Photo: Orthodox Observer/Dimitrios Panagos.
During her coverage of FDF 2025, the Orthodox Observer’s Corinna Robinson spoke with Danny Staveris – Oakland, California’s longtime dancer and director referred to as a “titan” of FDF history. Danny shared about praising God with dance, the research and care needed to design each year’s suite, and performing through grief.
Corinna: First, could you give me some background on how long you’ve been dancing?
Danny: I’ve been dancing since I was five years old, and I’m fifty-eight, going on fifty-nine right now. I’ve been dancing at FDF for almost forty-five years with many different groups and many different generations.
Corinna: And how did you start directing groups for FDF?
Danny: Directing is something you get from other people that are gone now, that have passed, that tell you when you’re a kid that you can be the next person to run this church’s group as a dance director. I got that from a gentlemen named Dr. Perry Phillips in 1979. He came up to me after I did a dance; it was not really authentic, but I did this guida that had a lot of duck walks in it, and that doesn’t really exist too much, but he said, “you’re the next thing.”
Corinna: Right, because he could see that you were being creative.
Danny: Right – and those words inspired me to keep going. So that inspired me, but I also have a special thing. I praise God’s name through dance, and there are four things that I live by. One is σώμα; that means body. Two is ψυχή, which means spirit, and number three is βήμα, the step, and number four is στυλ – the style.
I live by those four things. If you can’t feel the music, you’re not going to feel the dance. And I pray to the good Lord every day, and I just feel that this is my passion, my passion for Christ. I love my Lord Jesus Christ, and He makes me keep on going and doing this stuff. I’ll praise His name until death, and I praise His name through life.
I also praise my mom and my dad because they were the two that kept me in this, and my mom just passed away in January.
Corinna: Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m sure that’s made this weekend even more emotional.
Danny: It has been emotional. I couldn’t stop with the groups; I had to keep rehearsal, and didn’t have all the time to mourn. But now I’m going to mourn, and I praise her name to my Lord Jesus Christ, and I’ll do whatever I can.
I try to do whatever I can for all the kids – I don’t stop with Oakland. I go teach wherever people call me, and it’s not about the money either. I just want people to know how to do things right. As a director, you can’t just look at what you see on YouTube.
When all else fails, go to the old guys. Whether they can bend their knees or not, most likely they have the right step, and the basic step will build you. It’s like a tree. The basic step is a tree, and everything else grows off of the tree. Once you start to have that growth, the flowers bloom, if that makes sense.
And FDF has always been here, in my heart. I would never give it up. People ask “why are you still doing it? You’re fifty-eight yourself.” Because I love dancing! If I have to I’ll go to another church. If I don’t have an older group in Oakland, I’ll say hey, San Francisco, Oikogeneia! Hey, Marin, the Minoans! They’re all my families. I love everybody – anybody that does this, I love them as people. Doesn’t matter their age, doesn’t matter nothing. We all do this not only for ourselves but to praise God’s name through dance.
Corinna: And as a director, how do you approach each year the design of the suite and choosing from which region you want to dance?
Danny: To me, you have to research a year in advance, maybe two. Something like the set we just performed takes me five years to figure out if I want to do it or not, and the reason is I really had to dig deep into the χωριό, the village of Vovousa to find out are all these little things correct.
Vovousa is a Vlach village, and our patron saint is Agia Paraskevi. There are things done out there that you see on YouTube aren’t always right – a lot of it is wrong. Not always, but some of it’s wrong. So you have to really pick and choose what you’re going to look at.
Corinna: How do you do that research? Where do you look to find what’s correct?
Danny: Well, for me, I have great friends on the judges’ panel. I call Joe Graziosi, I call Dimitri Kontogiannis. If I have to, I call all of them to ask, “where can I find what I’m looking for?” And then I start digging myself. I’ll reach out and get in touch with the village. My thing is trying to find a musician that plays in that village who can pull me into the right place with the right people.
You have to make sure all that stuff is dialed in. You want to dance naturally, praising God’s name through dance, knowing your step with the music, dancing your own style. Most importantly you have to feel the music – I don’t touch material that doesn’t make my hair stand.
Now that FDF’s going to be over in the next twenty-four, forty-eight hours, I’ll be going home and will probably take a week off from thinking about Greek dance. And then I’ll start thinking about next year.
Corinna: That’s what everyone’s been telling me – that the directors are going to start thinking about next year as soon as tonight.
Danny: Oh, absolutely, and here’s the thing: don’t throw away something that you might not have been scored well on. Fix it. It takes about three or four years to actually be able to do something properly, being that we are about 8,000 miles away from Greece. I don’t have all the time to go to Greece.
For the last fifteen years I had to take care of my mother until her passing, with my sister and, of course, the caregivers, so I couldn’t leave California. So instead I called Greece, I talked to my judges, my friends, and that made me get stronger.
But this summer, I’m going to Greece to thank all the villages I’ve worked with over the last twenty years, that I’ve been performing this music and dance for. I’m going on a little tour of thank-yous. I want to dance with them, drink tsipouro with them.
Corinna: That’s lovely, that’s going to be so amazing to meet and dance with them all in-person. My last question for you is whether you have any advice you give your dancers before FDF, before a performance.
Danny: I tell my dancers to do a prayer before we go on. No matter what we do, we have to remember it’s all about what’s here, in the heart, to make the step and the fun shine.
Corinna: Thank you, and congratulations on finishing another FDF!
