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Folk Dancing
American Heart Association
WE'RE FIGHTING FOP 1CURIIFE
n any given night, in any
given city or town in Israel,
thousands of people leave
their inhibitions and daily
cares at home to take part in the
quintessential national pastime:
Israeli folk dancing.
Etti Avraham, now 34, has
been folk dancing since she was
8. A licensed instructor for the
past 12 years, she teaches four•
nights a week in Jerusalem, and
every two months attends ad-
vanced dance seminars.
The atmosphere is welcoming
in her beginners' class in the
Ramot neighborhood of
Jerusalem. As in many local
classes, the average age is 30-
plus, with many more women
than men. The music is vintage
Israeli, nostalgically familiar as
the 50 otherwise strangers join
hands and dance, many singing
along as they circle the gym floor.
The music soon shifts to Chasidic,
then Oriental, and the steps and
pace change accordingly.
In the center of the circle, Ms.
Avraham starts teaching a new
dance. Everyone laughs as each
tries to follow her graceful moves.
It's a mixed group: divorcees and
retirees, business executives and
office clerks, Ashkenazim and
Sephardim, religious and secu-
lar, rich and poor.
Two young Russian immi-
grants explain, in halting He-
brew, how they came to the class
by chance and love it. A middle-
aged religious couple, formerly
from Great Britain, say they don't
want to be wallflowers at their
children's weddings. Another cou-
ple, well into their 50s, chat with
a young woman waiting for the
advanced class to begin. They
have been attending the begin-
ners' class for the past five years.
"If I can dance, anyone can," says
the heavyset man, as his wife's
knowing smile confirms.
An estimated 250,000 Israelis
take part in Israeli folk dancing
on a regular basis. Some attend
classes once a week at a local
community center or school. Oth-
ers, the addicts — and it does
seem to be addictive — go up to
five times a week.
There are 2,000 instructors na-
tionwide (only 300 are licensed
by the Ministry of Education and
Culture) and 300-400 nonprofes-
sional troupes which perform in
Israel and abroad.
The highlight of the year for all
folk dance enthusiasts is the
Carmiel Dance Festival, a three-
day extravaganza of perfor-
mances by professional and
non-professional troupes and all-
night dance sessions for per-
formers and spectators alike.
In an age of sophisticated
home entertainment, what com-
pels so many people to leave their
videos, their cable television
channels and their computer
games, to go to stark social halls
and dance until midnight, if not
later?
"It's a physical and emotional
release," or "a great way to meet
people," are oft-quoted respons-
es.
Israeli folk dancing grew out
of a need. The early years of the
state conjure up images of
healthy, young pioneers, dancing
in a circle, holding hands, their
sleeves rolled up, celebrating life
in their new country. Immi-
It's a physical and
emotional release.
grants, many of them refugees,
brought with them dances from
the Diaspora — the hora from
Romania, the polka from Poland,
Chasidic dances from eastern Eu-
rope. But for the new settlers, the
impulse was to create everything
new — land, language, culture —
and dance was no exception.
Many of the folk dances were
adapted from dance forms
brought over with each succes-
sive wave of immigration, as well
as by local Arab dances.
In the 1950s, the Yemenite tra-
dition would have a profound im-
pact on Israeli dance forms.
Israeli folk dancing thus became
an amalgam of the many cultures
assimilating into the new coun-
try.
Folk dancing has become big
business over the past 10 years.
Competition among instructors
and composers is often stiff. New
dances appear weekly — about
150 a year. El
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