Israeli Dance
I recently attended an Israeli Dance preformance in New York city. The dance was in the style of Israeli Folk dance and at least 10 Israeli dance companies participated. Israeli folk dance is a strange genre of dance, in that it was only actively used for a mere few years. The time period of its popularity was during the 50’s and 60’s in Israel. It was created as a celebratory dance, for the post indepedence war victory festivities. Most of the dances are also unique in that they are communal. They involve the collective action of many dancers. Also, there is alot of spinning and circles. This originates from the dance tradition of european jews. At all happy life cycle events, people dance in circles together. Israeli dance is an addition to the tradition. Diffirent dance steps and additional individual spins and other moves are added to the same basic form of the dance. It was interesting to see a style of dance that I am culturaly familiar with, enhanced with more modern dance tecnique.