History

Dances were brought to the Czech Republic for the first time in 1989 by Murshida Rahmana Dziubany and spred around by the enthusiastic work of Ludmila Chrášťanská.

Dance camps in Czech Republic started in 2004 in  Tuněchody mill in collaboration with Dutch dance teachers Wali and Ariënne van der Zwan. They have brought participants from the “West,” and that’s how it all began…

After the first five events, the camps moved from Tuněchodský Mill to Skalka near Doksy for the next three years. Among other people who participated in the organization of these initial together with  “the grandmother of dance in the Czech Republic,” Ludmila Chrášťanská, we can name Milada Chalupová, Lucie Svobodová, Renée Grünning, Dana Jirkalová, Martina and Zdeněk Hourovi, and many others.

In 2013, the camp relocated to the premises of the Nesměň Center and took on its current form, inspired by a camp in New Zealand. The key organizer of the first camps in Nesměň was Jonáš Koukl. In 2018, the baton was then passed to a team consisting of Ondra Vaněk, Matěj Koukl, and Petuka Arcimovičová. After Matěj left for New Zealand, Ondra’s wife Zuzka stepped in, and in 2023, the team was further strengthened by Tereza Martínková and Jana Jahanara Lidická. Since then, they, along with Ondra and Zuzka, have formed the current four-member core organizing team.

Throughout the history the camp is still growing in size. In 2024 we have reached the amount of 200 participants for the whole week which is the maximum of people we can fit to Nesměň. This year also marked a milestone for us with the acquisition of a second dance tent.

For each camp we invite a guest teacher from abroad—some return regularly and have become a tradition, while we also continue to invite new faces from the dance world. Throughout the history of the camps, we have had the opportunity to dance with Premem Provan a Amritoa Bhakti, TaroaAnrea and Maboud Swierkosz, Zubin Nur, Michael Ali, Dakini, Jilani and Salik, Deva Baumbach, Pavla Uppal, Rahmana Dziubany and others …