Re: ATTENTION - The German thing...

[Rachel Goldsmith <rgoldsmith...>]

In Re the discussion about Klezmer being played in Germany, New ageists 
doing Native American dance etc...

Incident 1:

I was once at a folk festival in south Wales (UK not AUS), where there 
was a competition of gaelic, scottish and contra dance.  Off to the 
side, after competition, one group was doing some pick-up folk dancing. 
 

I and my companions watched and were amazed to see this group of 20 
clog-shod west-country maids break into a serious, constrained and 
precise version of B'Chatzar Ha'Rebbe, a chasidic influenced fold 
dance...

Incident 2:  

A documentary about a Polish Christian who was trying to repair Jewish 
cemetaries which had been trashed during and after the Holocaust showed 
a Polish Polka band at the local Oktoberfest playing an oom pa pa 
version of Hava Nagila,  which the locals believed to be a polish folk 
tune.


Moral of the story...   the music will be taked out of context, changed, 
played in uncomfortable situations and perhaps not understood there... 
we have a role in explaining and teaching and showing and preserving, 
but not in restraining or scolding.