Changs folk dancers celebrate 70 years
Jesse Hamlin, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, June 27, 2008

Sidney and Laila Messer were dancing the Heel-Toe Polka the other night in the balloon-filled basement of the Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, sliding their feet and slapping their thighs to the sound of Bing Crosby singing "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" on a laptop computer.

The Messers, a Sausalito couple who met on a dance floor 60 years ago, have been hoofing for 15 with Changs International Folk Dancers, the oldest continuously running folk dance club in the country. For the next two hours, they stepped, stamped and clapped through a string of Bulgarian, Turkish, Hungarian, American and Russian numbers.