Lee Otterholt Balkan Dance Teacher

Lee Otterholt, born in the US of Norwegian-American parents, has worked most of his life in Norway as a professional dancer, dance teacher and choreographer. He founded and led the Center for International Folk Dance in Oslo, Norway. He was a professor of folkloric dance at the Norwegian National College of Ballet and at the University College of Oslo and was a teacher of dance at the Folk Arts High School in Norway.

Lee was responsible for the establishment of 4 still-active folk dance clubs and 3 performing groups in Norway. He led these groups to festivals in Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, the Middle East and Hungary. He also produced materials for teaching folk dance to children and young people in the Norwegian school system.

Lee has a professional education in dance and has choreographed for professional stage theaters and on national television. He was one of the choreographers of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway in February 1994.

During the past 10 years, Lee has been teaching Balkan dances at international folk dance at festivals in Europe, the US and East Asia and leading folk dance cruises to Norway, Greece, Alaska, and the Lower Danube. In May, 2006, Lee and Jim Gold will lead their second folklore tour to Norway.

Lee has made a specialty of dances from ethnic minorities such as Vlach, Gypsy (Rom), Shiptar (Albanians living in former Yugoslavia,) and others. He is also an expert in dances from Greece and Romania.

Whenever he can, Lee brings improvisation, self-expression and spontaneity back into the folk-dancing traditions where these elements are a central part of the tradition. He never loses sight of the fact that we recreational folk dancers dance because it is fun, and because these dances mean something to us just as they were fun and meant something to the village dancers before us!