 |  |
Click for Contents
|
P.O. Box 1805,Jerusalem 91017 Tel. 972-2-531-5440, Fax: 972-2-537-9489 Advertising Fax: 972-2-531-5425, Email Editorial: [email protected] Subscriptions: [email protected] Web site: http://www.jrep.com |
Art or Aerobics?
Ina Friedman
Catchy tunes and techno steps are turning the fond and familiar world of Israeli folk dancing upside down
At well past 10 on a Thursday night in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon, the basketball court of the Golda Meir Community Center is packed with about 130 people of all ages, sizes and styles. Bald-pated men with ponytails glide aloofly past halter-topped young women as popular Israeli tunes blast out of the sound system. On the instructor�s laptop, which pipes these songs to the loudspeakers, they are listed under �circle dances.� But no circle is in evidence here. Each person dances individually, steeped in the flow of his or her movements, with no physical or even eye contact between them. �The hand-holding in circle dances disappeared when frequent turns became a popular feature,� says Steve Friedman, who has been folk dancing for 50 of his 62 years. �Besides, it�s only fun holding hands if your neighbors know the steps as well as you do. If they don�t, it becomes a burden.�
The program continues deep into the night, progressing to couple dances, line dances, and another medley of circle favorites. And the mood of the evening lingers even longer. �After a night of folk dancing, rather than feeling weary, I�m totally energized and can�t sleep for hours,� says Friedman. �Dancing often becomes an all-night affair.�
In one variation or another, this scenario is played out � up to five times a week for �groupies� and �addicts� � in more than 300 Israeli folk dance circles throughout the country. With an estimated 300,000 people regularly engaged in this �sport-cum-culture,� as it�s called by Roni Siman-Tov, chairman of the folk dance Choreographers and Instructors Association, the phenomenon is flourishing here. It�s also remarkably popular abroad, with Israeli folk dance clubs meeting in such far-flung places as Tucson, Tokyo and Taipei.
All in all, some 3,000 Israeli dances are now documented, with up to 100 new ones joining the repertoire each year. The �classics,� like �Lekh Lekh Lamidbar� and �El Ginat Ha�egoz� � many of which were created from the 40s onwards by such titans as Rivka Sturman, Gurit Kadman and Barukh Agadati � are becoming so endangered a species that a special society has been created to promote and preserve them by sponsoring marathon �nostalgia� evenings. So perhaps it�s not surprising that alongside the cheering about the durability of this branch of native culture � which has long died out among most Western nations � some voice fear that trends helping to keep Israeli folk dancing vital and magnetic do so at the expense of the flavor, authenticity and very identity of this folk art.
It must be said that much of the fretting comes from dance connoisseurs and professionals, especially those who remember the days of small, intimate circles dancing to an assortment of hasidic tunes and songs about Biblical themes, quaint characters like shepherds, and love of the land or the landscape. �Today most of the new dances are composed to songs about romantic love, and they�re picked because they�re popular on the radio,� says Yaron Meishar, editor and publisher of Rokdim, a periodical devoted to Israeli folk dancing. �What counts today is the success of the song, not the steps. If the tune is catchy, the dance will catch on,� he observes. �If the song�s popularity fades, the dance too will fall by the wayside.�
Moshe Telem, a 60-year-old choreo-grapher and instructor who has been folk dancing since the age of 10, takes his complaint a step farther. �In many of the newer dances, there�s no connection between the words, the music and the steps,� he says. �Dances are becoming more aerobic, more �techno� and mechanical, and they�re leading dancers to become more robotic.� As an example, Telem mentions line dances, which first entered the Israeli repertoire 20 years ago and are particularly popular among the younger set. �Unfortunately, more and more these days, the steps mimic elements seen on MTV,� he laments.
Meishar�s critique of the current state of affairs is even more scathing. �Folk dancing is a thing of the past,� he pronounces baldly. �What you have today is just physical activity, done to Israeli music.�
Sometimes, moreover, even the music and the creators of the dances are no longer Israeli. In recent years Latin American dances � especially the tango and salsa, which have enjoyed a rise in popularity throughout the West � have penetrated into the Israeli repertoire. And since Israeli folk dance clubs can be found in 37 countries, instructors abroad have also taken to creating so-called Israeli dances. �You can have a situation in which an instructor in England, who has never lived in Israel or visited here for more than a week, creates a dance to Greek music and then �markets� it as an �Israeli folk dance,�� says Meishar. In general, he adds sourly, �Israeli folk dancing has become an industry. Dances are composed as commercial products and are disseminated as a business, not as a cultural endeavor.�
THERE�S MORE THAN A DASH of hyperbole in that statement. For the fact is that there�s no copyright on folk dances, and their creators receive no royalties on their works. When a choreographer hears a song to which he is inspired to create a dance, he stakes a �claim� on it with the folk dance Choreographers and Instructors Association and is given exclusivity to it for a year (to prevent a spate of dances being composed to the same tune). The association holds seminars four times a year to introduce 20 new dances at each � 10 taught �live� by their creators and the rest disseminated through videotapes. CDs of the songs, edited for dancing purposes, are also distributed to the participating instructors (which has resulted in a suit by local recording companies that is currently being negotiated out of court). And the halls that host folk dance evenings pay royalties on the music played on their premises in the form of an annual flat fee to the record companies and the Union of Composers and Lyricists. But the dances are in the public domain.
�No one gets rich off folk dancing,� says veteran choreographer and instructor Mishael Barzilai. The entrance fee is about $5, which goes to cover expenses. Most instructors, he explains, are salaried by municipal culture departments. �And new dances,� he adds, �are created for prestige alone.�
Still, there�s plenty of competition for that, much of it expressed in efforts to draw ever larger crowds � as many as 800-1,000 people � to folk dance evenings held in capacious, air-conditioned halls. Instructors have even taken to handing out gifts, such as key chains and umbrellas, to draw in new people and keep their regulars loyal. But there�s a price for such growth in popularity. Barzilai bemoans the loss of �intimacy� and �sense of family� that used to characterize the folk dance clubs in the days when �everyone knew each other and people went out for coffee together at the end of the evening.�
Not that the purely social aspect of folk dancing has been eclipsed. Marriages continue to result from the folk dancing milieu � as, by the way, do illicit love affairs that can lead to divorce. �We get bad press about the latter because journalists are always looking for the piquant,� says Siman-Tov. �After all, affairs can start anywhere people associate regularly � at the office or at school.� Still, instructors and dancers are particularly sensitive about this issue; taking photographs at folk dance evenings is strictly forbidden for fear of what they may reveal.
Listening to the litany of purist laments, Siman-Tov also suggests that many of the criticisms smack of stuffiness and are limited to one side of a generational divide. �The truth is that the creation of authentic Israeli dances is beginning just now,� he argues, explaining that many of the �classics� were actually created to styles of music borrowed from Eastern Europe and Yemen. To be a truly �folk� art, dances must grow out of music and lyrics that �speak to people here and now,� he continues, �and the old songs of Eretz Yisrael no longer do so, especially to young people.�
Most of today�s dancers feel more in tune with the ballads of Israeli pop superstars like Shlomo Artzi and Rita. And in another 20 years, Siman-Tov believes, the dances choreographed to these songs may well be considered classics. �This is the natural progression in a dynamic culture,� he says.
Rikki Dahari, who dances religiously twice a week and instructs a group of ultra-Orthodox women in Bnei Brak, outside Tel Aviv, on two other evenings, similarly takes issue with the high-brow approach. �The instructor before me taught mostly older, sedate dances,� she says. �But I�ve introduced a whole new style: everything from Arab debkas to the latest creations.� And the women love it, she reports. �Why shouldn�t they? Folk dancing is great fun. It brings people out of themselves and lifts their spirits, not least because it�s great exercise.�
Like many other instructors, Dahari also teaches the �classics,� especially in her beginners� group, and loves to dance them herself. But she keeps their role in perspective. �People go out dancing to enjoy themselves,� she says, �not to preserve someone�s notion of authentic folk art.�
What does preserve the �folk� flavor of contemporary Israeli dancing is the fact that its practitioners come from all classes, backgrounds, and walks of life. �The women in my Bnei Brak group range from rich to poor,� says Dahari. �Some turn up in simple clothes, others in dresses I would only wear to a wedding.� But folk dancing is the great leveler. �Out there on the floor, a professor and a clerk have exactly the same status,� echoes Siman-Tov. And once the music starts, ethnic differences similarly vanish. �Folk dancing is Israel�s best showcase of cultural integration,� says American-born Friedman, whose partner is of Yemenite stock. �Every time I enter a hall, I take great pleasure in seeing that.�
The attendance of 250,000 people at last July�s three-day folk dance festival in the Galilee town of Karmiel � an annual event that features specialized classes during the day, troupe performances till midnight, and public dancing till dawn � is yet further proof of the vitality of the folk dance scene. Even the tension associated with gatherings in public places during the current wave of violence doesn�t keep dancers away. For the penalty of absence can be just as stressful: Missing sessions, and the new dances taught at them, can leave devotees lagging behind. �There�s no middle ground in folk dancing,� says Friedman. �If you can�t make it an integral, regular part of your life, you�ll be happier finding an outlet for your energies elsewhere.�
(October 8, 2001)
Arts
|
 |
|
© The Jerusalem Report 1999-2003 |  |