For a several decades, we have enjoyed what could be called a renaissance of Yiddish music, dance and culture, often called “the Klezmer revival”.  For those involved in this movement, the revival is old news, and among the musicians and other cultural practitioners I know, there is rather a sense of cultural continuation.  A language, music and culture that for decades were being practiced by a rare few have become, within some circles, a lively locus of artistic activity.  This is particularly apparent in Europe, which after the tragedies of the Holocaust, is making efforts to reincorporate Yiddish culture into the greater cultural web, and at the various North American Klezmer festivals, which have acted as a hothouse for nurturing a contemporary adaption of the historically rich tradition.  Musicians and poets/lyricists, in particular, have for a while even been bold enough to not only reinterpret old material, often with contemporary and world music influences, but also generate brand new material.

The Yiddish dance scene, however, has maintained a curiously conservative approach, mostly seeking to reconstruct dimly remembered dances, and teach today’s dancers to dance like their great-grandparents. Where the musicians have embarked on an age of exploration, maintaining a conscientious link to the past, but exploring and incorporating material from other cultures or developing the music along the lines of contemporary pop, jazz, and art forms, the dance scene has been wary of any such similar exploration, preferring to delve ever deeper into fine points of “traditional” style.   But just as the music, when it was a lively form, frequently borrowed from and incorporated local or pan-European influences, or in America, jazz and popular music influences, the dance too historically incorporated what were deemed appropriate dance forms and styles from surrounding cultures. (In the US, the quasi folk dances Miserlou and Korobushka became favorites of Jews of the immigrant and post- immigrant generations). So it is curious that while contemporary Klezmer musicians have continued this practice of borrowing and developing, the dance scene has not followed suit.

Perhaps this is because it is a bit optimistic to speak of a dance “scene”.  It is mostly an artificial environment that exists only at festivals or family and community events, usually under the tutelage of a dance leader.  And it so far has been the choice of the dance leaders to adhere to an implicit orthodoxy of dance practice.  But that has started to change.

In an absolutely unprecedented move, the long running cultural program Yiddish Summer Weimar, directed by Alan Bern, which has for many years offered week long courses in instrumental music, song and Yiddish language, and dance, this year seized upon the idea of offering, in a year dedicated to New Yiddish Music, a course in New Yiddish Dance.  Whatever that might be.

That was left to the instructors of the course: myself, an American Yiddish dance specialist, and Vivien Zeller, a German violinist and avid dancer with experience in many folk forms, especially from the Bal Folk movement (itself a contemporary revival of folk couple dances that had faded from common practice) with the assistance of Sayumi Yoshida, a Japanese-German student of Italian pizzica tarantella, Andreas Schmittges,  German musician and experienced Yiddish dance teacher, and Asya Schulman, American Yiddish scholar and dance teacher.  We were the captains of a vessel about to sail strange and unchartered waters, with a crew of some 2 dozen intrepid students of varying ages and backgrounds, who had no clear idea of our course or destination.  I’m happy to report that, together, we appear to have discovered a rich and strange new shore.

I’d already made a few tentative excursions into new dance territory:  incorporating a dance sequence from the movie The Dybbuk into a choreographed folk dance to the tune Khotinskaya, which is now taught by others beside myself, enlivening the traditional set dance Couple’s Bulgar by adding the non-traditional element of a chaos mixer (a way of reforming sets by wandering, rather after a dancer in a class I was teaching spontaneously changed dance sets that way, and creating a few Yiddish inspired flash mobs(in Paris and Krakow) to make Yiddish dance more public and well known.  With this course, however, our goals were much more ambitious.

We decided to focus our attention on exploring three existing types of Yiddish dance: the couple freylekhs which is mostly done without any touching, couple dances that are led or involve hand contact, and set dances, like the Jewish square dance, the sher.  Our approach was to be to explore world dances that had similar structures. We would explore other non –touching couple dances like the pizzica from Italy, bourree from France, and the chacarera from Argentina.  We would learn wickler, the general term for a number of north European couple folk dances that involve elegant and complex arm positions, something shared with a number of world dances, including meringue and western two step.   We would look to longways and ancient set dances for ways of updating the Yiddish set dance tradition, in an effort to make it as lively and inventive as the Contra, English and Scottish dance scenes. And finally, we would explore Schottische and Pizzica as sources of more energetic ways of moving, involving skipping, springing and leg lifting. This proved to be a fruitful but obscure plan; it yielded wonderful results but the final outcome was not entirely clear, especially to the students.  They each, to their surprise and perhaps dismay, found themselves to be the crucibles of transformation.  Each day they were schooled in mostly orthodox Yiddish styling (if not the orthodox roster of dances in the Yiddish repertoire) as well as these new, alien styles.  In previous years at YSW, there had been courses in other, related, dance styles. I’d been present for courses with teachers of Moldovan, North German and Bavarian dances, but while these dance styles were looked at as parallels or possible sources, they were kept discrete from the Yiddish dances, and were never consciously mixed together.  Here we were trying to consciously hybridize the dances.

What was the difference between this experiment and the creation of Israeli dances? Perhaps that we tried to maintain a sense of connection with previous Yiddish dances, as opposed to the Israeli goal of creating a clean break with the past, particularly the Ashkenazy past. The early Israeli folk dance choreographers did consciously enfold elements of Arabic and Yemenite dance, however, as they seemed more Middle Eastern and thus Israeli. We strove to maintain Yiddish qualities of elegance, seemliness, and simplicity while incorporating European dance influences.


 Our most successful experiment may prove to be what we called the Tzepl Tants (little braid dance). This was our development of the Wickler, which works beautifully with music in a terkish rhythm especially.  It also worked to newer Klezmer music in a slow tempo.  We used a combination of slow and quick steps, ad lib, to keep with the rhythm of the music, and with Alan Bern’s suggestion, made it a repeated 3 part form: an open position promenade, then one handed led figures, and finally two handed led figures.  We encouraged dancers to not overpopulate their dancing with too many figures in quick succession, and also added a unique element of advancing and retreating (like going in and out of a circle) with a slight lift and pause on the change of direction.  A floor full of people dancing Tzepl Tants looks both stately and sexy- a bit like a Yiddish dance tango!

Our development of non touching couple dance we called the Kompot- a sweet mixture of several influences.  Like bourree and chacarera, it allows freedom of improvisation within a clear structure: a section of partners opposite each other describing a small circle, followed by a section of crossing over and changing sides.  The crossing over section had a meeting of partners, leaning and facing each other then retiring, before changing places (a bit like the sher).  The circling could be varied with one or the other partner in the center of the small circle, with the other partner dancing around them, or even each partner alternately shining in the center. We leavened the dancing style with some step and gesture vocabulary adapted from pizzica.  The result is a Jewish looking dance that can be danced equally to traditional or fusion Klezmer music.

We tried setting schottische skipping steps to music with a skotchne feel, and used it when dancing with a tikhl (handkerchief) creating a fun and frisky dance game.

Vivien brought a method for constructing longways set dances using a modular system of interchangeable figures.  For groups familiar with the method and vocabulary, it is possible for each foursome in a longways to improvise their own dance. But I advocated for more inclusive dances- ones that someone could perhaps join in progress.  By using the formula for improvised dances, we created 2 new Yiddish style longways dances- Little Star (Shterndl) and Road to Minsk (Forn Kayn Minsk). We even, as an experiment, let the group create a dance by committee; there are endless possibilities for new dances. What made these dances Yiddish was the choice of figures and the style of execution.  Also, I took the popular gallop/Galopede style long dance and created the very simple and easy to join Ferdl Galop (Little Horse Gallop).  All these longways dances worked to a variety of bulgars from the standard Klezmer rep.

Andreas stitched some Playford figures together to make a quadrille dance that suited a Klezmer tune with an early music feel, and created a patsh tants (clapping dance) to a tune collected by Beregovski.

And finally, I cobbled together a little couple changing dance called The International, because it begins with the internationally distributed forwards and backwards figure seen in Gay Gordons and Le Chappeloise, to name just a few. It also incorporated some Lithuanian figures I had learned from two Jewish Lithuanian women I met in Atlanta.  Adding to the international flavor, we danced it to the Yiddish theater gem In Odess, although any square tune would work. 

At the dance ball on the final night of the workshop it was amazing to see how these dances had been absorbed by the participants. Even when the music was not played in an old-time Klezmer style, the dances and dancers were flexible enough to adapt.  There was space for individual expression, and opportunities for shared group experience, like in the set dances.  Whether any of these dances becomes incorporated into the Yiddish dance repertoire remains to be seen- I’ll certainly be teaching them for a while and see how they are received and how they adapt outside of the hothouse environment in which they were created. And there are certainly more interesting dance forms that can be mined for their possible contribution to Yiddish dance.

 Anyone care to join me in a Tzepl Tants?

I just returned from my 6th time working at the Jewish Cultural Festival (Festival Kultury Zydowski) in Krakow.  It has become a highlight of my work year- I teach a daily hour and a half Yiddish dance class with 60 to 100 participants each session.    My first year I performed a bottle dance as part of a wedding program in one of the evening concerts, and was asked repeatedly to do it again- including in front of many thousands at the final outdoor concert of Szyroka Street. (More about that later).  In the following years, I’ve organized a model wedding, a Purim party, an outdoor “Tea Dance”,  and 2 flash mobs.  So it is always a special time. 

But this year it was somehow more special.

My first year there, my ambivalence about presenting Jewish culture in Poland was aggravated by the ubiquitous presence of little carved wooden figurines of bearded Jews available from every souvenir shop and stand.  Commercial and kitschy, they held a strange fascination for me and my Klezmer friends.  But it was the little figures of Jews holding a money bag, and often a shiny penny, that were especially troubling.  This was the year when I was asked repeatedly to perform my bottle dance.  Was I being perceived as a Jewish toy figurine, I found myself wondering? The quaint dancing Jew with a bottle on his head?  It took a week of royal and respectful treatment by the festival organizers, and seeing the positive and lively , and not at all stereotypical expression of Jewish culture being presented by the festival to bring me to understand that, of course, if I did something interesting and iconic, people would be interested.  And the onus was on me, once I had their attention, to direct them to a more nuanced understanding of Jewish dance and the Jewish body. Which I feel I’ve been doing for the last 6 years.

One of the things I’ve been trying to wean people away from is the “Chassidic” style of Jewish dance.  This is a collection of stereotypical tropes used by Israeli, and other, folk dance choreographers to telegraph “Jewish”.  The only problem is, it relates to no actual way of dancing, and is entirely self-referential. It’s characterized by flapping elbows, hands thrusting skyward, and high kicking knees.  Here is a pretty ripe example: Hasidic Dance.

Many Israeli recreational folk dances have been choreographed in some version of this style, and for the life of me I could not see the appeal. Even some dance teachers whom I like and respect would resort to teaching these.  To me, they are the choreographic equivalent of those kitschy figurines.  This year, there was an exhibit in Krakow about the figurines, Souvenir, Talisman, Toy, supported by several panel discussions, which created a week long conversation on the subject. Finally!  The exhibit did many things: one was to make obvious to anyone, both Pole and Jew, how weird and offensive the “penny Jews” were. (They are considered a kind of magical talisman to attract money to a house or business). But more intriguingly, it helped frame the other figurines as a naïve expression of memory, nostalgia, and perhaps as icons of a kind of sublime spirituality.  I’ve been thinking that the collecting of Chassidic artworks by Jews, especially, and the dancing of those “Chassidic” dances, is a way for some to honor and connect with a less secular, more spiritual side of themselves.  And that is a valid longing. I just think there are more informed ways of doing it.   Ways that involve a little more observation and personal investment.

A couple of other very significant things happened to me this festival.

One was that I was asked by my good friends, Deborah Strauss and Jeff Warshauer of the Straus/Warshauer Duo , to perform a dance in their concert commemorating 18 years of performing together. Many other friends were also invited to make guest appearances, but they were all musicians or singers, I was the only one presenting a solo dance.  I tend to hate solo dancing- it is lonely and scary for me.  I tend to choreograph every step, and until I’ve performed a dance many times, I find myself preoccupied with how the dance goes, and don’t really get to enjoy the performance.  This time, instead of fully planning every step, I basically shaped the dance with a number of landmark events. The dance, a yet another version of an idea I keep returning to, involved my discovering, holding,  donning, and ultimately removing a long black Jewish coat- the one I'm seen in on my home page.  I associate the coat with Felix Febich, a dance mentor of mine, and I love the shapes I can make with the coat as I dance with and in it. I was very nervous though, since I felt both prepared and unprepared for the performance.  I’d done several run-throughs, and had planned my narrative and ‘beats’ carefully,  but the dance was going to have to be greatly improvised – albeit from a familiar vocabulary.  The body shapes and moves I was going to use are ones I’ve researched and developed over years, drawn particularly from depictions of Jewish dancers in art, especially the paintings of Baruch Aggadati.

As we’d arranged, I started the dance in silence, the coat trailing after me, following me. Deborah started her slow doyna, and I let the coat swirl around me, and finally embraced it.  I danced with it like an absent person, and, when the music changed to a rhythmic slow hora, I donned the coat and danced.  When the music got faster still, I finally shrugged off the coat, and continued dancing without it.  During the performance, I felt extremely present- aware of my surroundings, an exhibit in the Galicia museum, of the music which was almost but not quite like the recording I’d rehearsed to, and even of the audience.  By leaving room for improvisation and spontaneity, I was able to listen to the music and really perform.  Deborah was able to watch me and lift me up with her violin playing.  One of my moments was to face the audience with the coat beside me, then bring it in front of me. Here I am, here I am with a coat.  It was a thrilling experience for me, and from what audience members have told me, it was exciting and involving for them too.  That dance, in that place, with that music. We were all-performers and audience- fully present, and that was important.

My dance class had a few moments of shocking presence for me as well.  I have a number of repeat students who have taken my class year after year.  They are Polish, and many of them speak little or no English. And yet it is always a pleasure to see them when the walk in the door on the first day of class.  This year, in order to keep things interesting for them, and myself, I presented my material in a new format.  Taking a cue for Echad Mi Yodea (Who Knows One) and other counting songs, I presented the repertoire of Yiddish dances by the numbers, with a dance association for each of the numbers 1-8.  Most profoundly, on the first day, I associated 1 with the simple clear shift of weight from one leg to another, leaving the other leg to gesture or not.  Each shift of weight was a statement of Here I am, and had an element of sublime stillness.  We used this emphatic weight shift in the Khossidel and Slow Hora dances, both of which use one emphatic step per measure. 2 was the bouncy walk of the Freylekhs, 12121212 etc.  Here we go.  Later, as we got to more complex step patterns, the ability to be clear about taking a single step and walking was very helpful.

At the end of the week, we got to 8. 8 was the sher, a square dance for 4 couples, or 8 people.  I’ve taught this dance countless times.  It was a centerpiece dance at weddings. I describe it as “ a party with 7 of your friends”.  This year I got to dance it with a model set of some of the best dancers in class- several of my regulars.  People I see only once a year, for a few days.  People who, over the course of several years, have become more than just familiar faces, but personalities, too. As we danced, we were able to really see each other, to kid around and make little non-verbal jokes.  For me, it was like seeing distant relatives, the kind you only see at big family functions. And it hit me the real value of a dance like the sher.  15 minutes of lively, intimate quality time with special people. Nobody was putting on a Jewish act- we were just familiar people doing a fun Jewish dance and enjoying the rare opportunity of each other’s company and attention. An opportunity we wouldn’t have again for another year, at least. It was pretty moving.

Later that afternoon, just before Shabos, we held our now annual Tea Dance on a large public square in the old Jewish quarter of Kazimirez. (Here is video from the first Tea Dance, in 2010). The weather was favorable, the threat of rain had passed and we were able to set up a sound system for the musicians and make the music brilliant.  Students from the class were joined by many other festival goers and passers-by.  A lot of them joined the dancing- it was a big, lively crowd.  At one point I found myself moved to say, between dances, how happy I felt the stones of the square must be to have this joyous Jewish dancing happening on them now. Ok, it was I who was happy, and I suppose I was projecting that onto the stones of the square, and the surrounding buildings and windows, but they did not rise up to contradict me.  Later, as we were ready to wind up the party and get ready to greet Shabos, I invited the crowd to face the musicians and dance a little Khossidl.  I repeated the idea of the first day's class- stepping from one leg to the other on the emphatic 1. With each step, I asked them to gesture with a thumb to their own chest: Here I am! And then, with an open gesture, like the prelude to a hug, to the others around them: Here you are.  And I found myself saying to everyone there: Being here, now, in this place, at this time, in this way, is important.  It is a statement of belief and of faith and of hope.  No one rose up to contradict me.

This year was definitely more special.

Here is some information I’d like to share about my understanding of the various Klezmer rhythms.  I owe a great deal of my knowledge to the many talented musicians I work and talk with, particularly Josh Horowitz and Cookie Segelstein of Veretski Pass, Kurt Bjorling, and Jim Guttman of Klezmer Conservatory Band  with whom I’ve taught  a class called  ‘Make ‘em Dance”, where we try to connect musicians to the dance groove in order to make the music danceable.
I hope this will be of help to both dancers who wonder what to dance to which music, and musicians as well.

Freylekhs dance:

Freylekhs can be considered the default Ashkenazic Jewish celebratory dance.  Characterized by a bouncy walk- with a step on the strong beat, and an upward bounce on the offbeat: 1 and 2 and.  It can be danced in circles, serpentine lines, couples or solo. So long as everyone in line or circle moves in the same direction and same speed, footwork need not be identical, and rarely is.  Other options include: walking backwards in direction of travel; prances, either forward or backwards, 2-steps and small pas de basques; shuffling; and scuffing steps.  Hands may be held high or low, and may vary through group.  When arms are free in solo or couple dancing, they tend to either frame the self, show time and dynamics (like conducting), or gesture to others. Gestures tend to be in slower time than footwork (on the 1 of 2/4 measure) or lyrical.  Use of space tends to be varied and kaleidoscopic- figures will change spontaneously, often with changes of musical section.  Advancing and retiring as a group tends to be elastic rather sharply tied to the measure, rather like the swing of a pendulum.

Several types of music are suitable for dancing Freylekhs:

Freylekhs- Tunes in a happy walking tempo, characterized by a clear 2/4 or 4/4 feel, with light, tripping melodies and 16th note passages. Usually in several sections, with distinct changes in mood between sections (this is true of most klezmer dance tunes). Musicians should try singing the tune while doing a bouncy walk to find the important offbeat stresses.

Bulgar- Heavier bounce than the freylekhs.  (To me, freylekhs sound like Mozart; bulgars, Beethoven.) Related to the Romanian sirba, bulgars have an underlying  galloping, triplet, giddyup feel.  Bulgars replaced the old style freylekhs as the standard party tunes, perhaps because of their more modern drive.  When danced, the bouncy walk of the freylekhs becomes almost a jog.  Bulgar tunes also support the 6-count bulgar step: 2 quick steps in line of direction followed by 2 half time weight changes in place, often with kicks, lifts or other gestures of the free leg. It’s similar to the Israeli hora and dozens of other dances. It is not, however, required that a bulgar be danced to bulgar tunes. Freylekhs is more typical.  Musicians should try singing the tune while galloping to discover the underlying drive and “swing”.

Khossidl:  A type of freylekhs with a slower, weightier feeling.  Supports one weight change per measure, on the 1.  Also can be more expressive, grand, dreamy or “spirititual” in feeling and when danced.  Not necessarily Chassidic in origin, but perhaps with references to nigunim (Chassidic spiritual tunes).  Musicians can try singing the tune while swaying side to side on the 1 of the measure, with a strong weight change.

Skotshne: Yet another freylekhs variant.  I wonder if it has a relation to the German Schottish and Scottish dancing, thereby implying a hopping, springing, skipping style of dancing. Often the melodic structure lines up with the classic schottish dance structure of [123 hop] [ 123 hop], [1 hop, 2 hop] [3 hop, 4 hop], where each bracketed unit corresponds to one measure.  That’s my two groschen, at least.

Sirba:  A popular Romanian dance rhythm, characterized by an underlying, insistent 6/8 or triplet rhythm.  Usually played Fast or Faster. There are several typical Romanian dance steps that correspond to sirba, they all involve a mix of stepping and skipping.  (N.B.  a step hop is in a square, quarter or eighth note rhythm, a skip is in a syncopated 6/8 or triplet rhythm; Mary had a little lamb, vs. Humpty Dumpty.) A few of the typical sirba steps are very close in pattern to the bulgar step.  Musicians can try singing a sirba tune while skipping briskly or sliding (chasse) for some interesting insights.

Honga:  Can refer simply to dancing in a file with each dancer placing one or both hands on the shoulders of the dancer in front of them. Musically, refers to 2/4 Romanian sounding tunes with a sharper upbeat than the freylekhs, and which supports a scuff on the upbeat, rather than just a bounce.  Zev Feldman, whose family came from Moldova, has demonstrated a number of unique footwork and arm patters appropriate to this music.

Sher:   The sher is a Jewish square dance that often has distinct music associated with it.  The music is similar to freylekhs, and the dance is danced like a freylekhs with the typical bounce, but has a number of square dance figures – generally a chorus for the group, and a leading out figure for each individual.  Therefore, the dance sequence goes through 8 times (chorus, lead out 1, chorus, lead out 2, etc) and requires a considerable amount of music- about 15 or more minutes worth.  A suite of tunes is typically played.  Designated sher tunes often have 1 or 2 sections that are broad and support the long figure phrases  of circling, promenading,  and crossing over, and then sections that are more divided, with a distinct break in the tune, that support the shorter movement phrases associated with leading out.  Tunes can be freylekhs-like or frequently bulgar-like, but played more squarely, almost like a march.  Here is an example of a SHER.

Other typical Klezmer rhythms:

Slow Hora or Zhok:  This is a very popular dance, processional, or listening rhythm, originating in Romania.  It is characterized by a syncopated feeling that is often described as in 3, with the pulse falling on the downbeat and an auxiliary pulse on the preceding upbeat. If played in a strict 3, however, it is very difficult to dance to, and to my mind is better thought of as in 1, with a precipitous upbeat: 1! aaaaaaaaaaand 1! aaaaaaaaand 1! aaaaaaaaaand 1!  Etc. The dance requires dancers to mostly take one step per measure, on the 1, and I encourage people learning the dance to imagine stepping across a stream on stones, where you need to reach then balance with each step.  This feels very awkward if the music adheres to a straight 3 (even if it’s notated that way). 

Terkish:  Actually Greek sounding- a sort of squared-off syrto rhythm, but played with this accent pattern: 1…45. 7. This is sometimes played almost like a rhumba. Can be danced as a sort of syncopated freylekhs, allowing a great deal of expression, but I’ve discovered that Boieresca patterns also fit nicely on this rhythm. 

Kolomeyke:  A Ukrainian rhythm meaning "from Kolomey", that seem to be related to Hutsulkas (Romanian Hutsul dance tunes).  Kolomeykes mostly have a strong accent on the 1 of every 4 beats, and frequently have a distinctive, strong 2 beat cadence at the end phrases.  Can support Russian style  dancing with 2 steps and pas de basques, but is also well suited to exhibitionist, athletic and acrobatic moves.  Ukrainian youths frequently use it as such at parties, and Jewish bands will often switch to a kolomeyke or Russian "kozatzky" tune when someone starts doing a spectacular stunt, like squatting kicks, or flashy jump rope jumping.

I think it's high time I started a blog... my friends and colleagues consider me a maven on the topic of Jewish dance.  So, watch this spot for my thoughts and observations.  I hope you'll find them interesting.  -Steve