We have Grant Shulman to thank for this idea although he, himself, was not aware of the surprise in store for him. His thinking: Why not combine a teaching session by Don Schillinger (We think this is Don's first such workshop at Germantown since 2008), an open dance session for attendees with both of these separated by a dinner served in the Marcus auditorium. What Grant did not know was that an award for his efforts over the years at Germantown would also make an appearance this day. All these elements would combine nicely into the following web page that we present titled: The Germantown dinner/dance of June 20th of 2010.
You can see that a table was set up at one of the entrances of the Marcus auditorium for administration of this event. A two tiered admittance fee had been established: $15 for those who would partake of the dinner and $5 who were just dancing. $5 is the normal fee for Germantown's sessions so one could conclude that the extra $10 went for the dinner with the group subsidizing the difference in what was the actual cost.
Above, we see the administrator of the Germantown session manning this table. This is none other than Tamar Magdovich who has run the group since its inception in 1997. With her are two of the regular dancers at Germantown, Susan and Yael (Yael is the one posing at the right). Besides Germantown, Susan is also a regular at Sharon Polsky's sessions at Beth Sholom while Yael is a regular at Don's sessions on Thursday showing you, the reader, the usual situation in the Philadelphia area where dancers populate many different sessions. One of the dancers that frequents these events normally counts the number of people at the different sessions he attends and we asked him what his count was for this combined session and he makes it to be 21 for dinner and 5 additional for dancing. But, what might have been missing in numbers was certainly made up in spirit.
We don't doubt that the expectation was that more would be in attendance and many regulars of the Sunday morning Germantown session were not present. but June 20th, this year, coincided with Father's day and probably this kept some away. You might ask, why set up an event for Father's day? Why not the week before or after? Much depends on everyone's schedule and this includes the Germantown Jewish Centre and the Marcus Auditorium. The Marcus is used for many diffferent events - marriages, bar and bas mitzvahs, of course, but also other affairs such as blood drives, flea markets and events such as help for Darfur. This is not an easy location to schedule for a Sunday afternoon and evening. In addition, Don, Grant and Tamar have their own schedules to attend to. Combination events such as this are always going to have conflicts. This was probably the most convenient time for the principals and locations involved: Don, Grant, Tamar and the Marcus auditorium.
As 5:00 O'clock approached and then passed, it was clear that Don was running late. Not to worry! Grant was ready with Germantown's Ipod and amplifier. He began to play several easy Israeli dance numbers for the crowd. You can see at left some of the attendees dancing.
The top pictures show the early circle dances and dancers. At this point attendance was split between regulars and some new (or rare) attendees to a Germantown session which will be discussed in a bit. One surprise was Rob, whom you can see dancing far top left, who made an early appearance. As you may know, Don now runs the Sunday Klein JCC session. But, with his appearance at this special Germantown session, even he couldn't be at two places at the same time. So, he asked Rob to sub for him at Klein (taking place at Shaare Shamayim that week because of a scheduling conflict) and Rob showed up early to pick up equipment from Don. As it turned out, Don would later make it to the Klein session somewhat late as Germantown ended around 9:00 and the Klein session extends to almost midnight. Finally, notice the light at 5:00 in the afternoon in these pictures: This event occurred almost at the solar equinox, so light was plentiful at 5:00 in the afternoon. At the bottom, we posed Grant with the Ipod and speaker as we all awaited Don's arrival
Everyone who attends the regular Germantown sessions on Sunday mornings is very pleased with the growth seen in that session. Both in numbers and the quality of the dancing. We all take great pride in these developments although the credit goes to Grant and Tamar for their time and efforts dealing with this session. As indicated above, by this time, shortly after 5 in the afternoon as we wait for Don, several infrequent (or new) dancers were in attendance. The following few montages discuss these new folks.
On your left is Haishu who has travelled the farthest to be at this event, all the way from the land of Microsoft and Boeing where she is employed as a translator. Haishu is originally from China where no doubt she studied and participated in the arts of that country. But, since living in the United States, she has pursued her dancing interests in Country and Western dancing, then in International Folk Dance when she was a resident of the Princeton area (She regularly attended the Friday Princeton session of International Folk Dance for many years) and now has been trying Israeli dancing on her infrequent trips east. Her expertise in these other forms of dance shows as she picks up Isreali dance steps with ease.
For this trip, she would be in the greater Philadelphia area for 3 weeks or so and it was good fortune that her visit coincided with this Germantown event.
Les Grunes, who you see on the left, has been Israeli dancing since the early 80's. In fact, his first exposure to this type of dancing was at International house on the Penn campus. He was a regular at the Wednesday night sessions at the Gershman Y in center city Philadelphia for many years. And for many years he was a semi-regular at the Sunday morning Germantown session.
But Les has many interests which correspond in some measure to his residence. Living in the Trenton area, he is geographically between Philadelphia and New York. He divides whatever free time he has beyond his teaching duties at Mercer County Community College with activities in both cities. Sometimes these activities will involve Israeli dancing but more often they do not. He also is a frequent traveller having made it a point to have visited all 50 states, the last being Mississippi last year.
It was nice seeing Les this afternoon as he partook of Germantown's dinner/dance
Another individual that we were happy to see at the Germantown dinner-dance was Howard Wachtel pictured to the left. Unfortunately, for many dancers, medical problems arise that preclude dancing - these problems are associated with foot, leg, lower joint and core. Howard has had one of these problems which has kept him from Israeli dancing although in recent months he has been more active.
Israeli dancing is only one of several activities that Howard engages in. Another great interest is bridge and, for those who attended his 50th birthday party several years ago, these two themes, bridge and israeli dancing, were prominent.
For those not familiar with Howard's professional life, he holds a PHD in mathematics and has taught on the college level for many years. His most recent position has been a visiting lecturer in mathematics at Community College of Philadelphia.
To the left is Denis and her husband Howard. Longtime residents of New Jersey, in the Newark area, they have just moved to the Haverford area of suburban Philadelphia. This web site has noticed that dancers get attracted to Israeli dance through a variety of ways. In this case, Denis and Howard were intrigued by a mention of israeli dance at a community event. Denis started to participate in Don's beginning classes at a variety of locations and for this afternoon, she persuaded her husband to also try this. Howard enjoys tennis and it will be interesting to see if israeli dancing can be used to cross train against that sport. If it can, no doubt Howard will be interested in continuing. We'll have to see. We do know that both stayed for the afternoon and the evening on June 20th.
We would be remiss if we did not indicate to you, the reader, that Denis is interested in art and has a web site pertaining to this at http://lg3solutions/denis2/art
We don't know if this was planned or just serendipity, but to the left is Judy Freed. Judy was the instructor for the Germantown Israeli dancers until 2003 when recurrent foot pain curtailed her dancing activities. In fits and starts, this authority would be moved to Grant Shulman. Grant wasn't aware at this point that a surprise awaited him which will be documented below. But, it was great that Judy could attend and participate in this.
Judy is known for other things than dance. She has been an active psychotherapist and social worker specializing in eating discorder and was able to combine her love of acting into a one woman show about eating disorders presented at last years Philadelphia Fringe festival. In addition, she is a talented music composer and performer.
Well, eventually, the star of the show made his appointed rounds. Don showed up a few minutes late and after setting up his equipment, began his part of the Germantown dinner-dance. Don taught 3 dances to the assembled crowd and played DJ, for the most part, for the rest of the session
The montage to the left shows some pictures of Don, Grant and Rob during the transition to Don's part of the program. In one shot we see these three huddled together. No doubt topics involving dance were part of the discussion as would be instructions pertaining to the Klein JCC session that Don would pass on to Rob. Probably Don also passed onto Grant the dances he was about to teach. For those of you keeping track, here is the list
Ahaya
Givah Achat
Kshehatal Notzezt
The lower picture in this montage is for one of the viewers of this web site who has an interest in computer equipment. We see Don's equipment side by side with Grant's. Grant is apple based and you can see the Ipod atop (docked, we have been told, would be the appropriate computer terminology) its speaker. Don is IBM PC based and we believe that is a Sony portable that he has set up. Someday, someone will buy a wire that will allow IBM type portables to use Ipod speakers, but we didn't have it that day. Perhaps the mysterious viewer interested in the computer technologies of this website will do the honors.
Of course, others are also huddling. This montage, taken as the disk coordinator panned the Marcus auditorium, shows groups of dancers talking among themselves. What do dancers at Germantown discuss? These are very educated and accomplished people except for yours truely who is still deciding what to do when he grows up. The disk coordinator can report that his alter-ego has been involved in discussions when dancing at Germantown about teaching etiquette, effects of technology on teenagers, computer circuit boards, Rommel's activities during World War II (Sotte voce. of course), travel locations and the like. And, this only pertains to this year's conversations. No doubt, except for Rommel, similar topics were under conversation at this point.
Since the disk coordinator's identity remains hidden, there never is any discussion about this web site, but the picture below between Jani Rosen and Howard Wachtel reminds us that Howard maintains a web site at http://howardwachtel.myeweb.net/dance.html and, in addition, writes a blog for the web site, www.examiner.com. Jani, we should add, is associated with the web site www.harokdim.org/indexENG.php
Well, Don's about to begin his work shop and we've moved to the other side of the Marcus to take this shot. We see Don surveying the scene.
We assume that Don had already planned what he was going to go over, but you never know with Don. More so than any other Israeli dance instructor in the area, Don modifies his presentations based on who is present. He keeps track of the favorite dances of his attendees and how he does this we have no idea but it is a great talent and draws dancers into the session.
Here are some shots of Don teaching the first dance. He is in the middle of the circle as this is being done. The last time Don was at Germantown for a workshop was the month that the Marcus auditorium reopened after the fire that affected the entire building. However the Marcus auditorium is used often for Bar and Bas Mitzvahs and Don is a favorite DJ for these affairs. To show you how well he is known to attendees of these affairs, please allow the disk coordinator to relate a story. Some time ago we brought our cats into their vets office and, while doing this, decided to present the vet with one of the Israeli dance CDs that had been created at the time. Our cats' vet, Dave Walker, was really surprised about our participation in israeli dance and he mentioned that we should be familiar with Don Schillinger. "How do you know Don Schillinger?", we asked. Well, his son and all of his son's friends were of that age and everyone had Don as the DJ for their big event. Even the cats, who generally feign indifference, were very impressed by this, we might add.
This montage shows several photos of the dancing prior to the arrival of the food and the exhibition of the surprise for Grant. Most of the dancers shown are regulars at the Sunday morning sessions. We see Elana Benamy and Meena in one of the shots. In the other, Susan is very noticeable and we can see Rochelle, as well. Not every regular made it to this session as some had to beg off for Father day's events. No doubt, some other dancers who might have been interested went instead to the Klein JCC session (held at Shaare Shamayim because of a conflict of scheduling at Klein that night) But, whoever came seemed to enjoy this session and the fun was just beginning as we shall see.
While the dancing continues under Don's tutelege, the dinner arrives. Tamar and the group had contracted the Chinese restaurant, New Harmony, for a vegatarian Chinese banquet. Of course, Kosher dietary laws would have to observed. Now, the disk coordinator, who can't find the kitchen in his condo, is the last person to explain cooking and dietary laws to anyone and we will not start now. Suffice to say, vegatarian cuisine cannot have a problem of intermixing meat and dairy, and the New Harmony restaurant is certified as a kosher restaurant by a rabbinic authority. New Harmony, by the way, is located within Philadelphia's Chinatown at 135 N 9th St. Anyway, with the arrival of the food, Tamar and Sylvia - and others - began to arrange the buffet as you can see to the left. It was obvious at this point that there would certainly be enough for everyone. But, before dinner, there was to be a surprise as indicated next.
This web site has been tracking Germantown and its attendance over the last few years. It has been apparent that attendance has been increasing over this time period. Those who are new to the group find the session to be very friendly and low level, to some degree great for a Sunday morning, and this starts with the principals involved, Tamar and Grant.
Grant has been the dancing leader and instructor since 2004 (really 2003 for all intents and purposes) and most dancers appreciate the way that he leads the class. Since Grant is a 2nd grade mathematics instructor in the school system of Philadelphia, he has had plenty of practice in being patient and perhaps this is the secret to his success. Anyway, several dancers decided to get together and honor Grant for his leadership over the last few years. To do this, they contacted Deborah Kaplan, a professional caligrapher and illustrator, to create a plaque of commendation for Grant and you can see the inscription to the left. Who better than Deborah to do this as her art work and illustration has been used throughout this web site. In addition, she is a regular dancer at the Germantown sessions. We might also add that Deborah has taught caligraphy and art at the Main Line school night for the last 31 years. As you will see below the plaque was presented just before dinner was served.
Here are some pictures of the presentation of the award. Surreptitiously the plaque had been brought in by Phyllis and Ellen R as Deborah could not make it for the occasion. Some of us had snuck a peek while dancing and Deborah had not failed to impress us with the beauty of her artwork. Appropriately, just before dinner was announced, the presentation began with Tamar complimenting Grant as the group's leader, and indicating how he has blossomed into a great leader of Israeli dance through these years. You can see from these pictures that Tamar's enthusiasm is shared by everyone involved in the Germantown class. Below you see Grant as he accepts his accepts his award and he would make a few comments to add to the festivity.
Let's take a break from our play by play and discuss the honoree. Below are some pictures of Grant taken during the last 2 years.
Why do the Sunday, Germantown, dancers all express admiration for Grant's leadership and teaching ability. Some of this is stated in the inscription to the award. But this web site likes to delve somewhat more deeply. So, we will state here that of all the instructors in the Philadelphia area, Grant's the most inclusive. Early on he made it a point to have Don teach workshops to the group. Not every ego would be so willing to extend this type of invitation. Beyond Don, the following have taught dances at Germantown with not only Grant's approval but in many cases with Grant's insistance. These include Rob Markowitz, Sharon Polsky, Jani Rosen, Elana Benamy and Ellen Weber. Just this line-up should show you how inclusive Grant is in sharing the inner circle. You get the impression that Grant is happy to share the teaching. It takes a lot of self confidence and a well positioned ego to do this. That's why this web site agrees with the award and is happy to be a vehicle in publicizing it.
Well, back to the play by play sports fans. Dinner is about to be served. Tamar, Sylvia and others have set up the table. Dinner is being served buffet style and tables are available for groups to dine together. And, so it was done with at least 4 tables being filled to capacity. The disk coordinator was able to pick up snippets of conversation between several parties and there was some discussion on dancing, as would be expected: some discussion on current events. The hot weather came in for some criticism. The oil catastrophe was the subject of conjecture, humor and concern. It was everythimg you would expect a group of well educated, well informed people to discuss. And, almost everybody praised the food. It certainly didn't seem vegatarian in look or taste. It made for a great middle of a great Sunday event.
After dinner, there was open dancing for about an hour and a half. The following pictures show this. As we look at these, we are reminded of the song "I could have danced all night". It was fun while it lasted but it didn't last long enough to one person's way of thinking. There is something really pleasurable about sharing an afternoon and evening with great people and great music. The smiles you see are real and not made up for the camera.
By 9:00, the dinner/dance was over. Except for a few stragglers, the Marcus auditorium became empty again.
Except for a few die hards, the auditorium is empty. From left to right: Don and Grant hold a last discussion as equipment is dismantled. Haishu and Lee are in conversation, probably about other types of dance camps that Lee has been attending. Finally, Tamar and Sylvia handle the dismantling of the "food court". Since there was plenty of food left over, even yours truely got some to take home where he enjoyed several meals of vegatable Lo Main. All in all, a very nice afternoon and evening. Not everybody was done for the evening though: Don would drive over to the Sunday session - as indicated taking place at Shaare Shamayim - to DJ the last hour of so of that dance session. In addition, the next Wednesday Grant would teach two of these dances that Don taught. Hopefully they will become part of the Germantown repertoire.