Re: shining

[Wholesale Klezmer Band <ganeydn...>]

At 12:41 PM -0400 7/25/99, Helen Winkler wrote:
>I think if you visited villages throughout the world, you would find a lot
>of shining and improvisation going on in many cultures.  Once you take the
>dances out of the village and put them into the sterile environment of a
>dance class, the movements become standardized and disconnected from the
>culture.  In order to keep things interesting, the dances become more
>complex; this is fun for the dance enthusiast but ends up excluding everyone
>else.  This is why it is so important to bring the Yiddish dances back to
>the Jewish community; in the environment of the community, the emotion is
>allowed to return to the dances and everyone can shine in a very natural
>way.
>Helen

Well said!!!  It's the reason why when we play for a wedding, the dancing
is almost always more "alive" than at a public event.

The quasi-public event at which Yiddish dancing takes on that kind of life
is Klez Kamp, probably because everyone there seems to form a community
united by their enthusiasm for the culture, so that it feels like an
emotional family simkhe.

Zayt gezunt (be healthy),

Yosl (Joe) Kurland
The Wholesale Klezmer Band
Colrain, MA 01340
voice/fax: 413-624-3204
http://www.crocker.com/~ganeydn



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