John Uhlemann began dancing in 1965 at Grinnell College, in a group started by the late Pirkko Pasekivi Roecker, and continued dancing while in Medical School at Washington University, and in groups in Cleveland, Ohio, and Austin, Texas. He has attended numerous workshops, as well as seminars abroad, and has served on the board of directors of the East European Folklife Center. He holds a certificate from the Albanian “Valle Populare Sqiptare” seminar. He has collected dances and photographed wooden churches during numerous trips to the Balkans, Türkiye, and Georgia, plus Moravia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and Transcarpathian Ukraine.

He has given talks and provided music for a lecture on music and the relation of music and dance at Butler University, and provided music with guest talks for a course in ethnomusicology at Washington university. For over 30 years he has had a radio show on KDHX in St. Louis on which he presents ethnic music, and he has taught folk dancing in St. Louis for over 45 years. He tries to not be stuffy, pedantic, or dull, if he can help it.