2025
Steve Kotansky

Steve Kotansky is widely known as a versatile dancer and teacher. His folk dance roots are in California, as a UCLA dance major, and dancing with the Aman and Westwind Folk Ensembles among others. Over the past half century, he has made many research trips to Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Greece, and Albania. 

He made his first research trip to Hungary and Yugoslavia in 1970. For seven years in the 1970s, Steve traveled and lived in Germany, while taking advantage of his proximity to Balkan and Eastern European countries to pursue the study and research of their dances. He worked with ethnic communities in Munich and Bucovina, learning local folklore. Steve taught folk dance in Western Europe and organized workshops in Hungary, Macedonia, and Serbia. Returning to Hungary in the late 1970s, Steve studied with dance master Timár Sándor, among others, and met his future wife, Susy, there.

Steve has taught at major folk dance camps all over North America and Europe and taught at June Camp previously in 1988, 2001, and 2014. In addition to his research in Balkan and Central European countries, Steve has recently been researching and teaching Albanian and Roma dance from the Diaspora in North American Albanian and Macedonian Roma communities. He lives in the New York City area and also conducts world dance programs for grades K-12 in that area’s public and private schools.

Steve brings a lively, in-depth knowledge to his teaching, and an intense joy to his dancing.

Here's a list we've collected of the dances Steve has taught -- in the Midwest, and elsewhere. If you know of information to add to this, please contact us.