Re: Dancing the slow hora

[Jacob and Nancy Bloom <bloom...>]

On a couple of different occasions I've been at workshops with Michael
Alpert, and both times he taught the slow hora with one step per measure.
The downbeat at the start of the measure was used for the step, and the
upbeat at the end of the measure was used for lifting yourself in
preparation for the next step.  If there are a variety of different steps
for the slow hora, I would love to know what they are.

Since the tempo of the music seems to be critical for this discussion, I put
on the Klezmer Conservatory Band's recording of Firn Di Mekhutonim Aheym
from their tape "Live! The Thirteenth Anniversary Album."  The tempo of that
recording is approximately the tempo that was used in the workshops I was
at, and fits the dance as it was taught to me.

Dancing "R-L-R-and, L-R-L-and" across four measures of music sounds to me
like the rhythm of a Serbian Biserka, which goes "R, L, R-L-R-and, L, R,
L-R-L-and"  across what sounds like 8 bars of slow-hora-tempo 3/8.

Jacob Bloom
http://www.gis.net/~bloom/

----- Original Message -----
From: Helen Winkler <winklerh (at) hotmail(dot)com>
To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2000 6:10 PM
Subject: Re: Dancing the slow hora


> I tried doing 1 measure/RLR in a long-short-long rhythm and found with an
> old Epstein brothers Hora it was possible.  With faster recordings, it
> almost turns into 3 running steps and I can't do the long-short-long
rhythm
> with faster recordings.  They don't look like they're running in the old
> Yiddish movies I've watched.
> Helen
>
>
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: Matt Jaffey <mjaffey2 (at) mum(dot)edu>
> Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
> To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
> Subject: Re: Dancing the slow hora
> Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 16:22:33
> Helen,
>
> I took a look at your web page for the description of hora steps that you
> got from Jacob Bloom. The words "one step per measure" stood out to me. It
> seems to me Erik Bendix, and John Parrish of Chicago, both taught a
variety
> of hora steps, going anywhere from one to three steps per measure (don't
> know how much of this has authentic roots).
>
> Pursuing the discussion that we had just previous to this, another
> interpretation of "R-L-R-and,L-R-L-and...(Long-short-long-and)" would be
> where "Long-short-long-and" takes two measures instead of one. That would
> be a much more comfortable pace. It would be nice if we could get some
> input from Michael Alpert on this.
>
> Matt


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