We present a script that has been really fun to write. It's the culmination of several things that created a really festive and fun evening in two stages: a dinner and a night of dancing.
Several years ago, John Frank, while dancing at Germantown one Sunday morning, mused about the repertoire at the Cherry Hill session. This led to an attempt to get a few dancers to accompany his wife, Elaine, and himself to sample two Cherry Hill sessions last year. This was accompanied by little publicity and very bad luck. The first night that was proposed was a night of a snow storm. This caused a delay into May when the visit occurred and you can see a write-up on this by clicking here. A second attempt occurred in September of last year right after the Labor day weekend and this visit will forever be linked to Hurricane Lee who decided to visit the Philadelphia area that same day and dumped approx 6 inches on the area. Needless to say, this did affect attendance to John's event that day.
Never one to admit defeat, John decided to do this again this year picking July 31st, 2012 as the big day. It was pretty clear that a snow storm would not be in the cards and it seemed a bit early for hurricane season so the hope was that this would not be a test by fire.
John enlisted a fellow Germantown dancer, Marc Rauer, for some help in this. Mark has some experience in mailing lists and he was asked to create an Email and list geared to this event: a visit from a group of Philadelphia based dancers to the Cherry Hill session. On July 10th the first Email was sent out which you can see below. In fact, below, we recreate the web script that was put on this web site to abet this invitation process.
In 2011, John Frank led a group of dancers across the Delaware river to a night of dining at the Marlton diner and dancing at Naomi's Cherry Hill session. You can see the first of these excursions by clicking here. Looks like John, accompanied by his wife Elaine, are at it again so mark your calendars for the night of Tuesday, July 31st, 2012.
Abetted by Mark Rauer, who happens to keep Email lists, the following Email was sent out to various dancers and non-dancers on July 10th. Even if you did not recieve this Email, duplicated right below, you are invited to this event regardless of your proficiency in the genre of Israeli dance.
As you can see dinner is at 6PM (or so) with the assumption that there is a move to the dancing location, Temple Beth Sholom, at 7:15 or so. Temple Beth Sholom is at the Northeast corner of Cropwell and Kresson.
As you can read to the right, you've been invited. Here's the particulars: On July 31st there is to be a dinner and then Israeli dancing in New Jersey. Dinner is at the Marlton Diner (around 6PM) at 781 West Rt 70, Marlton, NJ 08053. GPS is 39.897189,-74.941847. Below is the map to the Marlton Diner. If coming from Phila, look for old Marlton Road (veering off on right as you approach the diner). Go on this side road till Cropwell (McDonalds) and make left, then another left onto Rt 70 (Marlton Pike) and you are at the diner.
This map can also be used to locate Temple Beth Sholom where the dancing takes place at 7:15PM through about 9:45 (although many will leave prior to the official end of dancing for this night). From the diner, go down Cropwell (dogleg left) until the intersection of Kresson and the synagogue is to your left. The address of the Synagogue is 1901 Kresson Road, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003 and the GPS is 39.874416,-74.955710
"Marc Rauer's Email Of July 10" <777rauer@777rauer.com> 07/10/12 10:20 AM
Greetings.
This Email is the official announcement that John (and hopefully Elaine) Frank are again leading a group of Phila based dancers to Naomi’s session at Temple Beth Sholom in Cherry Hill on Tuesday, July 31st, 2012.
You are invited regardless of your experience with the genre of Israeli dance!
We expect that the night will be split into two sections: dinner at the Marlton Diner starting about 6PM and then about 7:15PM moving over to the dance class which is within a few miles of the diner.
You are welcome to attend just the dinner, the dancing or both. This invitation to you and others is based either on discussions between parties, a guess that you might be interested and/or previous attendance in similar events.
As you can see, Naomi is also being cc’d per this Email.
We hope to accomplish at least several things with this dinner/dancing event.
• It is always nice to have a dinner with interesting and active people. The previous times we have had discussions pertaining to topics that included Israeli dance, the peace corps, The Valley Forge Military Hospital, the School system of Philadelphia, global warming and how Philadelphia handles 6 inches of rain in a day (as was going on at the time).
• As for dancing: For those new to Israeli dancing, this provides an exposure given that the Cherry Hill class is relatively novice friendly (although the dance repertoire gets harder as the evening progresses).
• For those with experience in Israeli dance, we hope this begins a discussion of the differences in repertoire between the various Greater Philadelphia based groups.
• For Germantown specifically, we hope that this may provide an avenue for new dances to become a part of the session. This has been discussed in recent sessions with Tamar and Grant.
Several other things:
In the two previous attempts at this we faced a snowstorm and a hurricane. We hope that this is not a test of fire or some other biblical event. Let’s all hope for good weather.
There should be plenty of cars coming from different directions so you can contact John or myself if you need a ride and we’ll see what we can do.
I have been asked by a web site that deals with local Israeli dancing to take some pictures, perhaps write a story and we’l’l try to satisfy this both at the diner and with some arrangements for photography with the Cherry Hill class.
Also, if Thaddeus can come, being a professional photographer, he can join me in the question of photography and also to discuss his new movie that is supposed to premiere shortly.
If you have any other questions, besides querying John (johnfrank4@gmail.com) or myself, you can see a previous outing that John led at www.thediskcoordinator.com/johnfrankcherryhill.htm
Marc
In addition, shortly before the event, this web site started to publicize the coming visit on our next events section. Below, you can see this web site's contribution to the July 31st event
So, you can see that there was a lot more publicity to this event than to the previous events led by John. In addition, John got the promise that Grant, the dance leader of Germantown and Tamar, the administrative leader of the Germantown dancers would also attend. Grant even went further by including a reference to July 31st in his weekly Email to the Germantown dancers. So, the stage was set as July 31st approached. The day, like most days this summer, was somewhat hot but not rained on and the picture below shows the attendees at the dinner at the Marlton diner.
From left ot right we have a visitor from St Louis who accompanied Sharon Polsky, pictured next, to the dinner. Continuing left to right we have Joann, John Frank, Rick, Les (partially hidden), Patty, Jani (partially hidden), Elaine, Richard and Lee who is standing. A few comments about the attendees: Joann and Richard are part of our coverage to the Toronto Is Real Israeli dance festival when by happenstance they met Lee and Sharon. An invitation to this dinner was extended to this couple who are great conversationalists. Several other participants should also be noted. Les Grunes has been Israeli dancing since the 1980's and on occasion dances at Cherry Hill. Patty has been a regular at Germantown and it is nice to see that she was participating in both the dinner and dancing. It was also great to see Jani and Rick who dance everywhere and have become leaders of the Israeli dance community in the Philadelphia area in recent years.
The dinner at the Marlton diner was an optional feature. Several dancers skipped the dinner and headed over to Temple Beth Sholom for dancing. Those dancers at the dinner made it individually to Naomi's class. Her class starts at 7PM and people trickled in up to 8:15PM that night. Below, we show the major players in this:
The leaders
The Host Leader: Naomi
Naomi has been leading the Cherry Hill session since 2005 and before that was the co-leader. In addition to her duties as the leader of this session, Naomi has created and been the leader of the various Cherry Hill field trips over the years which have been documented by various scripts on this web site. She played the gracious host this evening accommodating several special requests for music by her guests.
The Visiting Leader: Grant
Grant has been the dance leader at Germantown since 2003. For this evening he was gracious enough to help with the publicity by way of his regular Email to the Germantown dancers. In addition, this coming evening was mentioned on several occasions during previous Germantown dance sessions. One of Grant's interests in this evening, as told to this web site, was in comparing the repertoires between the two sessions.
Other Principals
The Photographers: Moshe and Marc
Two simultaneous shots from two cameras created the pictures above. Moshe Gordon, a professional photographer, and Marc Rauer. who has in the past shared photos with this web site, are the men behind these cameras. The specifics of the photography shown here and below are such: on one dance Naomi announced that photos would be allowed and those dancing should understand that they would be the subject of a photography shoot. Those not wanting their pictures taken were asked to sit this dance out. All the pictures below were taken during that one dance.
Below we show the pictures submitted by the photographers of those dancing (and who agreed to be photographed) that evening. We believe this dance to be Od Lo Ahavti Dai, a dance that is considered a beginner staple in the Israeli dance repertoire. These pictures are in no specific order but we do think they show the enjoyment that Israeli dance brings to its participants.
We asked one of the participants to approximate how many Philadelphia based dancers accompanied John on his excursion to the Marlton diner and the Cherry Hill session. Seven who danced were at the Marlton diner and continued to the session (five participants of the dinner did not participate in the dancing that evening), four other Germantown dancers made it to the session and not the dinner and three other dancers who do not dance at Germantown and usually do not dance at Cherry Hill also made it to the Cherry Hill session that night. So, John should be very proud of his efforts as this web site thinks that eighteen people made it to both the diner and dancing with about fourteen making it ultimately to the dance session. Everyone at the dance session, whether a regular or a one time visitor, deserves a round of applause for going out of their way to support Israeli dancing in the Philadelphia region with their participation that night. Given that, we would like to specifically salute the following dancers for their efforts that night and throughout the year.
