Steve Salemson was first exposed to folk dancing in 1962, when he spent a year living on a kibbutz in Israel. It wasn't until he moved back to New York City in 1974 that he discovered Balkan dancing and really got hooked. Soon he was dancing between 4-6 nights a week, and attending workshops taught by Yves Moreau, Dick Crum, David Vinski, Atanas Kolarovski, Pece Atanasovski, George Tomov, Moshiko Halevy, Mihai David, Bora Özkök, and others. In 1977 Steve joined Tomov's Yugoslav Folk Dance Ensemble, dancing with the group for eight years, including trips to former Yugoslavia in 1979 and 1981 to perform at the Ilindenski Denovi Festival in Bitola, Macedonia. Steve's first love is Macedonian music and dance, and he speaks some Macedonian and plays the kaval. In 1999, while working as Associate Director of the University of Wisconsin Press, Steve published Christina Kramer's Makedonski jazik, a Macedonian textbook for beginning and intermediate students, and subsequently published Ronelle Alexander's authoritative two-volume Intensive Bulgarian: A Textbook and Reference Grammar and then her Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian: A Grammar with Sociolinguistic Commentary. Steve is happily retired and lives in Madison, where he spends his time doing crossword puzzles, making music, attending concerts, biking, and, of course, folk dancing at least twice a week.