We had a great turnout for our first class!

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We had 17 participants attending our folk dance class today!

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN JOINING US, NOW IS THE TIME! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WITH FOLK DANCING. CLASSES ARE CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH. BELOW ARE SOME PRELIMINARY INFORMATION ABOUT OUR REHEARSALS.

DATES:

  • Our rehearsals are held every Tuesday evening at 7: 30PM - 9:15PM (unless otherwise notified)
    Registration Fee: $60. ($40 for students).

  • We use the cheddar up app to collect payments. This fee covers our studio, tax and insurance expenses. Our instructor Mehmet Unal is volunteer instructor. We take turns leading the class per his direction at times when he is not available.

LOCATION:

  • Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, 2704 Alcatraz Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705

CLASS STRUCTURE:

    • 10 min - Warm-up

    • 30 min - Practicing Previously learned Dances

    • 10 min -Break

    • 30 min- Learning New Dance (Trakya region for Spring 2020)

    • 10 min - stretching

CLASS PREPARATION:

  • Comfortable clothing (yoga pants, tights tshirts)

  • Everyone must have clean and comfortable exercise Shoes to avoid injury. No outside shoes are allowed into the dance studio.

  • Bring your water bottle.

  • There is no food allowed into the studio.

  • Use Scent Free deodorants.

DURING CLASS:

  • We have serious fun. This means we pay attention and also enjoy eachothers' company respectfully.

  • Newcomers are welcome, we will revisit old dances to teach new comers, and include new choreography to our repertoire in addition to the old ones. This means we look to our group for inspiration and past knowledge for certain dances if they had danced before.If not we collectively research and part take in the evolution of the choreography

  • Allowing 5 minutes to stretching at the end of the class to avoid injuries.

PERFORMANCE LOGISTICS

BOOKING:

  • We are a team of volunteer folk dancers, and we are happy to dance at events in exchange for donations to Berkeley Turkish School.

  • Organizations or individuals can submit online a document request for booking our folk dance performances.

COSTUMES:

  • BTS provides the costumes which are custom made and brought from Turkey.

  • It is the performers' responsibility to air dry, clean, iron and return promptly after the performances.

  • We request each dancer to have a pair of performance dance shoes matching to the team's footwear for performances. We will share this information during class.

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION:

  • After connecting with the booking organization and getting a clear understanding of the audience, and the event type our instructor Mehmet Unal decides which performers get to perform what type of dances are suitable for each venue.

  • Our general rule is that dancers must be present at 3 consecutive rehearsals to perform at a show