Ashkenazi dance?

[Judith R Cohen <judithc...>]

hi, your point, Alex? My post said, sincerely, that she is a fine dancer
and person, and is very knowledgeable; certainly I admire and appreciate
her combination of research and performance accomplishments.

 But that does not mean she "does Sephardic dance" for the simple reason
that there IS no such thing as "Sephardic dance". And what on earth does
spekaing fluent Hebrew have to do with how women who don't even SPEAK
Hebrew dance/d in Turkey, Greece, Morocco or Bosnia? Her group has a
large and deserved following: it does not follow from that that
"Sephardic dance" exists as a phenomenon. 

She does have a solid grounding in Yemenite dance and many other
traditions, and continues to do very good research; and she uses
elements from various aspects of Jewish dance traditions to good purpose
in her creations.

But that doesn't mean they aren't creations! 

Nor is this an insult, as should be apparent.As I've said many times,
the only issue I have is what people CALL what they're doing. Why is
this such a difficult thing to communicate where Spehardic, especially
JUdeo-Spanish culture is concerned? 

The heavily flamenco-influenced guitar playing in the group is very
good, and also based on years of working in Spain, often with Gypsies -
that doesn't make it "Sephardic": there is nothing like that in
Sephardic music and flamenco is as old a genre as its mythology
suggests. Nor is the very skilled and imaginative percussion playing
typical of Judeo-Spanish musical styles. That doesn't mean it isn't good
or shouldn't be done - it just means it isn't very Sephardic. That's
fine: the group has evolved a high quality performance style, and their
own approach to the music, enhanced by Judith's dance - great! Just CALL
IT what it is, not what it isn't.

"Sephardic" is a very general term, encompassing many cultures. Let's
look at the term "Ashkenazi". Let's say a talented dancer and trained
researcher researched and learned the bulgar, the sher, Ukrainian dance,
Polish dance, Lithuanian dance, and also some modern dance, did it all
beautifully, and incorporated it into performances by a good music group
whose musical but idiosyncratic interpretations of Yiddish song and of
klezmer had gained them a large following and it turned out to be a
lovely performance - would that somehow MAKE it "Ashkenazi dance"????

Judith

Alex wrote:
> As her long-time friend and artistic collaborator (not on Sephardic projects) 
> I'm
> quite prejudiced towards Judith.  I'm not a dance scholar either, but what I 
> know
> of her work strikes me as meticulous and methodologically solid.  She 
> lived/danced
> in Israel for many years and her Hebrew is fluent.  Her group Voices of 
> Sepharad
> has toured the world and is deeply loved by audiences here.
>

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