Daniela Ivanova

Daniela Ivanova is an accomplished, professional folk dance teacher and performer. She is also a very gifted choreographer and a researcher of the South Slavic folk culture. She began dancing at age 4, learning traditional dances from her grandmother, a native from Shop region.

At age 12 Daniela began touring Europe as a member of Rosna Kitka Children’s Folk Dance Ensemble (Sofia). She was a full-time teacher in choreography, ethnography and philosophy, co-founder of the Medena Pitka school ensemble, artistic director of the Tropanka folk dance group (New Bulgarian University), and assistant choreographer of the Zornitsa University Student Folk Ensemble. She worked as assistant professor in cultural anthropology at St. “Kliment Ohridski” Sofia University, as a lecturer in dance folklore at New Bulgarian University and other institutions.

As a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, field researcher and scholar she has traveled repeatedly to France, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, former Yugoslavia, Malta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and Mongolia.

Ahmet Lüleci

A native of Turkey, Ahmet Lüleci, is an accomplished choreographer, dance teacher and performer as well as a researcher of Anatolian culture. He is currently the artistic director of the Boston based Collage Dance Ensemble, which allows him to further his goal of making folk dance and music accessible to a wider audience.

Since arriving in North America in 1985, he has taught many workshops and camps throughout the United States as well as Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Holland, England, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain and Australia. He has set innumerable suites of dances for the stage working with dance organizations around the world.

His college major was music, specializing in voice. Just as his love of folksongs guided him toward academic study of music, Ahmet's fascination with dance led him to conduct scholarly research into the historical, social and cultural background of the costumes and spoon dances from Turkey's Mediterranean coast. His efforts resulted in an exhaustive, 400 page study for which he was awarded First Place in the 1985 national competition in research on the folkdances of Turkey by the Turkish ministry of Youth, Sports, and Education. In 1997 Ahmet completed a second degree in Fine Arts.