Adam's Beginner Corner - the ABC's of Israeli dance for beginners

Well, what a surprise. I, Adam Baum, now have a web page on this web site, Thediskcoordinator.com, that I am humbly calling Adam's Beginner Corner. Here's how this originates: I was saying to some of the folks at Germantown on a recent Sunday morning - Tamar, John, Howard and possibly Marc - about the need for beginners like me to have a web site which concentrates on showing, if not explaining, the steps of easy Israeli dances. And, out the blue and unexpectantly, comes an Email with an offer for me to put up this page. The anonymous disk coordinator's instructions, if I may quote him in this Email, is to show a dance and "show or describe the steps, (I'll help you with the technical aspects of porting this to the web), to be fair and truthful as to where on the web info on this dance can be found and even more importantly, show the cultural reason d'tre for this dance's existance"

So, this is what I plan to do. I will use this page as a resource for Israeli dance beginners. Every so often I will select an easy dance, give you, the reader, information as to what may have occurred in Israeli (and Middle Eastern) society to facilitate the creation of the dance, where other than this web site this information can be obtained, provide words and translation and provide detailed information on the steps. If possible, we'll give you a link to bring down the song for you to play. To initiate this web page, I thought I would start with the song Mayim, Mayin which is danced in the area at several Israeli dance sessions.

But, before we talk about this dance and what I have learned, please bear with a brief bio of me. I moved to this country, The United States, from Israel at age 22. While in Israel I am very proud of my service in the IDF, which for those not familiar with that country, is the Israeli army. I rose to be a sergeant in my artillary unit while I was in service.

In this country I pursued my vocation of an engineer. I design chips. These are the things that run your computer and I've designed chips across this country. Most of you will not know the following but chip design is used for more than just your average commercial desktops and portables - it is used for specialized equipment. It is this type of design that I am currently engaged in.

Many of you are also aware that I am being trained in Israeli dance by Rochelle who is a native New Yorker who moved to this area recently. I have learned to share her enthusiam for this type of dancing and it should not be a surprise to those who have watched me that I started going to Israeli dance sessions with no previous experience in this. It shows, and I would be the first to indicate to you my lack of dance ability, but I have been trying with Rochelle's help and with the help of instructors such as Don, Grant and Naomi to get better at this type of dancing. In this quest of this, it was noticed last August when I received the Israeli dancer of the week award for a period last August.

I tell you this so that you can understand my focus on this page. I will try to expain these dances, both technically and spiritually, from a beginners point of view.

So, let's begin. The first dance we will discuss on this web page is Mayim, Mayim. I have danced this at Naomi's class in Cherry Hill when Rochelle and I were attending last summer and sometimes on Mondays at Don Schillinger's class at Beth Sholom. It is an interesting dance to me in several ways.

• First, for a beginner such as I, this is a relatively uncomplicated dance and probably should be played at any session emphasizing beginning Israeli dance.
• Second, it introduces an Israeli dancer to the mayim step. It is the beginning four steps of this dance. What is the history of the mayim step? The dance was popular enough that the first four steps when done in succession became known as a mayim in Israeli dance. Rochelle tells me that this is a common set of steps in other forms of dance although it is generally known as a grapevine when done elsewhere.
• Third, it touches on a subject of great interest in the Middle East, and that is water. For those of you who do not know Hebrew, Mayim is the Hebrew word for water. In Israel, especially before statehood, the finding of a water source was of great significance and one such find is memorialized by this dance.

First, let's discuss the lyrics. There is a web site that is mentioned on this web site that contains massive amounts of information about Israeli dancing, especially the music. This is www.israelidances.com also known as the aussie database. You can find everything here including the transliteration of the lyrics of a song and its translation. Using that web site as a resource, below is the transliteration and translation

It is said that this dance dates back to 1937 and was the result of finding water on a kibbutz, a kind of farming commune very common in Palestine (as Israel was called at that time). A dancer, Else Dublon, teamed up with a composer, Yehuda Sharet, to both create the music, the lyrics and the dance.

Why would someone create a dance to such an event? Well, as said before, water is an important resource in that part of the world. And, when discussing water resources in Israel, one is talking about the River Jordan which forms the boundary between Israel and Jordan and has its mouth in the Banias Spring in the Golan Heights and runs through the Hula Valley just below the heights. Beyond the political and cultural differences and difficulties the plague Israel and Syria, the control of water resources have led to conflict between the two nations. Water skirmishes date back to 1951 with much military activity occurring between 1965 and 1967 before and during the six day war. With the seizure of the Golan Heights during that war, Israel gained control of the source of the Jordan river. The disposition of the river and its water resources are a major point of contention between Israel and Syria and have made resolving the ownership of the Golan Heights a difficult diplomatic problem.

Once outside of what is called the Jordan Rift valley, the southern half of Israel is the Negev. Although designated a desert, it is more like what in the United States is called a prairie (similar to the Great Southwest desert that is composed of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada). Water is available if it can be found and when found, is a cause of celebration as evidenced by this song.

Before we do the steps to the song, the engineer in me feels it is important to explain the topography of Israeli dancing as I have been learning it. To the right is a diagram. You can see a circle. This is the onset of any circle dance as dancers line up to create this. I have indicated the directions of clockwise and counter clockwise which correspond to the directions of a watch. Israeli dance uses the circumference of the circle to delimit going inside (inside the circumference) and outside (going outside of the circumference). In addition, direction also is indicated in this type of dancing pertaining to movement going out and coming in from points in the circle.

Now, before we diagram the steps, what about the music. You can use this link, download Mayim, Mayim to download an mp3 version of this song. If in the Windows operating system, you will also get an option to play the song.

As to the steps, several web sites have annotated them for one's review. Below, I am using a composite of several website's instructions to this dance with my own observations of how this dance is done throughout the Philadelphia area. Included in the description are hand and arm movements. Below this description, we will add pictures with explanations to this.

Here's how the footwork looks when pictures are taken. These shots were taken on two different occasions as I tried to pose for these steps in front of the camera.

Moving along the circle clockwise, here's the first mayim. It consists of 4 steps. The first of these moves your right foot in front of the left. Then, the left is moved to even up against the right. The right is then moved in back of the left and then both feet are evened again. This mayim is done 4 times and don't forget to hold hands with those adjacent to you on the circle.

Now, we have 4 jumps done to a beat of music. You just move up and down as indicated to the left.

Movement into of the circle. When moving in you are moving along the radius and not the diameter. You should end up at the center of the circle and keep in mind you are not doing this alone. Other dancers are moving in with you. In mathematical terms, the circumfereance of the circle is decreasing. Not shown because of the difficulties of the shot is the fourth step in to which most dancers will add a hop.

Movement out of the circle which we forgot to do on the first photo shoot (note the change in color). When moving out, similar to moving in, you are moving along the radius and not the diameter. You should end up at the circumference of the circle from whence you left. Other dancers are moving out with you. This in and out movement is repeated and there are arm movements not shown which result in a clap as you reach the middle of the circle.

The reverse of above working right over left. First, hoping on your left, move your right leg from the side of your body to a point in front. Do this also 4 times

These are the hops at the end of the dance. First, hoping on your right, move your left leg from the side of your body to a point in front. Do this 4 times. Many dancers will add claps to this movement normally occurring as the foot is extended acoss the body

I hope that this has been informative to you, the Israeli dance beginner. Below are some videos found on the internet of Mayim Mayim.

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