Several years ago, specifically on Sunday, January 17th, 2010, this web site covered a series of Israeli dance classes all occurring on one day and called it the North By Northeast marathon. Of course, we appropriated this terminology from the Hitchcock movie, North By Northwest, which continues to be one of our favorites. This script covers three 2013 year end events: The year-end pot luck party run by the Newark Delaware International dancers on Dec 20th, Don Schillinger's Winter Solstice party at Adath Israel in Bala Cynwyd on Saturday, Dec 21 and the Beth Sholom Christmas Eve marathon on Tuesday, Dec 24th. You can see from the accompanying map that uses the red and green lines to trace the events chronologically that these year end events could collectively be called the North By Northeast marathons, but we thought we'd try to come up with another name. So, we asked one of only two people to have made all three of these events, and that is our photographer, what name would he put on all these events that he covered? He also reached back into Hitchcock mythology noting that the original name for the Hitchcock movie was "In a NorthWesternly direction". Why not dub this script as "In a NorthEasternly Direction" and that is what we've selected to name this five day dancing bash that we record below.
This portion of this script deals with Nancy Bostock’s visit to Newark Delaware. This was a visit with two purposes: first, a meal at Matilda’s and secondly, a folk dance lesson with the Newark International folk dancers. Nancy has been the subject of other scripts on this web site, including her introduction to Israeli dancing (and the Mi Puebla restauraut) detailed in our exposures script which you can access by clicking here. The prior dancing experience is indicated in the pictures in this montage. As you may recognize, Nancy appears here with Lee Friedman and both would duplicate their appearances in this script in Newark, De that evening. As the only other person beside our photographer to make it to all the end of year events, there will also be plentry of pictures of Lee throughput this script. The activities of the Newark, Delaware International folk dancers has been covered by this web site for several years as this session is the southern terminus of our coverage of Philadelphia regional sessions. We’ll deal with the specifics of Nancy’s trip in a bit but first the particulars.
On Dec 20th, 2013, in Newark Delaware (pronunciation of stressing the ark here as opposed to the new in Newark, NJ) the Newark International folk dancers held their annual year-end potluck dinner at the George Wilson Community Center in Newark Delaware on New London Road which at that part is Delaware Route 896. This dinner/dance would attract several dancers who are familiar faces on this web site, including Lee Friedman. It was Lee who tendered the invitation to Nancy as Lee knows Nancy through a group who designate themselves as the Valley Forge Barnes and Noble Offyougo group. If you will, Nancy is a full time chartered member of this group based on location while Lee, could we say, is an adjunct member. You can access this group’s own website by clicking here and, if you do, you will find that several members of the offyougo group have experienced Israeli dancing in the past.
Now, as to the dancing: This venue - this community center - abuts the University Of Delaware’s Laird Campus. We have presented a campus map and the red home plate at top left indicates the placement of this center. Both the Community center and Laird strattle New London Road in Newark, as you can see. Also from the map, it should be evident that the University dominates the city. Even the street names, such as Academy, College and University Avenues, represent academia. In this, the city is no different than other small cities in the country that host universities and colleges,
So, We’ll take a little detour from the main purposes of this script to give you a little history of the University Of Delaware as we interpret it from their own web site. It is claimed that the genesis of the university is in New London, Pa (New London is a township in Chester County and creates a triangle with West Grove and Oxford below the Rt 1 bypass as Rt 1 arcs into Maryland beyond Longwood Gardens). Newark and New London are connected by the number 896 as the same road is Pa Rt 896 and De 896 in their respective states. It’s probable that the colonial version of this route was used to relocate a college preparatory school southward from its original Pa location in New London to Newark although this map shows the present route. At the time the charter of the school would have been already accepted in Delaware as the Delaware colony was an appendage of Pennsylvania (and governed by the authorities in Pa.) until the revolutionary war. This anomoly of dependent government was probably the result of the differences in original colony charters. Pennsylvania's derived from the British monarchy through William Penn while Delaware's didn't. This would be similar to Maine being governed by Massachusetts prior to statehood.
While under Pa. rule, the school could not expand into anything resembling college level education as it would not be allowed to compete with the University Of Pennsylvania – then known as The Philadelphia College – which in the Pa. colony had a monopoly on such education. With the real Delaware statehood effected by the result of the Revolutionary War, this school did expand in steps achieving college level activities in what would become the University of Delaware. But the history glosses over the fact that the school was disbanded in 1858 and restarted again in 1870 Why? Some histories indicate that a serious fracus among students was the cause of this 12 year hiatus. No mention is made as to why the fighting! Could it be a PHD thesis gone wrong? Perhaps fights on the cricket court at that time? It's probable that the American civil war was the reason. Delaware had a unique position during this war. Part of the North by location, part of the South by custom. Somewhat equally split, one has to assume that the same tensions that split the nation, and the state, split the school and what probably occurred was an unmendable schism in the school among the student body which was all caucasian male at that time. This schism would be duplicated on the battlefield within a short period.
After the war, the school resumes in 1870. It becomes the Land grant college of Delaware (As Penn State was in Pennsylvania) under the Morrell Act of 1862 creating and/or funding such schools. At the time, because of the law, the school would have specialized in Agriculture (and, to some extent, ROTC as a recruitment tool for the military) but over the years it has become a full fledged University and the Blue Hen mascot of the University oF Delaware is a well known symbol of the school. It is said that the school provides a public school equivalency in education to that of the Ivy league schools.
We should add that in 1870, when the school reopened, this school joined other southern states in restricting enrollment to whites only and a separate and theoretically equal(but not in any way practically) college for minorities was created in Dover known then as Delaware State college. Those attending the last Hora Aviv in 2009 would be familiar with this school as it was in the vicinity of the locale of that camp. Over the years, both by voluntary action and by court order, UD’s student body and faculty have become a vibrant multi racial and, multi ethnic community and this has filtered down into the fabric of the city of Newark Delaware.
In fact, the venue of the folk dancing, the George Wilson Community center, is named after George Wilson, who was active in Newark’s Afro American community and was the first black city council member. This montage is of several pictures of the center itself from its official website that you can access by clicking here. Nancy would find, once she made it to the center for dancing, that the spirit of George Wilson and the cultural vibrancy of the community would be evident in the composition of the dancers present that night.
But the reason we have an interest in this school is because all schools of higher education, given the number of students (over twenty one thousand or so for UD) are attended to by auxiliary businesses, many of which cater specifically to the students. It is one of these businesses, somewhat south of the main campus on Rt 896, that Nancy also has an interest in attending that evening. She is going to Newark Delaware that night of Dec 20th, to resolve two things on her list of to-dos that she has heard about through Lee Friedman and others. One is to see and experience folk dancing. The other is to eat at Miltilda’s. Matilda’s (as in Waltzing Matilda) is a bar/restaurant that is organic to Newark with an Australian theme. It has expanded since its creation. It is now a multi state operation with a new restaurant in Orlando, Florida and it has a sister operation called Mad Macs (a Homonym of Mad Max, the Australian movie character played by Mel Gibson in years past) that caters to the UD students who have the need of delivered takeout to resolve their munchies in their dorms and apartments, especially during final exams. But it is the restaurant itself that was the destination for Nancy that night.
Besides the normal fare of a restaurant in a college town – hamburgers, beer and the like – Matilda’s caters to those who hanker, possibly yearn for macaroni and cheese. We’ve shown the section of the menu pertaining to this specialty. Luckily, Nancy was hungry having followed Lee’s advice as to how to arrive gastronomically at this restaurtant - and that is hungry. She was able to polish off the lobster Mac in addition to a hamburger as she readied herself for international dancing. While having dinner, Nancy was able to talk to one of the assistant managers of the restaurant. The discussion centered on what Matilda’s calls "Mad Macs". Newark residents are able to call in take out orders from the restaurant which will deliver. This is a kind of macaroni and cheese version of pizza shops. This has been especially popular with UD students and has been very profitable for the restaurant both in sales at the time of the transaction and in also getting increased attendance at the restaurant especially when UD is not in session. This was evident to Nancy on Dec 20th as the restaurant was filled to capacity with many patrons being of that collegiate age.
So, after dinner, motoring down 896 into New London Road, Nancy eventually entered the George Wilson center and, being a little late, joined the international dance party already underway. Nancy had several hours earlier visited Costco to buy a party tray for her contribution to this potluck dinner, but she quickly discovered that food was not an issue. In fact, space was the issue: Where on the overflowing table of food should she place the Costco package? As you can see in the last picture here, a spot was found eventually.
At the center, Nancy went looking for Lee. Lee is never hard to find. Find a dance group and in the middle you will find her. Here are some pictures of Lee engaged in the folk dancing throughout that night. And when not dancing, Lee is a pretty good conversationalist having been a teacher, counselor and traveller throughout her lifetime.
Besides looking for Lee, Nancy snaps a few pictures of the dancing as she enters. This sequence is quite interesting. The leader(s) get everyone into a circle and an explanation of the steps of the forthcoming dance are explained. These types of explanations generally occur at the beginnings of a session. Later on, generally after the beginning dancers have had it and are not participating, dances just start without such explanations. The last shot(s) on the lower tier show this dance just as it starts.
Nancy hooks up first with Elizabeth Dubravcic, one of the coordinators of the Newark dancers, and finally with Lee. A little chitchat and season's greeting are the order of this moment. Both the established dancers counsel Nancy on what to expect but, as stated, Nancy has already been coached by some of her friends at Barnes and Noble.
So Nancy, with a little delay, joins the dancing. These pictures, from another dancer's camera, catch her as she navigates the steps of several dances. Nancy reported that she enjoyed herself. In fact, we asked her what differences did she find from her experience with Israeli dance. "Israeli dance has harder steps and is more difficult to memorize. International dance has easier patterns and fewer steps which is good for a novice dancer like myself. This would be a nice session to take my nephews to, who are ages five and 10. They'd find it interesting and would be good at it. But, the Israeli dance music is more catchy" so she said, and there you go: now you know the difference between the two.
One thing that Nancy would recognize as a difference between an Israeli dance session and this one pertains to the presentation of music. Among the surprises this night was an accordian player contributing his efforts. Like all sessions, the Newark group depends on computer based equipment to supply music (seen on the left), but as you can see there was an element of live music that evening (to the right).
The session ran from 8PM to a little after 10PM. This is at least two hours of dancing if you were to be fully engaged. But even established dancers need a break and in Nancy's case several breaks. These pictures show that there is an area for catching your breathe and even better, sampling the pot luck specialties.
We end our coverage of the Dec 20, 2013 year-end dance of the Newark Delaware international folk dancers with this montage of pictures taken at random throughout the evening. You may see some familiar faces as many of these dancers have been to Israeli dance events which we have covered. In Nancy's and in Lee's case, it would be hour plus trips back to the Valley Forge, Northeast Philadelphia areas but they had the longest trips. For the others it was generally just a local trip back home. It looks like most of the dancers enjoyed themselves. We could be assured that Lee had a good time as she has a good time at every dance event she attends. But we were glad to hear from Nancy that this evening session was fun because of the participants, the food and the dancing.
We now turn our attention to Dec 24th in Elkins Park. This picture shows the invitation that Sharon Polsky had sent by Email to most of the Israeli dance community in the Philadelphia area. The pictures below will indicate that Emails, possibly facebook entries, went even further and wider as far as invitations were concerned. So, below is a writeup of the Beth Sholom Christmas eve marathon of Dec 24th into Dec 25th, 2013. If you want more information about Beth Sholom as a venue for Israeli dancing over the years, click here.
On the evening of Dec 24th,2013 - Christmas Eve - Beth Sholom, the Frank Lloyd Wright designed synagogue in the Elkins Park section of Cheltenham township in the suburbs of Philadelphia was the scene of its first Israeli dance Christmas Eve marathon since 2008 as far as anyone could recollect (this web site was not in existance at that time so we have no internal record to consult). The marathon this year was run by the same volunteers that have run the Monday night Beth Sholom sessions over the last few months. There was a nominal charge of $5 and a request that dancers bring some cold refreshments and possibly desserts. You can see from these pictures, taken during the session, that the Philadelphia Israeli dance community responded en masse. Dancers from the Beth Sholom session were joined by dancers from Germantown, Adath Israel, a few from the Cherry Hill session, and a host of New York based dancers for an evening, if not morning, of Israeli dance.
Our photographer reported multiple requests for pictures of dancers, some in posed and some in unposed situations. He had the camera, so he complied with these requests. This montage represents this and you will see that there were problems of overexposure which we have had to deal with on this site. Generally, trying to take wide angle pictures and poses at the same time with the same camera in dimly lit settings is a no-no which our photographer violated. Nevertheless, see if you can determine those who were posed and those who were not! Perhaps on those who were overexposed, see if you can guess whom is represented?
Many of the Sunday morning Germantown dancers were in attendance and so many of the above requests for photographs were from this group of dancers. For two dancers who are sisters, Joan in the blue and Lisa who travels every Sunday morning from New York to partake of the dancing at Germantown, we think this was their first marathon. So, we present pictures of these two to celebrate and denote this feat.
We always remark that this is a web site run by volunteers who have limited experience in what really needs to be done here. Perhaps, if you have more experience, you could take it over. But, in the interim, we should explain that in the case of the photography used in this script, the auditorium was barely lit and very crowded so many shots were unusable. But, to give you a feel for the excitement that everyone felt while dancing, our photographer was able to get this sequence of shots showing the dancers gyrating through one Israeli dance selection.
Apparently pot luck dinners are a specialty of dancers. You can see that there was plenty of food for anyone in need. Limitations always abound when doing these events in Jewish organizations (other than a reform synagogue) as kosher dietary laws hold sway. Nevertheless those dancers who can navigate a kosher kitchen (or who could find a kosher bakery) contributed to the evening.
Since the Beth Sholom group is now controlled by a set of dancers acting as a committee, there was no real leader, per se, during this event. We did mention that there was a number of New York dancers who attended. One of those attendees was none other than Danny Pollack who puts his own unique twist to Israeli dancing. Danny is a dance instructor in the New York area and, if you've never seen him dance, you are missing a show. Besides his technique which is part Baryshnikov, Ballet and Israeli dance, Danny has a fabulous memory in terms of older dances. At a selected time that evening, Danny took the helm and started to lead several older line dances. We catch him in this montage as he leads a group of dancers in some of these dances.
This montage concentrates on the dancers that were following Danny, including Sharon Polsky, Ellen, Oznet, Wendy etc. For many of these dancers, this was a new unfamiliar set of steps but you can see that they were able to keep up.
Another instructor attending from the New York area was Miriam Handler who is profiled in these pictures. Miriam is a legend throughout the Israeli dance community and is a participant of almost every Israeli dance workshop in the Eastern portion of the country. She also has a great memory reminding our photographer that he danced some salsa with her at Hilula in 2012. Both Miriam and our photographer agreed to do another set of ballroom dance next they meet where and when appropriate.
For the most part this year end event ran along the lines of the general Beth Sholom session with plenty of circle dancing interspersed with limited partners. This montage concentrates on 2 successive circle dances during the middle of the evening.
Our photographer did not return with many partner pictures so we can't tell you, the reader, to what degree partner dances were done. Perhaps there were few or perhaps our photographer was grabbed as a partner, thereby participating and not photographing. Nevertheless, here we present the two pictures of partner dancing taken during this session.
We understand that the dancing stopped around 3AM on Christmas day. We certainly do not want to leave this script without acknowledging the efforts of some of the coordinators of this event, all of whom are volunteers. This montage has some pictures of those responsible for pulling this evening off although some of these pictures are from other events. We hope the group thinks this evening successful enough to repeat this in the future.
We now move to Don's Winter Solstice marathon on Saturday, Dec 21st, 2013 at Adath Israel. Don generally does a Christmas eve marathon but apparently he would be travelling on that date so he changed his marathon to the Saturday night before Christmas. The festivities occurred in two stages: a family orieinted event until 8PM and an Israeli dance marathom beginning about 8:30 and lasting through the night. So, Let's fill in the details here. Starting in November Don's Email mantioned this event scheduled for Adath Israel on Dec 21st, 2013 and we show one Email invitation here. As you can see here and already mentioned, Don normally has an earlier affair oriented toward families and then after a half an hour break, he moves into the marathon for the more experienced dancers. The photo and com,mentary below are oriented toward the dance marathon beginning approximately at 8:30PM
Here are some pictures showing you the layout of Adath Israel for the marathon. It was apparent that Don had his DJ equipment with him. This equipment is used when Don is doing a private party such as a wedding or Bar/Bas Mitzvah and the like and one assumes this equipment was situated at the synagogue for a prior event.
Well, one of Don's pieces of equipment, as highlighted in this montage, used when Don is DJing an event, acts like a passport photo kiosk as it takes pictures of those posing at its front. Don demonstrated this to our photographer who, for once over an extended six day period, was the photographee and not the photographer. While Don did not use the equipment during his marathon (except for our photographer), it gave an added touch to the marathon from our way of thinking and we have cropped its image from some pictures to show in this montage. To describe this, taking a cue from the famous movie, 2001 Space Odyssey, it acts like a white monilith to the dancers at this marathon. As we show pictures from the marathon keep this in mind as this equipment is many times in view and generally in focus (as it is standing still) compared to the dancers.
But a piece of large equipment snapping pictures made our photographer think about one of his favorite movies. Do you remember Amalie, the French film. Part of the magic of the film was the quirky places that Nino, who would eventually be Amalie's love, found his stimulations for art. One was a kiosk that took passport photos. This montage, with a few pictures from the movie, emphasizes this point. Perhaps it was these white monoliths that affected our photographers sense of artistry as he took pictures of this event. Whatever, (and having mentioned Amalie and 2001 Space Odyssey in the same script) let's deal with Don and the marathon.
For this night, Don drew quite a group from the Baltimore/Washington area as this montage attempts to document. The Washington area has quite a few twenty/thirty ages dancers who create a lot of excitement on the dance floor. Don helps with this by using a talent he has honed in this area: playing the favorite dances of these dancers. And, we might add, the dancers (both from the Washington area and local) responded.
In addition, from the DC area, Ethan Halpern made an appearance at the marathon as our photographer relates. Ethan runs two or three Israeli dance classes each week in the DC area and is well known for (1) his appearances at many Israeli dance camps including in years past Hora Aviv and (2) the boots he wears for dancing, a topic that could be its own script. His popularity has led to media attention in the DC area over the years including a 2005 Washington Post article where we found the following quote by Ethan: "Israeli dancing is a great way to feel a part of a community," says folk dance instructor Ethan Halpern of College Park. "There's nothing better than a circle of friends dancing together -- it's good music, good exercise and good fun." No doubt Ethan would say the same for the Don's Winter Solstice event.
And speaking of Don, from behind his equipment, he DJ'd the whole night when he wasn't dancing himself. We present a few pictures of Don at work during the evening. Don has a unique ability to quantify dances and music to individuals and their likes. We are all used to him doing this to dancers in this area but he showed everyone that this ability even extended to his Washington dance guests.
And, one more thing before presenting pictures of this evening's dancing. We'd like to make a "shout out" to one more individual who we have highlighted already in this script. We said that there was another individual who made all three events indicated in this script besides our photographer and this montage highlights Lee Friedman who participated (and was a part of the planning) in some way on all three nights. She made it to the Newark event, helped organize the Beth Sholom affair and you will see her here at Adath Israel. Lee hankers to do all events far and wide and participates in many different forms of dancing as exemplified in this montage which highlights Lee at all three events.
Now, as to the evening, we start with several pictures taken during the period of 8 to 8:30 PM. Don had completed the family portion of the evening and, as his custom, he was straightening up the auditorium and making provision for the snacks and other munchies. As you can see a few dancers have arrived early (and this includes several from the Washington area) and await the start of the marathon.
The hall is slowly filling. These pictures represent one of the first of the circle dances. There's plenty of room so no need for an inside circle. At this point Don is playing easier dances and many of the dancers are at the beginning Israeli dance level. It will get more crowded as the evening progresses and the ability level of the dancers will rise as the experienced dancers tend to arrive later in the evening.
Our photographer estimates that these pictures were taken about a half hour after the prior montage. More dancers have arrived and you will start to see the beginnings of an inside ring of more advanced dancers. Don is still playing somewhat easier dances. He's not that far away from starting the first partner set.
With a younger crowd (thanks to those from Washington/Baltimore), if not with more energy, Don has more and longer line dance sets. These pictures show one of the first such sets. The entire floor is filled with those doing these dances. Notice an almost checkerboard shape as the dancers line up. Line dances tend to use all four walls of a room for alignment and you may be able to see this in these pictures. We are told some old and new favorites were part of this set.
Throughout the night were partner sets. Our representative, so he says, did the first six of these with various partners. By the seventh partner set our representative moved on stage, behind Don and to his right, to take pictures of the partner dancing. This is about 1AM which means that the marathon is in its 5th hour and still going strong as you can see by the participation of the crowd. Notice the dance floor is pretty filled. Israeli dance marathons are known for their duration and this night was to be no exception. Probably the last dance of this marathon was about 5 in the morning although our photographer was long gone. You now have the information necessary to appreciate and understand this montage.
And, there you go. A summary, perhaps rundown, of the yearend events of 2013 involving two states and three locations. And rundown is the operative word. For Lee Friedman and our photographer, this makes somewhere near 10 to 12 hours of dancing over a short period of days during a season of unusually low temperatures and high snowfall. So, Kudos to these two and to all those responsible for organizing and running these events and we hope to cover end of year 2014 events when they inevitably occur.