Mission

The mission of the East European Folklife Center (EEFC) is to promote, celebrate, and educate the public about traditional and traditionally based music, dance, and cultures of the Balkans.

We envision a global community of passionate amateurs and professionals, sharing what we know and love about Balkan music, dance, and folklore. By inspiring and supporting research and study in these fields, we preserve both historical and living traditions for future generations.

What We Do

The EEFC is a nearly 40-year old community-based organization at a pivotal moment in our history, with the first-ever executive director in place. She is working hand-in-hand with the board to create the right strategies for stabilizing the infrastructure and existing programs, while developing new programing and diversifying revenue. We have three part-time staff people, plus many volunteers. We want to expand our reach through new programs, do a better job at reaching people with what we already do, and finally, build our infrastructure to support these goals.

Our programs fall into three categories:
1) Workshops -- two week-long, immersive Balkan Music & Dance camps, one in Mendocino, CA, and the other in the Catskills in NY. Open to total beginners, happy amateurs, professionally-trained musicians, families, basically anyone wanting to delve deep.
2) Resources -- We have an active listserv that sees daily traffic from experts and newbies alike, on all sorts of detail within the culture we're interested in. This is open to the public, fully archived, and truly, an amazing resource. We also publish a range of articles about the people, places, and passions of our world.
3) Community -- The EEFC's "family" includes couples who met and married at "camp,"and dozens of children raised in the community. We also bring people together over what is shared in the famously fractured Balkans. We're delighted that this summer, while on visiting home, a Bosnian-American musician will travel to Serbia to play a gig with a Serbian musician whom he met at our camp last summer. We also bring Americans together with ethnic natives, and we bring ethnic natives closer to culture that is sometimes unapproachable in the home country.

We also know how to have fun. We invite you to join us to dance in the line. Pick up an instrument and try learning something new. You will find an engaged and determined group of people eager to share with newcomers.