable in...Read MoreClarinet & Ornamentation
Catherine Foster has been performing music from Southeastern Europe for over 30 years and has been playing trumpet, clarinet, and saxophone with Borozan Brass Band, Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band,...Read MoreBulgarian Kaval
Valeri Georgiev is from the Bulgarian Danube town of Ruse. He studied kaval in Kotel with Stoyan Chobanov and Georgi Penev, and graduated from the Plovdiv Academy of Arts with a BA degree in...Read MoreGreek Ensemble
Eleni Govetas was born into the musical Govetas family and has been immersed in music since day one. She began performing on doumbek with her parents at the age of nine and has continued to add...Read MoreGreek Improvisation
Christos Govetas was born in the village of Proti, in the province of Serres in Greek Macedonia. After emigrating to Boston in 1978 he joined the Rebetiko band Taxími as a bouzouki and baglama...Read More
Rebetika Ensemble
Greg Masaki Jenkins is a second-generation American Balkan folk dancer who grew up at the Balkan Music & Dance Workshops. He gigs regularly throughout the San Francisco Bay Area with the...Read More
Tapan
Jerry Kisslinger has played tapan/daouli for Balkan and folk-dance community events, concerts, and festivals throughout the United States for many decades and has taught regularly at EEFC camps...Read More
Gadulka & Bitov Ensemble
Nikolay Kolev, a native of the Thracian Rose Valley village of Karavelovo, has been playing gadulka since age 10. After graduating from the National School of Folk Arts in Shiroka Lŭka, Bulgaria,...Read MoreBulgarian Tambura
Stoyan Kostov has been playing Bulgarian tambura for over 40 years. He graduated from the folk music school in Kotel and the Plovdiv Academy of Music and Dance. Stoyan performed with Ensemble...Read MoreTamburica Ensemble
John Morovich grew up in Seattle's sizable Croatian community. Since 1973, he has studied, taught, and performed traditional music and dance of Croatia and other parts of Southeastern...Read MoreTrumpet; Brass Band
Benji Rifati is an American-Rom who has spent years studying trumpet from Romani masters of Eastern Europe. His teachers include legends such as Zahir Ramadanov and Demiran Ćerimović, as well as...Read MoreThracian Gajda
Varol Saatcıoğlu was born in Edirne, Turkey, into an extended family of musicians. At the tender age of five, Varol was accepted into the Istanbul University State Conservatory where he studied...Read MoreViolin
As a Japanese-American raised in Berkeley, California, Aya’s musical influences include iconic American and British singer-songwriters such as Gillian Welch, Hozier, and Lauryn Hill, JPop stars...Read MoreDoumbek
Drawing on a musical base in folk music from the Middle East, Turkey, Greece and the Balkans, Sean Tergis brings a unique element to his drumming through many different influences. At an early...Read More
Greek Singing
Christos Govetas was born in the village of Proti, in the province of Serres in Greek Macedonia. After emigrating to Boston in 1978 he joined the Rebetiko band Taxími as a bouzouki and baglama...Read More
Bulgarian Singing
Donka Koleva is a vocalist prized for her rich, clear and melodic voice. A graduate of the Folklore High School in Shiroka Luka, she worked as a soloist with the Sliven Ensemble for three years....Read MoreCroatian Singing
John Morovich grew up in Seattle's sizable Croatian community. Since 1973, he has studied, taught, and performed traditional music and dance of Croatia and other parts of Southeastern...Read MoreRomani Singing
Carol Silverman has been involved with Balkan and Romani music and culture for over thirty years as a researcher, teacher, performer and educational activist. An award-winning professor of...Read More
Balkan Vocal Technique
Michele Simon has been involved with music all of her life, and with Balkan folk music for most of it, as a dancer, singer, drummer and teacher. She was raised surrounded by music of all kinds,...Read MoreBalkan Singing Survey
Lily Storm is a singer specializing in traditional music, with particular experience in Eastern European styles. She has studied with many traditional singers (Donka Koleva, Kremena Stancheva,...Read More
Kids' Band
Tano Brock was born and raised in San Francisco, CA. At a young age, he began attending various music camps in California with his family, where he picked up his first instrument, doumbek. He...Read MoreKids' Band
Eleni Govetas was born into the musical Govetas family and has been immersed in music since day one. She began performing on doumbek with her parents at the age of nine and has continued to add...Read More
Mendocino Woodlands Camp One is in Jackson State Forest about 175 miles north of San Francisco, roughly 12 miles inland from the coastal town of Mendocino.
From the south, take Hwy 101 North to Cloverdale. Highway 101 bypasses Cloverdale, so take the Hwy 128 Fort Bragg/Mendocino exit (after a couple of Cloverdale exits). Some 60 miles later (twisty road, but gorgeous vineyard, redwood, and coastal scenery), take Hwy 1 North to Mendocino.
From the north (Oregon), take I-5 South to Grants Pass, then Hwy 199 to Crescent City. From there, take Hwy 101 South to Leggett. From there take Hwy 1 South (insanely twisty road to the coast, with the reward of breathtaking ocean views) to Mendocino.
From Mendocino, go east on Little Lake Road (Co. Rd. 408) from Hwy 1
(at stoplight) for 5.6 miles, then turn right on Co. Rd. 700 (winding dirt road). Drive for 4 miles to Camp One. Please drive slowly and carefully on this dusty road!
If you’ve never been to the Woodlands, plan to arrive before dark. Registration will be located just outside the dining hall.
Stay tuned! The Mendocino evening party and activity schedule will be posted at a later date.