The Return Of Sunday Morning Dancing at Germantown

Grant had decided before Labor day to honor his father on Sept 20th by catering a brunch in an area of the Germantown facility known as the Maslow auditorium before the start of the session scheduled to take place that day in the Marcus Auditorium. At his own expense, Grant provided for a well stocked and varied brunch augmented by other foods brought in by some of the other dancers. These pictures show the brunch at about 10:15 that morning.

About 10:25 Grant began to address the attendees by thanking them for their attendance and for the many well wishes and condolences he had received over the part several months. Grant pointed out several pictures that he had brought in of his father and these pictures can be seen somewhat in the first picture of this montage. Grant related how his father had grown up in his native Johannesburg, the great South Africa metropolis at the southern reaches of that continent. The Shulman family stayed in South Africa until moving to Israel when Grant was six. Some years later Grant moved to the United States to attend Cornell University before settling in the Philadelphia area.

These pictures were taken during Grant's discussion of his father and you can see how Grant's audience was moved by Grant's extemporaneous eulogy.

While the brunch continues at Maslow, one floor above the Marcus auditorium awaits its participation in this morning's activities. Grant arrived here first to assemble the sound system necessary for the class - this consists of an Ipod and Apple speaker - before heading downstairs to the Maslow. He had noticed that the Marcus had been split up by some screening with one end ready for the coming Yom Kippur services later in the week and the other end cleared for the dance session. This would be a good spot in this narrative to thank Germantown's staff which effortlessly handles the moving of furniture and chairs each week. In addition, they provide the water for the thirsty Israeli dancers.

Somewhat after 10:30 the brunch is wrapping up and the dancers are making their way to the Marcus auditorium to dance. While the Sunday scheule is generally set for 10 to 12:30, today a modified schedule of 10:30 through 12:30 will be in effect. And, while the normal fee for the session is $5, today is a free session. This montage shows the dancers tackling one of the first pieces of music for the day. There is a surprise here for those familiar with the schedule. Generally dancers will arrive and leave throughout the session with the largest number of dancers present sometime after 11AM. For this session, the largest number of dancers were at the onset of dancing as most had attended the earlier brunch.

For many of the dancers, it's been 3 months since they've last danced at Germantown. There was a summer session on Wednesdays, as mentioned, but without Grant's presence the turnout was relatively sparse. So, for many, the brunch and the first few dances are a time to catch up with each other's lives. Below we document a few of the dancer's activities during the summer as told to this web site.

Similar to Grant, Joan and Lisa suffered a loss during the summer when their Mother Doris Polsky died. Doris had been in ill health for a while having suffered a stroke some years back. However, Doris still was a presence at the Sunday Morning dance session as she would accompany Joan and Lisa to Germantown on Sunday mornings. At the time of her death, Doris contributions to the US World War II effort were revealed. She had been one of several women writing and analyzing early analytic code, something called a differential Analyser, at the University Of Pennsylvania. After the war Doris founded a real estate company that became well known in the Germantown/Mt Airy area.

Elaine and John Frank spent much of the summer at their summer home in the Catskills in New York. While up in that area they did partake of the Gvanim 2015 Israeli dance camp in Starlight, Pa during late August. The dance instructors at the camp were reported to be Michael Barzilay, Chen Shporen, and Ohad Atia (Atia is well known to this web site for his instruction videos of Israeli dances).

Starlight itself is quite interesting being the Northeastern Pennsylvania border to New York. It is known for winter sports and attracts many cross country skiers at the appropriate time of year. The last picture of this montage shows Starlight's position in reference to Hancock, New York, the big metropolis in that area of the country.

Another regular who is having some medical problems is Jani. Normally Jani is attending various Israeli dance camps and has been known to bring back dances that become a part of this sessions's repertoire. But, at least one, perhaps two, hip replacements have slowed her down at the time that this script was being written and that explains why we have few pictures of her dancing during this Sunday. This is not just a negative for the Sunday morning Germantown class but also a negative for the Monday night Beth Sholom class and Don's Thursday night session - classes that Jani also attends.

These pictures are of Sharon Polsky who teaches a Tuesday night class in the Cherry Hill area although this past summer, and only for the summer, that class was moved to Maple Shade. This web site has some pictures of this summer class and sooner or later there will be a script on this site dealing with the various changes and adventures of dancers during the summer of 2015. But, Sharon has been the subject of a biography on this web site and brings to her dancing many years of experience in various capacities including a wealth of knowledge pertaining to older dances.

Lee Friedman, when speaking with her, considers herself to be relatively inactive this summer. But Lee's inactivity is another dancer's whirlwind adventures. This summer saw Lee up in Maine, in California and New Jersey for various dance camps, most of which were not Israeli. There were other non dancing related trips such as, for example, a cruise to Alaska. In August, the planning of five years came to fruition as Lee was part of a group of dancers who attended a Bulgarian dance workshop. What was somewhat unique to this was that the workshop was located in Bulgaria. This is not the furthest Lee has traveled for dancing having spent some time in China in 2014 dancing with various groups as she toured that country

Yael also was travelling this summer but for her this was an annual pilgrimmage as she has two daughters living in Alaska and this was where she was headed. One of the daughters, Esther Golten, is a folksinger who was profiled in our anatomy script. We might add that by happenstance Lee (mentioned above) met up with Yael in Alaska at a restaurant run by another of Yael's daughters.

And, we include Rich in this as he was also very active this summer. Rich has become a yearly visitor and participant at the Karmiel festival in Israel, probably the most prestigious Israeli dance camp in the world. Because of this exposure to many dances and many choreographers, Rich has at his fingertips (and through his Internet research not to mention his acquired cadre of Email pen pal experts) a vast expanse of dance knowledge that he adds when needed.

We focus on this couple in transition. Within a few months David is retiring from the practice of medicine and Wendy is retiring from her teaching schedule. This summer they used the time to see how retirement might feel and apparently their concensus is that it won't be a problem. The couple already has plans for cruises and dance camps and since this website considers itself the official chronicler of Wendy and David's trips (one of which is their trip to Israel a few years ago), we look forward to more pictures of more adventures - some of which involve dancing.

And, of course, we should again reference Grant as we talk about the changes that a summer can bring. Dealing with health issues of a parent, or any close relative, is never easy. This is especially difficult when treatments seem to be pointing to a different result. But, Grant's actions in organizing this Sunday morning brunch portend that there will be a gradual return to a Sunday morning normality.

And, so, this last montage shows the dancing near the end of this first session of the 2015-2016 season. A few dancers have left for various reasons but this has not stopped the other dancers whose enthusiasm remains high. Everyone is happy to have Grant back (And have Tamar continue to run the administrative aspects of the session as she continued to do through the summer). It promises to be another year of Sunday morning dancing which will involve the beats of beautiful music, the steps leading to some aerobic exercise, memorization techniques to learn the steps of new dances and pleny of communal fun.