Polkamania by Richard Powers

Dance historian Richard Powers of Stanford University shared a presentation on Polkamania (the 19th century craze for the Polka) at the Early Dance Circle’s 2020 “Online“ annual festival. Richard Powers has been teaching historic and contemporary social dance for 40 years. He leads workshops around the world and is currently a full-time instructor at Stanford University’s Dance Division. Richard’s focus since 1975 has been the research and reconstruction of 19th and early 20th century American and European social dance forms, working from a personal collection of two thousand historic dance manuals. Founder of the Flying Cloud Academy of Dance in Cincinnati, and director of the first Vintage Dance Weeks, Richard has also choreographed for dozens of stage productions and films. Richard has taught historic dance workshops in Paris, Rome, Prague, London, Vienna, Venice, Geneva, Edinburgh, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kirov, Tokyo and Kyoto and in Denmark, as well as across the United States a