klezmer dancing

[Ernie Gruner / Cathy Dowden <erniegru...>]

Helen / List
I like your tarantella story. (I'm still looking for a Jewish tarantella,
Fransesco!)
Yesterday my band was booked for a chuppah and reception.The discussions
were going along as usual with the bride-to-be until her husband (surprise)
came on the phone. He was keen to learn the dances to the klezmer music
that they'd heard us play at a concert, and wanted phone numbers for dance
teachers. Alas I said, noone here in Melbourne (or Australia) can teach
klezmer dance yet, and I don't know of any videos. (thanks to Helen and
Jacob for recent notes!)
I'll pass on some Israeli dance teachers but hope that in another 5 or 10
years that the klezmer dances will find their way growing back into Jewish
weddings.
I went to Michael Alpert's inspiring classes in Krakow 98, and played for
dances at KlezKamp West, so am very keen to see this dance revive like the
music, and have tried to raise enthusiasm here.
cheer Ernie
ps we have a form of simcha dancing here which involves risky, boisterous
and sometimes dangerous jumps etc with chairs and upraised brides, grooms
and bar/tmitvah people - is this universal? where/when did it start? I
haven't seen any references in klez dance notes so assume more recent? 

At 21:27 8/07/99 PDT, you wrote:
>Since I first posted to this discussion group re:  resources about Jewish 
>klezmer style dancing, I have learned about a world of Jewish dance that I 
>didn't know anything about (despite being involved with Israeli and 
>international folk dance for over 20 years).  I have been to many Jewish 
>weddings/bar, bat mitzvah parties, where the hora comes on and everyone 
>tries to dance but ends up tripping over each other, not knowing exactly 
>what they're supposed to do.  Israeli dancing is not easy to pick up on the 
>fly;you need to go to classes and practise every week and even then the 
>dances change every week!  The traditional community dances like the 
>freilach, got lost and it's wonderful to see that they are being found 
>again.
>But we don't need to feel like we're alone in losing our dance traditions.  
>A couple of years ago I was invited to an Italian wedding.  I practised my 
>Tarantella faithfully, looking forward to doing it with Italian people for 
>the first time.  Well, the music came on, and I got up to dance with my 
>husband.  We were the only ones who knew the tarantella!  I heard one of the 
>young men in the crowd say:
>"so, that's what you're supposed to do to that music."
>
>TTFN
>Helen
>
>
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Ernie Gruner   K A L E I D O S C O P E  M U S I C
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