About This Website


This web site is dedicated to covering the activities of the dancers and instructors of the various Israeli dance classes around the Philadelphia area. This includes Southeastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware and presently encompasses 5 classes of Israeli dance and an additional 2 classes of International dancing. In addition, information about other Israeli dance classes and workshops outside of this coverage area are also somewhat covered when regional dancers visit.

At one time Thediskcoordinator website's main job was to produce CDs of music for these various classes, music that is being danced to at the time of distribution. The disks, and the accompaning documentation where practical, are distributed only through these participating Israeli and International folk dancing classes and are always provided free of charge.

To this end over the last few years, packages providing the G6u, G8, G9, G10, G11, G12, the several TDC 13/14 disks and I1 disks have been distributed. You can see the documentation of these disks by clicking TDC CDs,documentations and projects here or on the welcome page. In 2013 and 2014 several volumes of the TDC 14 disks become available and were distributed. You can see its documentation on this site for all the TDC 14 CDs by clicking here and you may have seen several of the logos for this project on the sides of these paragraphs. In early 2016 this web site was asked by a regional transplant, Andrea Wallach, to supply CDs for her new group in Rutland, Vermont and you can see the documentation for this by clicking here.

To see an index pertaining to the entire series, click here. In addition, an almost complete compilation of videos that demonstate the dances on the TDC disks and playlists can be seen by clicking here. As far as the classes are concerned, this web site maintains an integrated monthly scheduler of regional Philadelphia Israeli and (selected) folk dances monthly scheduler that are part of the welcome menu and the GPS/Scheduler script

This project began in 2003 as Don Schillinger was invited to guest teach a session at the Germantown Jewish Centre. This was extended to a bi-annual visit by Don that continued for several years. At one of his Germantown sessions, he producd a master CD which was copied for that Sunday morning Germantown class. On a subsequent visit, he supplied part of the music and a group of dancers took it upon themselves to add additional music as heard at other classes in the area. This was dubbed the Germantown (or G)8 disk - as seven previous disks of Israeli dance music had in one way or the other been created. G8 was distributed to the Germantown class and then one of the dancers had the bright idea to make a gift of a few of the CDs to other classes attended. While the response at that time was less than overwhelming, perhaps even hostile, this project has continued to the point that a later Germantown package, G12, included a reissuance of this G8 disk. Of recent notes is the addition of the I1 disk to satisfy the needs of beginner dancers for easier dance music, the series 13 disks and the 2013/2014 release of The Diskcoordinator 0014 disks. Recently this web site has seen the release of the Vermonter disk that has also been distributed to several regional classes

It was a natural extension to create an accompaning web site for the CD documentation and this web site, which started on Dec 7th, 2008, has attempted to keep up with the activities of the various dance classes that it covers. Reviews have been both good and bad as pertains to this website, but everyone agrees that at least we've tried.

There are many people responsible over the years for this. Names like Patty Segal, Grant Shulman, Deborah Kaplan, Tamar Magdovitz and Adam Baum come easily to mind. Don and the other instructors (both still active and inactive) - Naomi, the Sharons and Rob - have also helped sustain this project. Other support such as translation and editing have been provided by Haim Soicher, Sharon Polsky, Ellen Weber and Marek Milbar. Still others have helped in distribution. Finally, there are others who have in one way or the other been involved in this whose names are lost to history. Nevertheless, the mission of the disk coordinator remains steadfast, to help each Israeli dancer enjoy, understand and improve in this activity.

Since this site went public, there has been some feedback, not all of it positive. But, in fairness, here's some of the feedback with the last name replaced by initial for privacy

If you have a comment on this web site, you, too, can contact the disk coordinator at diskcrd@thediskcoordinator.com


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