dancing

[Helen Winkler <winklerh...>]

With regard to the " folk" content of Israeli dance--the goal of the early 
Israeli dances was to create a new Jewish dance.  They weren't trying to 
emulate an existing ethnic Jewish folk dance but to create something new.  Many 
of the early choreographers were German Jews who had background in modern 
dance.  Another early influence that I've read about is the Wandervogel.  They 
were a group of rebellious German youth who enjoyed barefoot dancing with 
leaping and bounding sorts of movements.  Some of their dance style was adopted 
by the Blau Weiss Bund, a Zionist Jewish Youth group.  These were the people 
who first came to Israel and created the early dances.

later, different ethnic influences such as Yemenite and Arabic were 
incorporated into the dance.  I'm not an expert on these dances.  However, i 
have a video of Shalom Staub teaching Yemenite dance based on fieldwork he did 
with Yemenite immigrants in Israel.  This Yemenite dancing is very different 
than the way Yemenite dance is portrayed in Israeli dance.  Actually the 
original Yemenite dance would be very difficult for most of us to do without a 
lot of training.  There are various rhythms going--the feet are doing one 
rhythm while the body is doing another.  There are head movements and there is 
something called an "impulse" sort of a wave that moves through the body.  The 
basic movements are then used freestyle by the dancers.  Their dances weren't 
choreographed in the original form.

There is less and less ethnic styling in Israeli dance now.  While the dances 
are more and more complex (lots of turns, directional changes etc), very little 
emphasis is placed on any sort of ethnic style.  The dances often feel very 
jazzy/disco-like.

Helen