Shining

[Bloom <bloom...>]

Yosl (Joe) Kurland said:
>
>Greek circle dancing has something similar to shining, though I don't know
>what they call it.  The person shining doesn't get into the center of the
>circle, though, but is at the beginning of the line, connected to the
>second in line with a tikhl (again, I don't know how to say kerchief in
>Greek).  He or she does turns, jumps, slapping the ground, ignoring the
>regular steps that the rest of the dancers are doing.  Then s/he drops off
>the front of the line and tags onto the end, leaving the next person to be
>the shiner.
>

Helen Winkler said:

>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.

I was once at a festival at a Greek Orthodox church that brought this home
to me.  The band was playing, and two lines were dancing - a line of
teenagers, and a line of older people.

The teenagers were obviously doing what they had been taught in folk dance
class.  They all were doing exactly the same thing, it was quite
complicated, and they looked like they were thinking about what they were
doing.

The older line of dancers was doing a very simple step, except for the lead
dancer.  The lead dancer was separated by a handkerchief from the second
dancer, and he or she handed the handkerchief to someone else when he or
she was done dancing show-off steps.  The person that the handkerchief was
handed to sometimes needed to be coaxed into taking it, but then they would
take the handkerchief, go to the front of the line, and do a completely
different set of show-off steps.   This is the line that looked like they
were enjoying themselves.

I've had success with getting people to shine at dances sponsored by
temples in honor of Simhas Torah and Purim.  I teach a version of the Sher
(I've gotten used to adapting the Sher into more or less complicated
versions to suit the crowd) and include time for each person to shine as
part of the dance.  Usually I call the entire dance, and have sixteen bars
of music for each person to shine in.  I also tell the dancers during the
teaching, "If you want to be traditional, you can just stand in the middle,
sway in time to the music, and look smug."  In the context of dancing with
other members of their congregation, the community feeling comes out, and
people look happy doing the dance.

Jacob Bloom

bloom (at) gis(dot)net
www.gis.net/~bloom/


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