David & Marija Hillis

David and Marija Hillis are excited to be the new owners and operators of Dance on the Water river cruises.  Marija is a lifelong dancer.  She retired in 2013 as a special education teacher in public school.  For more than a dozen years, she’s been a teacher at Berkeley Folk Dancers.  She’s also a certified T’ai Chi Chih instructor.  David is a retired family law and estate planning attorney.  He didn’t dance until he met Marija in 1999, when they both were 50.  Since then, he’s progressed from differentiating right from left foot, to co-teaching folk dancing at Berkeley Folk Dancers.  They live in Berkeley and have six adult children between them.

With Mel’s guidance, they have stepped lively into Dance on the Water adventures.

Mel Mann

Mel Mann, our founder, after retiring as a school psychologist, started Dance on the Water in 1984.  In thirty years, he’s led 54 folk dance cruises all around the world, including Alaska, Hawaii, Tahiti, the Caribbean, the Danube, the Greek islands, Russia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Provence, China and the Galapagos.  He will still be coming along on many Dance on the Water cruises, but this time as a carefree passenger, always on the lookout for hot chocolate!