Arts is Entertainment

Carrier Of Culture

Renowned choreographer visits Michigan with examples of Sephardic story dances.

SUZANNE CHESSLER

Special to the Jewish News

11 udith Brin Ingber is a choreog-
rapher-dancer not satisfied with
performance alone. She enjoys
teaching about dance and writing about
dance, especially when the style is
Sephardic.
Ingber will be combining all her pro-
fessional interests during a visit to
Michigan in mid-July. A dance presen-
tation will be joined with a slide-based
talk 2-4 p.m. Sunday, July 17, at the
Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield. Dance workshops will be
held 10 a.m.-noon Friday, July 15, and
2-4 p.m. Saturday, July 16, at the JCC.
In private, there will be a meeting
with representatives of the Wayne State
University Press to discuss her upcom-
ing book, a compilation of essays about
Jewish dance.
"I will be doing three dances from
my repertoire and giving a talk with
some very beautiful historical slides I
collected in Israel and in my travels to
Sephardic areas," says the Minneapolis
resident, whose free appearance com-
plements the exhibit Jewish Costumes in
the Ottoman Empire, on view through
July 28 at the Janice Charach Epstein
Gallery.
"I will cover what suggests Sephardic
celebration and dance, specifically over
time. I have had the privilege of travel-
ing to Istanbul and meeting some of
the performers there. I showed them
some of my work, and they said it was
exactly the way they imagined it would
be if their mothers still danced."

41

Ingber, whose Michigan visit was
encouraged by the JCC Festival
Dancers under the direction of Harriet
Berg, will perform three works to
recordings — all communicating sto-
ries.
The first, which has her dressed in an
embroidered and colorful silk cloak she
bought in Istanbul and understands is
from the Ottoman Period, relates the
tale of an instant romantic attraction.
The second has to do with a fisher-
man's infatuation with a woman seen in
a tower. The third is likely to be about
an aphrodisiac.
"It's great fun to do these story
dances," says Ingber, who has studied
and directed dance in Israel. "I do put
together a theatrical vision, but there's
something that bases it on a real key
within a Sephardic woman's way of
moving or some image in a song, and
it's very common that Sephardic songs
reflect family troubles or arguments."
Ingber, about 60, became interested
in Sephardic music while living in Israel
during the early 1970s, when she
worked with the Batsheva Dance
Company and the Inbal Dance
Theatre. She had studied dance in
Minnesota and at Sarah Lawrence
College in New York, where she went
on to perform and write for profession-
al magazines.
"I was part of a team called the Israel
Ethnic Dance Project, and we would
record interviews with dance masters in
the ethnic community," explains
Ingber, who met people from Morocco,
Turkey and Yemen.
"This was a joint project with the

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Judith Brin Ingber will perform in
a free program 2-4 p.m. Sunday,
July 17, at the West Bloomfield
JCC. She will conduct workshops
for dancers 10 a.m.-noon Friday,
July 15, and 2-4 p.m. Saturday,
July 16, at the JCC. $5 in advance
for Festival Dancers/$8 at the door
for Festival Dancers and others.
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"I feel that my work is helpful to
Jewish organizations," says Ingber, the
wife of an immigration lawyer and the
mother of two grown sons. "One of the
wonderful things about my dance work
is that it connects me to Jewish com-
munities wherever I go. It's a big bless-
ing to me to feel that I'm a carrier of
culture and a connector through cul-
ture." ❑

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Folklore Department at Hebrew
University [in Jerusalem], and I got
quite a marvelous introduction to
Sephardic culture. It was very different
from the Ashkenazic culture I knew
[growing up in] Minnesota.
"Sephardic dancing is not
removed from celebration, and
the women keep the tradi-
tion of dancing with
each other and in
groups in a very lively
way. There's a pretty
unbroken line of
acknowledging the curves
and beauty of the woman's
body and letting it shine in a gather-
ing. It's a more sensual way of dancing
than the Ashkenazic, which tends to be
bigger, organized group dancing."
Ingber, who spent five years in Israel
and has returned every year since to do
research and find new inspiration, cre-
ated a performance company, Voices of
Sepharad, upon moving back to
America in the 1970s. The troupe has
appeared in a Michigan folk festival.
Recent writing assignments have
included a piece on contemporary
Jewish dance for the Encyclopedia
Judaica and an article on Jewish women
dancers in America for an on-line ency-
clopedia maintained in
Jerusalem.
Ingber, daughter of prayer book writer
and poet Ruth Brin, belongs to both
Conservative and Reconstructionist
congregations. The first is the syna-
gogue she knew growing up, and the
second relates to her parents' devotional
preference.

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