Welcome to the G8 disk

The Germantown G8 disk is being updated to the new version G8.4 as part of the G12 "Score" package. Remastering of the tracks allowed the disk coordinator to add an additional track of music. While this added musical selection does not mesh with the other tracks chronologically, it would have been a shame to waste the space on the CD if it were not included.

Note: While the playlist was selected (with 2 exceptions) in Spring'06, the where information is being set as of Jan' 09 as described below.

There are many people to thank for the re-issuance of this CD. They are:
Music: Don Schillinger, Grant Shulman, Patty Segal
Translation: Marek Milbar, Pearl Elias, The Aussie Database
Logo: Deborah Kaplan
General Info: Grant Shulman
Video Collection for this web site: Use the link Elana video clips and are by Elana Tenenzapf

The Where column is being used to indicate play selection as of late '08, early '09. Keep in mind that most of these dances have been played at most sessions at one time or another. But many dances, dependent on the group, have a limited popularity and thus fade away as to play time in that session. For other groups, thre dance becomes a permanent fixture. The Where column attempts to document the dances that are permanent additions to the play selection of each of the follwoing sessions.

B-Don at Beth Sholom
D- Don's Tuesday/Thursday Classes
G-Grant at Germantown
N-Naomi at Temple Beth Sholom
R-Rob at the Klein Branch
S-Sharon Polsky At Beth Sholom
W-Sharon Kleban at Wilmington

Below is the new discography for this update. For the selections below, all are circle dances except for Hine Ma Tov, which is a line and Chikiti Lack which is a partner.

Selection	Translation	Choreographer/Music	Yr	Time	Where
Im Tirtzi Ladaat	If You Want to Know (said to a woman)	Gadi Bitton	2004	2.25.49	GRS
Hine Ma Tov	How Good	Silvio Berlfein	2000	2.17.42	BNSW
	There have been several versions of this through the years. The Aussie database shows versions back to 1950. This 2000 version is by the Miami Boy's choir.
Shufni	Look at Me (A)	Israel Yakovee	1993	3.58.60	All
	There are 3 versions of this music that are played around the area designated as 2X, 3X and 3.5X. Whichever one is played, the steps blend perfectly into the music. This is always a favorite wherever it is being danced.
Shuj Shuj Zemer	Hush Hush my heart	Ira Weisburd	2005	1.43.61	D rarely
	In 2006, as this CD was being created, it seemed like this dance would become a favorite. The music is very driving and danceable. The steps seemed interesting enough to survive. Regrettably, this dance is rarely played these days. Sometimes it's very clear why a dance will succeed as it's also clear why a dance will fail as to music and steps. After all, the marketplace for dances in any Israeli dance session is very cut-throat as selections in essence vie for time. Obviously, the marketplace has ruled that this one failed .
Heya Heya	Cheer or Happiness	Rafi Ziv Music by Shimon Bouskila Sung by Yossi Azulay	2003	2.37.26	All but G
	If you ever have some time and need a laugh, you might want to google Heya Heya. There must be a dozen different songs named Heya Heya's around the world. The most interesting one, besides this, is by Oliver Shanti (pictured to the left), apparently of native American Indian descent, who lives in Germany and writes native music when not being hunted by the police on sex crime violations. His rendition of Heya Heya sounds a lot like Adama VeShamayim without beat. Rafi made a good choice going with this Heya Heya.
Kshe'hatal Notzetz	When the dew is glistening (Shining)	Israel Shiker	1993	2.47:49	DNRS
	A question for the Germantown dancers, do you remember this dance? Don taught it in the Marcus Auditorium during his seminar in the spring of '06. Interestingly enough, It's never become part of the Germantown repertoire but it is done at other locales.
Od Nashuv	We'll yet return	Avi Perez Music by Johnny Horton	2005	2.39:04	D
	On this web site, you'll see some buttons for North To Alaska which is the original for this music. A movie was made of the same name in 1960 and we dedicate this track to all the John Wayne fans out there who do Israeli dancing.
Miss Music		Oren Shmuel Sung by Sarit Hadad	2006	3.01.23	DN
	Miss Music is the title of the album that includes this song. Apparently, Miss Hadad, a pop star in Israel, is trying to corner the nickname, Miss Music, and this is the result.
Oye El Boom [Boom]	listen to the boom	Karina Lambert	2004	2.30.52	DN
	Introduced in this area at one of the Hora Aviv camps by Karina herself. Karina specializes in putting Isreali dance steps to Latin based music and this is no exception.
(Hem) Rakdu Yechefim	Dancing Barefoot	Shmulik Gov-Ari	1993	2.56.17	All but R
Ruchot Milchama	War Spirits	Rafi Ziv	2005	2.19:38	DS
Salamati	Belly Up to the Bar (in farsi)	Gadi Bitton	2005	2.11.04	ALL
	Isn't this a great song to dance to? And, even more importantly, aren't the steps great. At first, we all had problems dealing with the stutter step on both sides of the second (or is it the third) part. But, we've all gotten plenty of practice in the different sessions in the Philadelphia area. And in the case of Cherry Hill, this extends to the Cherry Hill fieldtrips where this is a crowd favorite even when done in small spaces and on rugs.
Al Tishal Oti	Don't ask me (said to a man)	Israel Shiker	2003	4.15.00	D rarely
Lecha Karati	I Have Called You(said to a man)	Dudu Barzilay	2004	1:53:33	DGSW
	There are 2 versions of this, 2X and 3x. At Germantown we do the 3X version on most Sunday mornings but this is the 2X version
Tzel Etz Tamar	Palm Tree Shadow	Ben Levy	1992	2.47.34	GR
	As you listen to this music, you are experiencing the ballroom dance, rumba. Listen to the percussion instruments. The beat doesn't change. It is consistent throughout the track of music. This is a requirement of ballroom dancing that does not exist in Israeli dancing since the male partner is in charge of choreography, leading the woman by hand and body pressures. Changes of rhythm within a dance would be impossible to lead. In Israeli dance partners, since the choreography is already established, changes in musical beat are not significant.
Tzel Midbar	Desert Shade	Bonny Piha	2005	2.28.15	DNW
	This dance was introduced to the Philadelphia area by Bonny Piha himself during the 2005 Hora Aviv. If memory serves, he indicated that upon hearing the music, it reminded him of walking on the desert sand. His steps to this dance attempt to bring this out.
Tagidi Li Isha	Tell Me Woman	Israel Shiker	2005	2.57.45	All but G
	When Don recently taught this dance at his Wednesday class, a dancer asked him whether he was going to dance this in a 3 times pattern or a 2 times pattern. The 3x pattern starts immediately (and apparently was what was originally choreographed) while 2X has a substantial wait until the steps begin. The Phila area classes seems to have settled on 2X as did Don that Wednesday.
Wai Wai Wai	An Expression Of Surprise	Israel Shiker Music by Chaim Tzur Sung (this version) by Gabi Shoshan	2005	2.54.10	All but G
	Sometimes when this music comes on, you will see some of the dancers - especially Len and Judy - do a polka type couples dance outside of the circle. This is Lilach which apparently was this tune's original name as a partner dance (Both wai wai wai and Lilach appear in the lyrics)
Yareach Limon	Lemon Moon	Kobi Michaeli	2000	3.07.59	DNS
Zuz Mitzad Letsad	Move from side to side	Oren Ashkenazi	2004	2.28.30	BDNW
	This music is akin to the Reggaton movement in the Americas and the United States. Reggaton(aka raggaeton) is a spanish version of hip hop. Apparently, this has been picked up in Israel with releases of music such as this.
Ahava Acheret	A Different Kind Of Love	Levi Bar Gil	2005	2.20.39	G rarely
	The Germantown version of this has only 2 renditions while this version plays three. The music was one of the first of the more difficult dances that Grant taught when he took over the helm of Germantown.
Achat Mikulan	An Exceptional Woman	Yaron Malihi	2005	3.20.07	NR
Chikiti Lach	I have waited for you	Rafi Ziv	2006	2.59	DR
	See below for a discussion of Rafi Ziv and this partner dance
Eilat		Shmulik Gov-Ari	1992	3.49.62	All
	For the novice dancer, a dancing theme (a set of steps done over and over) make a dance much easier to pick up. At one time, these types of themes (in terms of steps) ran through most Israeli dances. Today, this is not necessarily the case although you will see this in Eilat. In this dance that theme is a break in the reverse direction and then a full turn. This is done several times throughout this dance.
Sharm El Sheikh		Dani Dassa	1972	2.38:10	D
Ve'Nisgav	God will be exulted	Gadi Bitton Sung by Mordechai Ben David	2007	1.50.07	BD
	Mordechai Werdyger, singing professionally as Mordechai ben David (MBD) is a superstar singer and composer in the Orthodox Jewish community. Apparently taking older songs, psalms and prayers, he changes the beat to a more modern sound as indicated in this dance.
Etz Hamishalot	The wishing tree	Nona Malki	2001	2.50.35	BDGNS
	In teaching this dance at his Germantown workshop of Spring '06, Don made a point to tell the group that the choreographer was a Canadian woman, one of the few woman choreographers around and, even rarer, dealing with circle dances. Apparently, it wasn't always this way and women choreographers laid out many of the early Israeli dance classics. But, of late, this seems to be a male dominated field except for line dances.
Hazmana Lemachol	Invitation to a dance	Israel Shiker Sung by Uri Fineman Music by Tamir Kalisky	2001	2.50.35	DNR
	A very Latin beat but with confusing steps. It's not unusual to miss a step if you haven't done the dance in a while. Of interest here is the musician, Tamir Kalisky. Apparently he usually works as a team with Ze'ev Nechama, whom he partners with as the basis of Ethnix, a band that has been highlighted in a prior Germantown disk. Another one of the Ze'ev, Tamir pieces that we dance to is Al Salsalim

A note about our next and last selection

For those who have heard G8 before (and even for those new to this) you are already aware that these CDs have a last track of non Israeli dance music designated as the kicker. The person who creates these disks - and he makes no apologies for this - likes the idea of introducing other subjects besides Israeli dancing into the documentation. This is very rare as most of you already realize. Those of you who attend Israeli dance camps where music is given out know that non Israeli dance music is never added. In this, the Germantown G series of disks are unique. This CD, G8 was the first to have had an additional track of such music added.

Why did this occur? There are several reasons pertaining to the Disk Coordinator's personality, but even, more so, pertaining to the intelligence and personality of the typical Philadelphia Israeli dancer. Don't you believe that the people participating in these classes are exceptional as far as the quest for learning is concerned. After all, they (and you the reader) are participating willingly in an activity where there is a continual need to exercise the mind and body. New dances and new steps are continually thrown at you and there is an expectation that you will respond by memorizing and learning what the greatest choreographers in the world create and dispense. It is fair to say that you are not the type to lie in front of a television set assuming your days of learning are over.

In this light, the actual story of the first attempt at the creation of G8 in 2006 should strike a note with you as an Israeli dancer. You should understand the disk coordinator's need to determine to what limits he could push these CDs with the limited knowledge he had at the time. It was his theory, after placing 26 tracks onto a CD, that perhaps a minute and 53 seconds remained of usable space on the disk. Not knowing how to determine this exactly with the software at the time available to him, he experimented by placing an additional track on the CD that he knew, from memory, to be 1 minute and 45 seconds in length.

The resultant CD, with all 27 tracks including this last one, had all the elements of what he enjoyed most in Israeli dance music, the endless variety, with the added bonus of ending with one of his favorites pieces of music. Did he make the right selection of music? Was he wrong? Let's see if we can change your opinion if you are on the negative side of this.

This piece of music was to be the second recognizable item in the first movie of its genre (after what is today known as the gun barrel sequence.) You have to remember that the series of books that were the basis of all this were to some degree folk legend in England by the time of this movie's production, 1961-62. To give you one such example, when the fifth book of this series left the hero hanging between life and death, the uproar over the ending required the author to post an actual medical bulletin at a real hospital to answer the queries that he was getting about the fate of his hero.

We tell you this so that you understand that the producers and directors of this first movie were required to tread very lightly on these sensibilities. It was not just the question of a theme song that could be played over the beginning and ending titles - it was a question of meeting the right mood for this character. The success of this movie might hang in the balance.

Yet, almost everything went wrong as the movie progressed with filming. The music was not progressing any better. The first music coordinator, Monty Norman, had become enamored with what is now known as the Ska sound that had been sweeping Jamaica (where the movie was shooting) and provided a soundtrack based on this genre of music. But this type of sound wouldn't really work for a theme song where the hero was English, the villain Chinese and the background Jamaican. Norman, not to mention the producers and director, felt that all of these discordant influences should be evident in the music theme. While we are not done narrating the full episode of this, when you do listen to this last track - and we're sure that you have heard this many times at the movies at the very least - see if you can pick up the various influences described here. You may now have a better understanding of its unique ending.

But, to continue, not being happy with Norman's final product, the producers brought in the band leader of a jazz group, John Barry, to add his own flair to this proposed music, which he did utilizing some of the musical chords evident in his first movie composition, Walk Don't Run. The final part of all this was the influence of the guitar player, Vic Flick, whose actual expertise is what you hear.

Therefore, this last track, The James Bond theme, is a compromise produced by various men with not insubstantial egos and under enormous time and financial pressures. Whenever world events depress you, when it seems like there is no room to compromise, keep this music in mind. It does show, in the end, at least one instance where the summing of the parts greatly exceeded the individual parts themselves. If it could be done here, one might conclude that it is possible to accomplish in other realms, such as politics. Perhaps this will change your mind if you were negative about this selection.

This version of the James Bond theme is both the music cover for the beginning and ending credits of Dr. No. The music has survived some 47 years as part of this movie series. Its longevity classifies it as the greatest movie theme of all time. It is probably the most recognizable commercial piece of music in the world given the number of people who have seen at least one Bond movie in their lifetime. During the 60's and 70's, almost every piece of music that was guitar oriented used the beginning chords as a sort of salute or replica including Secret Agent Man, the A13 kicker. The disk coordinator is pleased to be able to discard its previous alias of End title/roll credits and designate this by its real name. We are pleased to end this CD with:

The James Bond Theme

Front and back titles of the movie, Dr No

Composed by Monty Norman
Conducted By John Barry
Guitar by Vic Flick

1962

1.44.40

For the partner dancers among you, we present the steps of Rafi Ziv's Chikiti Lach (I have waited for you) as presented by http://www.imber.com.au/ifd/dance_steps, a web site that attempts to document the steps of many Israeli dances.

Chikiti Lach (Partner)

Here's the codes:
l = left
r = right
a = anticlockwise
c = clockwise
o = out - moving or facing out from the circle
i = in - moving or facing into the center of the circle

Last modified: 14-Feb-08 by Martin Imber at http://www.imber.com.au/ifd/

Start facing a on opposite feet. Boy to r and behind girl. r hands held over
girl's r shoulder. l hands held in front of boy. Steps are for boy. Girl is mirror except where noted.
1-2 lr Going a: walk, walk.
3-4 lrl- Going a: step together step, pause. Girl does � turn c.
5-6 rl Sway, sway.
7-8 rlr- Going i: behind and in front, pause.
9-10 lrl- � turn a. Now facing o. r hand takes girl's l.
11-12 rlr- Going o: step together step, pause. Girl does � turn a going o under boy's r arm which holds girl's l.
13-14 lrl- Going o: Na'ale with boy to r of girl and girl walking backwards. Finish facing i and girl facing o. After pivot at end of the Na'ale, boy is on l of girl.
15-16 rlr- Going i: step together step, pause.
17-18 lr 1/3 turn under girl's r arm which hold's boy's l. Girl does 1/3 turn c. Finish facing partner and o.
19-20 lr Walk, walk. Girl does full turn c under boy's l.
21-22 lrl- Going a: Open cha-cha.
23-24 rlr- 3/4 turn c with boy's r arm and girl's l arm going overhead. Finish facing a.
25-26 lrl- Side Yemenite moving o and behind girl on last 2 steps. Finish on o with girl on i. Take girl's r hand in boy's l.
27-28 rlr- Side Yemenite moving i behind girl and wrapping her with l arm and taking her l hand in boy's r.
29-32 lrl-rlr- Full turn together c in wrapped position.
Repeat Part 1.

Part 2 Both facing a.
1-2 lrl- 3/4 turn a.
3-4 rlr- Full turn c. Now facing partner and o.
5-6 lrl- Back Yemenite. Boy's r hand takes girl's r.
7-8 rlr- Going o: Step together step, pause. Girl is on boy's r. Girl does 1/2 turn a moving to position behind boy under boy's r arm. Take l hands behind boy.
9-10 lrl- Going i backwards: step together step, pause. Release r hands.
11-12 rlr- Back Yemenite. Girl does 1/2 turn a under boy's l hand moving o with boy on her r.
13-14 lrl- Going o: step together step, pause. Girl does full turn c.
15-16 rlr- Side Yemenite with 1/4 turn c moving o with girl in front.
Repeat Part 2 but facing c and directions are reversed.
Start Part 1 again.

Some technical aspects of this:

This CD has approximately 15 seconds left as far as capacity is concerned so unless the disk coordinator gets into speeding up music (or we find a real short dance), this is the last addition that can be made to this CD. In subsequent CD's (G9,G10,G11 and the proposed G12) music was grouped as to circle, line and partner and further subgrouped into themes. No such grouping was attempted on this disk at the time of its creation and that is being continued to keep up the historical basis. At the time of version 8.3, Sharm Al Sheikh was added after Eilat just on whim and the fact that they are both cities. So, with this release, the new track, Ve'Nisgav, has been added after Sharm Al Sheikh.

At the top of this documentation is the new label for the G8.4 CD. Its look will be consistent with the G12 CD except for the color which is a light salmon.

Below is the documentation (or lack of such) for the previous versions of G8

The Germantown 8 (G8) disk has been modified since its inception in May/June of 2006. This was the first of the Germantown Jewish Centre disks to be distributed beyond the center's Sunday dance session.

This playlist pertains to what was the popular dances at Germantown and Don Schillinger's Thursday class at that time. Originally, 27 tracks were provided with the last track - now known as the kicker on these disks and hardly Israeli dance music - added both as a joke and to get as close as possible to full capacity of the CD. Subsequently, editing of the tracks because of more advanced software has allowed for the addition of what is now the 26th track - Sharm El Sheikh - as a bonus. To keep integrity between the previous versions (and in keeping with the disk coordinator's somewhat odd sense of humor) the original 27th track (now 28) has been retained.

Whatever you think about the selection of this track, (and you might get a hint from the description that this track was part of the ending credits of one of the disk coordinator's favorite book and movie adaptation), you should agree that it ends the CD with a bang.

As opposed to the other Germantown disks, no further documentation except the playlist was provided at the time.

Im tirtzi ladaat
Hine Ma Tov
Shoofni
Shuj shuj zemer
Heya heya
Kshenotzez hatal
Od Nashuv( this is a remake of North To Alaska. For more info on North To Alaska, click the button at the bottom of this page)
Miss Music
Oye boom boom boom
Hem rakdu yechefim
Ruchot Milchama
Salamati
Al tishal oti
Lecha karati
Tzel etz tamar
Tzel midbar
Tagidi li isha
Why why why
Yareach Limon
Zuz mitsad letsad
Achat mikulan
Ahava Acheret
Chikiti lach
Eilat
Sham El Sheikh(added as of version 8.3)
Etz Hamishalot
Hazmana Lemachol
End title/roll credits

The label of the G8.3 CD is pictured below right.