dance of death

[Helen Winkler <winklerh...>]

In my reading, I've come across a couple of references to the dance of death.  
In Sendry's Music of the Jews of the Diaspora, he mentions a wedding in Cleve 
Germany in 1674 where the Dance of Death was performed.  A male wedding guest 
was made to play dead.  Men and women danced around him singing and prepared 
his body for burial.  Then the man got up and and joined the party.  He says it 
was "a superstitious practice, a revival of the ancient resurrection charm."  
He also quotes from the memoirs of Gluckl of Hamelin of a relative's wedding: 
"(seventeenth century)...they concluded their performance with a truly spendid 
Dance of the Death."

Michael Alpert discusses the Dance of Death scene in the Dybbuk in his article  
"Freylekhs on film:  The Portrayal of Jewish Traditional Dance in Yiddish 
Cinema"  (Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Newsletter Vol 8, No 3-4, 1986).  He 
says"[the Dance of Death] is the film's most famous dance scene and the one 
based least on traditional dance."  He does mention the practice of marrying 
off poor orphans in a cemetary to ward off epidemics (lots of descriptions of 
this in the yizkor books--many online), and also the modern tkhies hameysim 
tants in some Hasidic sects.  He says that the original play by Ansky did not 
include this dance as it was protrayed in the movie.  Instead it was part of 
the beggar's dance in the play, where a beggar representing death danced with 
the bride.  In the film the dance with death was added for theatrical effect.  
The choreographer Judith Berg-Fibich "never saw the toytntants but heard about 
it from her grandmother who said it had been a women's dance.  When and where 
her grandmother heard about it remains unclear."  She says that her dance 
choreography throughout the Dybbuk was "authentic folk dance a little 
magnified."

Helen

Helen Winkler
Helen's Yiddish Dance Page
www.angelfire.com/ns/helenwinkler

Calgary Folkdance Fridays
www.cadvision.com/winklerj/cff.html