Re: dance

[Tuna Pase <tunapase...>]

Selam...
as a sepharadic jew living in istanbul
we never had dances of our own
the dances they teached us were mainly ashkenaz dances which were
accompaniament with klezmer music
thats it:)))
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith R Cohen" <judithc (at) YorkU(dot)CA>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 4:14 PM
Subject: dance


> about "Sephardic music", it's true, as Yoram suggests: in theory if one
> can use that term as a generalization, one could say "Sephardic dance".
>
> I still think it's very different.
>
> For example: staying with Judeo-Spanish music, which is the main,though
> not the only, focus of the performance group in question:
>
> the same narrative ballads are sung by both Moroccan and Eastern
> Mediterranean Sephardim, in certain cases (not all); but with different
> melodies and a different musical style. It's a JUdeo-Spanish ballad
> because it's been used as an identifying feature by both groups in a
> socio-cultural-linguistic-musical context where this song and indeed
> THIS LANGUAGE don't exist outside the Sephardic community (in the case
> of northern Morocco, amend to "this language in this form" i.e. haketia
> as opposed to standard Castilian).
>
> In contrast, by and large, the dance forms Sephardim have done are the
> same as those in their surrounding culture - a Moroccan Sephardi will
> not dance like a Sephardi from Rhodes.
>
> But ok, if you like, the entire complex of what Sephardim have danced, I
> suppose could be called "Sephardic dance" as opposed to - what?
> Ashkenazi  dance? But in that case, it would refer to a number of
> DIFFERENT dance styles, of which any one group would be unlikely to know
> another's (always with exceptions, travlling, living in a different
> community etc etc.) , not to any one identifiable form.
>
> If one person, again , no matter how skilled and knowledgeable a person
> that is, adapts various aspects of these various forms into a
> performance of  songs, most of which ARE NOT IN FACT EVEN DANCED TO
> (only the weddings songs are danced), then sorry , it still isn';t
> "Sephardic dance": it's a personal creation adapted from different dance
> forms Sephardim have used in the diaspora.
>
> No matter how much Alex (and many others) likes it (and now matter how
> lovely it is) and no matter how much he (and I) respect the creator of
> this performance, and now matter how long the latter has lived in Israel
> or how well she does her research, none of which is in question in this
> case. Admiring something doesn't make it something it isn't, and isn't
> insulting it by saying so. Judith
>
>
>

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