Sephardic dances

[Eva Broman <eva.bromanassouchidis...>]

Greetings,

Helen wrote:

>Just wondering, is there anyone who has done research on the dances of =
>Jews of Sephardic origin; i.e., how do/did Jewish dances in places like =
>Morrocco or Salonika differ or resemble the dances of the surrounding =
>culture?

>I've never come across these sorts of dances--only Israeli dances that =
>utilize Sephardic melodies but don't attempt to show the actual dances =
>of Sephardic Jews.  I know there are performing troupes but haven't had =
>the opportunity to see any of them out here.

Hi Helen,

An Internet search showed that there is at least one person doing research on 
Sephardic dances:

Ingber, Judith Brin. 
  a.. "Sephardic Dance: A Lecture Demonstration." In Proceedings of the 
Fourteenth annual conference of the Society of Dance History Scholars, 195-213. 
Riverside: Dance History Scholars, 1991. 
Also, there were several hits on "Voices Of Sepharad", if you want to explore 
them, just type that on the search line. Here's one web site that might be of 
interest:

http://ourworld.cs.com/jbrinIngber/DanceRepertoire_VoicesOfSepharad.html

I do believe that the dances of the Sephardic Jews were similar to those of the 
surrounding community. A long time ago I saw a movie about a Sephardic Jew from 
Salonica who survived concentration camp (can't for my life remember the 
title!). Anyway, in the scenes from Salonica one could see the protagonist and 
his relatives dancing the "zeybek" dance, which was and still is the prime 
popular (urban) dance in Greece. 

All the best, Eva