ABOUT THE DANCES

This page will present snippets and items of interest about various dances, as forwarded to us by contributors. Any contributions are welcome.

Many of our contributions come courtesy of the Rikud Chat list    All items are used with permission.
 
"You Don't Have to be Jewish" by Margaret Robinson
 
Historic articles which include information about these dances:

Debka Dayagim           Shalom Hermon           More Background

Debka Gilboa               Rivka Sturman               A Research Project

Debka Leadama          Yacov Levy                    More Background

Dodi Li                           Rivka Sturman              A Research Project

EL Ginat Egoz              Sara Levi-Tanai            More Background

Iti Milvanon                    Rivka Sturman               A Research Project

Zemer Atik                    Rivka Sturman                A Research Project

Thanks to Gary Fox from the Rikud Israeli Dance chat list    
1. Gadi Bitton's Salamati has Persian music and a Persian singer. He's singing about him sitting in the bar ordering a drink and trying to impress the girl next to him.

2. Avi Peretz' Od Nashuv is a new dance to Jim Horton's song from the sound track of a famous movie "North to Alaska."
The original singer is not Jewish nor the song is not about Israel or anything else, Daklon made it Jewish by keeping the tune and writing a new words about returning to the home land.

3. Victor Gabai's new dance Ani Lo Me'Ohav was a song by Australian group Air Supply, translated recently to Hebrew and sung by an Israeli singer (Kochav Nolad).

4. Siman Shata Tza'ir is an old dance by Yoav Ashriel. It's a 1950s German beer salon song about drinking translated to Hebrew and sung by Gesher Shlishayat Hayrkon.

5. All our early song and dances from Gurit Kadmon and Rivkah Shturman in the 1940's were to Russian songs. Krakoviak, Mazurkah, Cherkessia kfulah, Troikah, Karaboushkah were all foreign songs.


In conclusion we see a pattern that indicates that we are one melting pot of Jewish culture, influenced in our culture by so much diversity of Jewish culture which the result is what we see now and called Israeli folk dances.
Thanks to Israel Yakovee of California, USA
The tune of Rivka Sturman's "Kol Dodi" is used both in Catholic and Protestant (Lutheran) services, in Bavaria, Germany. IFD literature states that the tune was either composed by Sara Levy-Tanai or is marked as "traditional.".
Another guess I heard was the the tune itself must be something Jewish from the "Spanish period" until 1492.
Thanks to Matti Goldschmidt of Germany