Greetings from the SAFDF steering committee! We hope you have all marked your calendars to attend SAFDF on March 14-17. We’ve got a great festival for you!

This year we’re featuring a great teacher lineup! Jose Angel Perez Fumero returns to SAFDF, this time with his teaching partner Elsa Morales Perera, to bring us more fun dances of the Canary Islands. Michael Ginsburg will bring us a medley of Balkan dances. Our beloved Andy Taylor-Blenis returns with her usual eclectic mix of international, Scottish, and Mexican dances. By popular demand, Andy will also lead her trademark stretches between dance sessions. And on Friday afternoon we will have a cameo appearance by the illustrious Mihai David, who will teach us more Romanian dances!

Are you perhaps wondering “Why is registration so late this year?” It’s because of a couple of big administrative transitions that affect the festival. The committee had to focus a lot of time on changing its 501(c)(3) umbrella. (We will successfully complete this change right after this year’s festival.) And Our Lady of the Lake University, which hosts SAFDF, recently performed a major administrative reorganization of the International Folk Culture (IFCC) staff and facility. We had to assess the impact of this reorganization and adjust SAFDF planning.

Some of you might also be wondering “What about those dorm rooms?” We’re wondering the same thing. We’re always at OLLU’s mercy for dorm rooms, and this year OLLU has not yet made any available for us. That may change, but we’re not counting on it. But fear not! To compensate, OLLU has granted us the use of its discount codes at several area hotels. You can see those on our Web site, on the “Registration/housing” tab. And if dorm rooms miraculously appear, we’ll update our Web site with this fact and spread the word as much as we can!

Hope to see you on the SAFDF dance floor in March!