Saturday, Sept 5th, 2009 was a wonderful day of Israeli dancing in Philadelphia and its environs. Starting with the Arden fair in Arden Delaware in the afternoon, the Wilmington session performed a demo for the crowd in the Gild Hall. A script has been created to cover this which you can view by clicking here. The fair was quite tiring and affected our coverage of the evening part of the day's events as we attended this evening event pictured here, but had to leave early. These pictures start at about 7:30PM on Veeree road in Philadelphia. This marathon is expected to start at 8:30PM. Israeli dance marathons are known to go through the night. This one is scheduled to end relatively early at 3AM. The room has to be prepared and cleared of extraneous tables and chairs, food and refreshments must be accounted for and the computers and equipment for Rob, who is the music programmer for this evening of dance, must be setup. Talma has asked several dancers to arrive early to help with the preparations.

The pictures below document this setup procedure. Dancers were expected from up and down the East Coast and the marathon was to run to 3 in the morning. For this type of crowd and the length of the program, quantities of food had to be prepared. In addition, the room had to be readied and Rob, who was supplying the programming, had to get his equipment up and ready. A partition is separating the full room to be used - Talma's party will use about 70% of it and many chairs and tables are within the site of the marathon to be. You can see the row of chairs next to the stage where Rob and Hannah are about to set up. This partition would be pushed back somewhat to provide more room and some of the tables and chairs next to the partition would be moved out. We can see Caryle walking to an exit of the then empty room which would be packed a short time later. While the room is being cleared, Talma is moving food into the kitchen which is adjacent and you can see several bags that have already been unloaded. In the second set of pictures are some urns sitting at the ready. Shortly they would be filled with coffee. Included with the food is watermelons that must be cut up, pita breads and all sorts of cakes and candies. In the last two pictures we catch a portrait of two of the preparers, Sharon Polsky and Caryle Felderman as they pose in back of the food they are preparing. In addition, Beth Ledenheim and Marc Rauer helped in the kitchen also as the marathon got under way. The final picture shows the cutlery and utensils laid out ready to be used. Many of the knives are not on display having been used on the cut up watermelon covered on trays that you can also see. Anyway, it was a good start to a marathon that went to 3 in the morning and was enjoyed by all.