Ira Weisburd's world tour: Stops in Delaware

Sometime at the beginning of 2012 this web site became aware of the plans of the Arden Club, and specifically the Arden Folk Gild, to invite the choreographer Ira Weisburd for a set of teaching seminars in the middle of November. It would turn out that these Delaware seminars, which took place on Nov 16 & 17, became a part of Ira's world tour where he also visited several Asian venues, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Below, our representative was able to provide pictures of both events on that Friday and Saturday. Friday dealt with both International and Israeli folk dances that Ira had choreographed. The next day, at the Arden Gild Hall, Ira and two other line dance teachers based in the Northern Delaware area, Joanne Brady and Mania Chrzanowski, provided five hours of line dance instruction.

Below we present a script pertaining to this weekend event. Besides our correspondent, we'd like to thank Susan Jonas of the Arden Folk Gild and Ira, himself, for additional information necessary to complete this script.

These pictures have been taken from a youtube video of Bo'i Malkah (Come Queen), a dance choreographed by Ira Weisburd whom we see demonstrating his dance. You can see the entire video by clicking here or at www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG3vRjxMbFw. This dance (and the music is by Yehuda Badichi, the lyrics by Shmuel Kaluski and the singer is Dudu Elharar) has a great historical perspective. In the early eighties Israeli dance was being positioned as a new genre as opposed to being a part of the International folk dance scene. It was being opened up in many ways. In the past, an Isreali dance had to be choreographed by an Israeli to music created in Israel. Israeli dancers today know this is not true at the present time but there had to be a first non Israeli choreographer with his own rendition to native Israeli music and this dance and this choreographer is the one that broke this barrier. Over thirty years later, Ira Weisburd is still going strong as we document his tour of Delaware during the weekend of Nov 16th. Accompanied by his wife Diane, Ira gave two seminars. The first on Friday night, Nov 16th at the Newark International dance session in Newark Delaware and during a Line dance seminar given the next day at the Arden Gild in Arden, Del.

The pictures in this montage center on Ira during his visit to Delaware. As a teacher, Ira has maintained a Wednesday and Saturday class in Margate Florida and also is an instructor in Boca Raton where he resides. If you have had the experience of participating in an Ira Weisburd teaching session, you will appreciate his patience and his detail in discussing the steps of a dance. Very methodical in his presentation, he leaves the dancer with a keen grasp of the dance that was taught. In the case of Israeli dance, Ira has had a thirty year career in choreography and this includes the dances Sonata, Shuj Shuj Zemer, Zemer Nugeh and the theme from Borat.

But it is in the creation of line dances that Ira is best known. These have included Cumbia Semana and Seduced. One of his newest line dances, Caballero, was up for the 2012 line dance of the year. And, Ira himself, was up for Male Dance Instructor of the Year and the Horizon award for the year 2012.

There is lots of dancing, and of all different types, in the Philadelphia area. This web site, relatively low level, is directed toward the Israeli folk dance community with a tangent to International folk dance. Another local website geared to the many different dance varieties would be www.phillydance.com. Therefore we were quite stunned, when looking at the pictures taken that Friday and Saturday, at the number of and professionalism of the line dance community within our region. One of the leaders in this genre, Joanne Brady, is shown in this montage. We are told that she is a non stop storehouse of line dance lore and instruction. Our reporter jokingly called her the "Minnie Pearl" of the local line dance scene and we're sure that he meant this in good fun and in a good way. This personality is put to good use in these types of venues. We are told that Joanne has created 15 line dances over the years and at one time travelled heavily to Line dance marathons as an instructor. For this day, Joanne taught several line dances to the attendees.

Another instructor of line dance that Saturday, Mania Chrzanowski, is featured in this montage. Mania teaches Line Dancing on Wednesday nights at St Elizabeth's Church Grant Hall in Wilmington. Apparently Mania's interest is in older line dances, those of the sixties, when a lot of us were teenagers and just getting into popular dance and music.

As we understand it, the entire weekend of events was sponsored by the Arden Folk gild. The Arden Club is composed of various gilds, one of which deals with folk dancing. Several classes are offered on Wednesday nights. International dance, generally led by Jenny Brown, alternates with Israeli dance led by Sharon Kleban. In this, this web site has some expertise since the Arden Israeli dance session and its dancers, designated as the Wilmington Israeli dance session, have been a subject of several scripts on this web site including their annual appearances at the Arden Fair on Labor day Saturdays. Even the foray this weekend into Newark on Friday night, during the time and location of the Newark International folk dancers, was sponsored by the Arden Club and the folk dancing gild. The Club is an organization supported by its volunteers and, for this week, the main volunteer in the organization of this weekend's events was Susan Jonas, shown in this montage. Susan is an active international and Israeli dancer and it is through her doing that the folk gild has its own facebook page that you can reference at www.facebook.com/ardenfolkgild.

And, if you are travelling around the world as Ira was in the midst of, you really need a partner in such an enterprise. This montage features Diane who Ira married earlier in the year, on March 25, 2012. Diane partook of the instruction while at these seminars and in Newark helped run the audio equipment and in Arden manned the booth offering tshirts as well as having positioned herself along the back wall to demonstrate several line dances.

When our photographer arrived, things were well underway at Newark. During the two or so hours that Ira was teaching there, he did several circles dances including the Israeli dance mentioned above, Bo'i Malkah, and at least one partner dance. Here we see Ira teaching an international circle dance. Ira's instruction, as mentioned before, is meticulous as to form and underlying knowledge of the dance. Probably this is why he is so highly coveted for sessions such as this. Very quickly he has the dancers up and running.

These pictures catch Ira as he teaches Bo'i Malkah. Ira spends some time teaching the nuances of this dance while he is within the circle. Many of these dancers are International in their thinking and performance and modern Israeli dance is somewhat more complicated. This forces Ira to spend a little bit more time teaching. International folk dance normally doesn't have the drastic changes in direction that the choreographers of Israeli dance have given to that genre. Ira's dance goes in and out, to the left and then to the right. Nevertheless, the circle catches on to the theme and foot movements and our last picture shows Ira at his computer readying the music.

And here's where the rubber meets the road. Our circle has been practicing these movements without music. They are about to hear the music and correlate the learned steps to the beat. As all instructors of circle dances, Ira positions himself in the middle of the circle so that everyone can watch his feet in case a step (or steps) are forgotten or jumbled in their execution. And they are watching a very established dancer of great ability. Ira is very fluid in his movements, movements that he himself has choreographed. In this he has some uniqueness: most choreographers neither have the patience nor the insight to teach and then perform at this level such that the dancers of the circle feel comfortable both before the dance as they are instructed and during the dance as they try to perform.

Generally on events at the gild, parking is readily available in the parking lot that abuts the hall. But not this Saturday morning of Nov 17th. The parking lot is full as you can see on the first two shots. It is just as packed inside as our photographer enters. This montage is composed of some shots as the camera pans around.

Ira is on stage having taught one of his line dances that the hall is now executing. A peak at the Israeli dances database shows that as early as 1982, Ira was creating Israeli line dances - that one in that year was to Hello Dolly. Since that time he has developed his own style such that he is recognized as an incomparable line dance choreographer in both International and Country and Western. So, it is impossible to tell you which one of his many line dances he is doing as our photographer starts to snap these pictures.

And here we watch the participants do the line dance that Ira has just taught. Notice the concentration that everyone brings to their dancing. At all levels dancing is fun and allows participants to interact with others. But at this level, dancing is also somewhat an issue of self esteem. These line dancers are not taking this dance lightly and they concentrate on every step.

And, after expanding all that energy, it was time for a break. Breaks can be used for many things which include talking and chatting with other dancers, surveying the audience to count the number of participants and taking one of many pictures. Of course, it is said that 100 calories are burned by the average 150 lb person who line dances 20 minutes, so drinks and food may also be in order.

And while we have our break, we should discuss the makeup of the participants and how do they get to a line dance seminar featuring our instructors. It should be clear from the photos above that the participants were mostly female of many ages although we think it would be fair to indicate that the participants for the most part were older. Women love to dance and start at an early age with ballet and jazz instruction. Guys generally start later if at all so many of these women have been line dancing from when they were teenagers possibly for lack of partners. Of course, there are exceptions to this as this montage will relate. This married couple, whose names we will not devulge, happened to sit down with our photographer during the event's lunch hour. They come from southern New Jersey and used the Delaware Memorial bridge and Interstate 295 to make it to the line dance session that day.

The husband has been country and western dancing for the longest time and when he met his wife many years ago he naturally got her interested in his passion. As a couple they go to several line dancing events per week including one of Joanne's classes. An interest in dancing can be a glue that keeps couples together as they share common interests but also has well known medical and physical benefits to mobility and mental capacity as each partner ages.

Next, we have a dance being taught by Joanne Brady. If you read her biography, Joanne was for many years a special ed instructor and after retiring from that position, she began to teach line dancing. Joanne has 15 dances credited per her own choreography. Joanne's teaching technique differs sharply from Ira as Joanne is very forceful in her approach. Apparently many of the participants this morning already take classes with Joanne at various locations in and out of Delaware. Joanne was demonstrating a 4 wall line dance which means that the progression of steps begins in each direction. In this montage we catch her as she rotates around.

After the line dance is demonstrated, it is now time to put this dance to the test. Being a four wall, Joanne directs Ira to act as the lead when the dancers have made two iterations (180 degrees) and she positions herself at 90 degrees. The music starts and the line dance begins. This montage shows the perticipants as they line dance. We can't tell from these pictures but we assume that Joanne covered 0 and 90 degrees and Ira was in the lead for 180 and 270 degrees.

The pictures seem to indicate that the dancers are synchronized in their steps. No doubt having someone in front providing a template to these steps helps as the music gets underway.

At one point our photographer picked up his casio exilim camera and set it to video. These micro cameras can catch quite a bit of the action keeping in mind that the focusing, detail and depth perception is quite limited versus the portrait camera generally used in the prior shots. This montage catches the dancers as they do one wall of Joanne's four wall line dance. The subtle hip movements of the dance cannot be caught in these stills taken from the video but you should be able to discern that the dancers are pretty much in step. As you will see below and not indicated here, Ira is positioned in the back giving lead support for the back wall. Joanne is in front but hidden by a positioning of the dancers' bodies. We have attached a red arrow to indicate Joanne's position in the last photo.

This montage shows still photos from the same video mentioned above. Here we are concentrating on Ira and one other participant. Ira is providing a wall of coverage for the dancers. It is impossible to know whether he already knew this dance or had picked it up from Joanne's teach. It really doesn't matter as Ira is a master of beat, music and choreography.

In addition, if you don't mind our usual adoration, we have in blue jeans and gray pullover none other than Sharon Kleban, the leader of the Wilmington Israeli dance session. Sharon does these steps, as she does all dances, with her usual grace and expertise. One of the most graceful Israeli dancers in the Philadelphia area, Sharon spreads this grace of dance into this line dance session.

It now was Mania Chrzanowski's turn. Her specialty is the line dances to much of the music we enjoyed in the sixties. Some of her line dances could date back to that era or these may be newer line dances set to this older music. Our photographer certainly recognized the music selection of her line dance teach - he thinks it was by the Supremes. Being a four wall line dance, we see Mania as she shows the participants the steps of this dance. Some of these shots show Ira copying Mania's steps as he watches her from above on the stage.

Our last montage shows the participants doing Mania's line dance to the music. Our photographer has caught several of the iterations along different walls. By this point, this session has been going on for several hours. It has even included a lunch. But, we think you can see the enthusiasm is still there. And, why not. Here's a group of people doing what they love under the tutelege of several great choreographers and dance leaders: Ira Weisburd, Joanne Brady and Mania Chrzanowski. They've learned some new dances, made some new friends, did extensive exercise and enjoyed great music. After Mania's teach, Ira would again take the lead and show his highly acclaimed line dance Caballero which the participants apparently greatly enjoyed. Eventually there was a group photo which you can see on the folk gild's facebook web page. Unfortunately, our photographer had other plans that afternoon and had to leave early so we'll end this script by telling you that Ira Weisburd's foray into Delaware during his World tour was extremely successful and, even more so, extremely enjoyable for those who participated on Friday night, Nov 16th and Saturday morning and afternoon on Nov 17.