The Folkdancing Club draws a little culture from almost every ethnicity imaginable - anything from the Macerena to Balkan line dances.
"I go just to dance and have a good time," said Elizabeth Mustard, club organizer and a University librarian.
Club members experiment with a variety of international dances. The core dances tend to be European and Middle Eastern, and range from simple steps to more complex combinations.
"We seem to have dances that are our favorites, but we are willing to try anything," Mustard said. "If someone comes in and wants to do a dance that we don't know, we learn it."
The club attracts most of the attention at Leonardo's in Pierpont Commons, and caught LSA senior Mitza Simpson's ears last Wednesday night as she was studying.
"I immediately noticed and recognized the traditional Serbian music (the Folkdancing club) was dancing to," she said. "When I was younger, I had learned the dance they were doing in my Serbian Orthodox church."
The club, which is comprised mostly of University faculty, graduate students and Ann Arbor residents, often lures onlookers at Leonardo's into participating.
"People come in and recognize their cultural dances all the time," Mustard said. "They usually then get up, show us some new steps and dance with us."
Simpson said she would come back and do some dancing with the club.
"I like learning these dances because it gives me a chance to learn other people's culture, while enhancing my own identity," she said.
Members said the club's popularity has declined in past years. Linguistics Prof. Andrew Carnie, who started teaching this year, recalled a huge interest in folkdancing when he was in college less than five years ago.
"This group, at one time, numbered in the hundreds and was mostly students," he said. "Children of the '60s seem to be more interested in folkdancing than (those from the) '70s generation."
Simpson expects interest in folkdancing to come around again.
"Now, the children in my church love to do these dances. When I was their age, I used to hate it, and now, I have interest in it again," Simpson said.
Those who participate in the club appreciate it for its musical and multicultural aspects, members said. There is hope that the club will become more organized and more well-known.
"Having a beginners' night and starting a performance group are some of our goals," Carnie said.
The dancers meet at Leonardo's in Pierpont Commons at 8 p.m. on the first and third Wednesdays and the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month.
JONATHAN SUMMER/Daily
Elizabeth Mustard, a member of the University's Folkdancing Club, dances to the music of The Ethnic Connection in the barn at Gretchen's House on Saturday. Mustard is a club organizer and a University librarian.