02/08/2026
Galhalla 2026:
Meet the musicians!
Lo Ziv (ze / zir)
is the percussionist of Galholler.
It is Lo Ziv’s birthday this weekend! The greatest of birthday gifts would be registering for, or supporting, Galhalla!
Lo Ziv is a songwriter, song circle leader, author, dancer, caller, storyteller, workshop instructor, community organizer, and kooky goofball residing in St. Louis.
Lo Ziv began performing song & dance onstage at the age of three - in a giant tutu, or a sequin-spangled sailor suit! Song & dance has been an integral, consistent, and funnily inescapable part of Lo’s life. It just keeps showing up!
For example, Lo studied vocal performance for 2 years, by invitation, under an opera singer of international renown.
How? The opera singer played the role of Lo’s wife in a production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” found Lo quite funny, and extended the invitation!
(Lo portrayed the lecherous, old, foolish Roman senator, Senex.)
Over the past 40 years, Lo has also played:
-piano
-clarinet
-violin
-saxophone
-guitar
-oud
-cümbüş
-drums
-jaw harp
-irish whistle
-duduk
… to name a few!
Lo came to the contra dance community more than twenty years ago in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Back then, Lo was a modern dancer at a women’s college, and followed some student friends just down the street to the local contra dance.
Lo has been swept up into the national dance community, ever since.
Years ago, as a graduate student of ancient history & dead languages, Lo Ziv felt the deep need to play music more regularly again - in order to counter-balance the stress of an intense degree. Already playing percussion in three “grad chapel” bands within the full-time degree program, Lo simply lugged zir big ole’ drum to some dance events, and fun musicians quickly invited Lo to join them! That first event happened to be LEAF, a large outdoor festival in North Carolina. And professional percussionists from Ghana happened to be Lo’s first West African hand-percussion instructors.
Magical.
Lo Ziv was on staff at the week-long summer camp, Cumberland Dance Week, for about six years. While calling, leading workshops, and playing percussion at Cumberland, fellow dancer Sam Droege introduced Lo to the jaw harp. The jaw harp has become one of Lo’s favorite instruments to play.
Simple, driving, meditative, and full-body.
Over the past 2 decades, Lo Ziv has danced, called, led workshops, and drummed in the contra dance community, from coast to coast!
Lo’s synesthesia manifests as colors, and reverberations in the body. Lo Ziv feels that the rhythm, reverberations, and vibes which flow through the body, and through the dance, are the thrumming strings of joy of the universe. If you hear Lo harping, humming, singing, and drumming, then you’re in the presence of a very happy & contented synesthete!
Lo Ziv is a graduate of a women’s college. That means no one interrupted Lo, in a classroom setting, for FOUR YEARS in a row! That has a big impact upon a person.
Quite the formative experience.
Throughout the decades, Lo has found that intentionally-curated spaces for the gals create opportunities that one simply does not find elsewhere. When the male gaze is entirely absent, for a sustained period of time, then parts of oneself are able to relax, open up, energize, and become free!
Galhalla is a work of joy and love. Lo Ziv can’t wait to be drumming, harping, humming, singing, and dancing with you all, very soon!
