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Rudy Dannes
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Rudy Dannes was born on October 19, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. He was an honor graduate from Garfield High School, Los Angeles, California in 1945. He attended Choinard Art Institute in Commercial Art and the Los Angeles City College in Architectural Preparatory. Rudy enlisted in the United States Army in 1950. He worked as a display man for several department stores and as Art Director for the "Am I Guilty?" television series.
Rudy became very interested in folk dancing and both taught and performed.
Toward the end of 1964, Rudy, Louise (Anderson) Bilman, Chalo Holguin, and Marilyn Sage (who later married Chalo) met at the apartment building of Louise and her daughter "Kit" and sat by the swimming pool to discuss a folk dance situation: They wanted a place to have more hours of dancing after the regular folk dance groups quit for the night at 10:30 p.m. (the groups stopped at that time because the janitors needed to come in to clean the meeting spaces!). They put down $3,000.00 to secure a business building at 630 N. Alvarado Street in Los Angeles, California. That was the start of "The Intersection" Folk Dance Coffeehouse. Although the coffeehouse opened its doors in March, 1964, its official opening was late August.
The Intersection moved to a new building at 2735 W. Temple Street, still in Los Angeles, and headed by Athan Karras and Rudy. The storefront off the 101 "Hollywood" Freeway instantly became a stomping ground for folk dancers from all over. Along with them came new recruits and people discovering folk dancing for the first time. All sorts of names dropped in, such as Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas, Ginger Rogers, and John Raitt.
Rudy wanted The Intersection to be in one place – a center to which people could come from all over the world. Along with Rudy's reluctant help, Athan began opening "satellite" coffeehouses.
In the late 1960s, Rudy fell in love with Rubi Vučeta, who had taught Balkan dances at the Intersection, and the couple became engaged to be married. Rubi and Rudy had founded the Intersection International Dancers and the Intersection Adagio Dancers, both of which gave several performances. Rudy taught South American tango and adagio choreographies, while Rubi created complicated Yugoslav and Bulgarian numbers. They imported beautiful costumes or made them from scratch. Some of the dancers learned to play traditional musical instruments and sing traditional songs to accompany the dancing.
Rudy and Rubi dreamed of starting a folk arts library at the center for the materials they had already gathered and the materials that Rubi would collect on her research trip to Yugoslavia. In 1969, Rubi went to Europe to conduct research for the Intersection International Dancers. She took thousands of dollars worth of video and audio taping equipment so she could record the dances and songs she would learn. But she never came back. Rubi died in a car crash in Yugoslavia. All of her possesions disappeared and were never returned. Sadly, a large part of Rudy's desire to see his dream come true died with his fiancée.
The Intersection closed its doors in 1974.
Rudy Dannes passed away on April 1, 1991. Rudy is no longer with us, but his legacy lives on.