zharava > about us > leadership > Desi Jordanoff

Desi Jordanoff, (DJ) Zharava, Founder and Artistic Director

Desi Jordanoff (DJ) was born in a city surrounded by beautiful mountains and situated in a valley under a sleeping volcano in a very unique ethnographic region, where people dance and talk fast and have very fiery personalities. This may explain in part her fiery energetic nature. The crazy birth town is Sofia, Bulgaria and the year is unknown. Desi is coming from a family of artists, dancers and choreographers. Her father, Todor Marinov, her aunt Penka Rizova and her uncle Iliya Rizov, all three, were in the founding group of the first Bulgarian State folk Ensemble, Philip Koutev in 1951. Her grandfather was a famous painter and her sister is a ballerina and a choreographer. In this culturally charged atmosphere Desi learned dancing at a very early age and started dancing in various children groups since her 5th year of age. The love of singing comes form DJ's mom, Ivanka, who used to sing at home gatherings and other functions alone or with her sisters. Ever since Desi made the first dance steps, dance has become her inspiration and remained her love and a second profession, which kept her sane and carried her through her entire life. Once hooked, since early age Desi never gave up in her efforts to keep on dancing, creating and to spread the beauty and the energy of the Bulgarian Folk dance, music and song everywhere she went in the world.

Desi's artistic inspiration comes from the strong heritage of her family and her teachers: her father, aunt, and uncle, one of the famous Bulgarian choreographers she studied with, Mitko Manov, her friends dancers, singers, choreographers, and performers from multiple professional and semi-professional dance groups, such as the children's dance ensembles Rosna Kitka and the dance group at the Palace of Pioneers, AURA semiprofessional dance folk ensemble, founded by her uncle Ilia Rizov, the professional ensemble formerly at the Army Corps of Engineers, and many other dance groups and dance formations, in which she has performed in Bulgaria and abroad. DJ's upbringing in an artistic atmosphere of dance, song and music, her experiences as a singer at the second largest youth choir in Bulgaria, traveling, singing and dancing with the Folklore choir at the Bulgarian Radio and with individual singers has added to Desi's vast professional artistic experience.

Parallel to her extended experience as a dancer and later as a choreographer and a director of dance groups in Bulgaria and the US, Desi developed a professional career as well, graduating with a BA in Economics in Bulgaria, MBA and a MPIA degrees form University of Pittsburgh, US, taking additional education and training and working full time.

The dancing, creating and directing have been and are priority in Desi's quite busy life. With her talent and dedication, she has acquired highest professional dance level in Bulgaria via a State examination (Excellent category of professional performer). During her quest for more knowledge in the realm of Bulgarian Ethnography, folklore dance and music, choreography, customs, traditions, and costumes, for more than 15+ years, Desi's dancing career in Bulgaria has brought her to multiple semi-professional and professional groups as a lead dancer, representing Bulgaria and its rich folk art at home and abroad on concert tours in Western, Eastern Europe and the United States.

Further, DJ's experience in choreography and ethnography, dance and music, and leadership has been enriched via independents research of various Ethnographic regions and during her residence in the United States, where she applied and augmented her knowledge as a choreographer and co-director of the Bulgarian Dance Group "Otets Paisii" at the Bulgarian - Macedonian National Educational and Cultural Center, (formerly Bulgarian-Macedonian Beneficial Association). For 9 years her invaluable work at the BMNECC had a transforming impact on the group's overall image, manifesting into a higher level of knowledge and performance. As a result of Desi's efforts the group has become known as the best folklore performing group in Pittsburgh, a magnet for many dancers with a professional level of performance. As a Program Director, choreographer and performer, Desi committed her effort to open new levels of understanding amongst the group members about the Bulgarian folk dance and music. She transmitted this passion to both, the children group and the adult ensemble. She also assisted in costume design, music, singing and overall artistic directorship of the group and concert production.

Desi's 6 years experience as a professional performer at the Pittsburgh International Folk Theatre has added yet another dimenstion and new dance characteristics into her international folk dancing portfolio. At PIFT DJ was exposed to diverse dance training, artistic expression, singing and acting. Often as a lead dancer, Desi performed folk dances from Poland, Germany, Croatia, Hungary, Moldavia, Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Russia, Macedonia, Greece, Lebanon, Spain (Basque and Galicia), India, China, Appalachia (country clogging and square dancing), Ireland (Irish square dance and River Dance style dance), Scotland, Italy (Cicily) Mexico, Philippines, Tahiti, Hawaii and diverse American dances. On multiple occasions Desi traveled with the company for concerts and performances around the Tri-State Area and had performed on big stages in Pittsburgh as regular season premiers of PIFT.

The extensive choreographic experience and material on Desi's list embodies a vast array of Ethnographic regions in Bulgaria, such as Shope, Macedonian, Thracian, Rhodope, Dobrudja, Varna, Vlachija, Northern Bulgaria. She has choreographed Russian and Bulgarian dances for PIFT, Bulgarian dances for MBNECC, Junior Duquesne Tamburitzans, Slavjane, Balkantzi, and other groups in Pittsburgh. She has also conducted multiple Bulgarian folk dance workshops in Pennsylvania. For 8 years Desi taught Russian dance, song and Culture at the University of Pittsburgh, as part of the Russian and East European Studies intensive Russian language and culture training for graduate and undergraduate students. Finally, she has participated as a judge-panelist for Duquesne University Tamburitzans's auditions two years in a raw.

Since she moved to the Washington, DC area in 2004, Desi continued to add more dance forms to her vast dance portfolio and extended her training in Flamenco, which she started in 2003 in Centro Flamenco de Pittsburgh. In 2005 she also joined a ballroom training group with master instructors to master the Latin Ballroom dances and potentially participate at various dance competitions.

Desi believes that "That, which does not kill us, makes us stronger" a concept she learned the hard way from very dear friends in her past. She lives by the principle that "Everything happens for a reason and everything is in a constant state of flux. Embrace the change, learn the lessons sent to you, be grateful for the opportunity to grow, keep positive energy and attitude, give love to all living species and always smile". Life should be fun.

DJ's credo: Be honest, compassionate, respectful and true to yourself and others.
Peace