Dance Masters
Many of the yizkor books
that have been placed online at
www.jewishgen.org have
references to dance masters. Below are a number of those
excerpts. A reference to a dance master can also be found
in Ruth Rubin's Voices of a
People The Story of Yiddish Folksong in the dance songs chapter.
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Dzialoszyce/dzi126.html
Yizkor Book of the Jewish Community
in Dzialoszyce and Surroundings
(Działoszyce, Poland
There were days, sometimes the days between the first and last days
of a holiday, when an idea would originate with one of the
active youths to organize an evening of entertainment. And then
we would approach the leader of the orchestra, Abraham Lokaj,
and we would organize an evening of plays, comedy, and dance. We
would plan a spontaneous program that would be carried out with
the active participation of the drama circles. Abraham Lokaj
organized the family orchestra, and the youth spent a pleasant
evening with singing and dancing until the morning hours. In the
intermissions between singing and dancing, we would raffle off
items that were collected from the citizens of the town.
There was a time when the youth became passionate about the
current faddish dances, and this mania took hold of almost the
entire youth of the town. They brought in a dance teacher by the
name of Kohl, from Kielce, and he was the one who began giving
dance lessons to many of the boys and girls.
This fact encouraged the arrangement of all types of balls, mostly
dancing balls. And these balls attracted a very large
concentration of diversified youth belonging to the many
different youth movements. The first ones who learned how to
dance were Gitma Richter, Josek Tauman, Blumcia Zylber, Ester
Zylber, and others.
During a later period, the “dance master” Avramcze appeared, and
through his lessons, many boys and girls learned how to dance
the modern dances. Perec Dutkiewicz also continued the teaching
of dancing. A gentile player by the name of Filipowski
accompanied these lessons by playing on the violin, and he was
the one who set the rhythms that were necessary for the dance
steps. The names of the dances that they learned were: the
Charleston, the Shimmy, the Step Dance, the Quadrille, the
English Waltz, the Ladies Waltz, and others.
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/rzeszow/rze214.html
Rzeszow Community Memorial Book
(Poland)
50°03' / 22°00'
Kehilat Raysha sefer zikaron
Edited by: M. Yari-Wold
Published in Tel Aviv, by Former residents of Rzeszow in Israel
and the USA, 1967 (H,Y,E)
Weddings
A wedding was an event in the life of a family that was prepared
for over many months. The tailors and sewers prepared clothing
and white bed linens (“oysshteier” Yiddish). One week before the
weddings, the women whose jobs were such began to prepare baked
goods, pastries (“Lekach” and “Flodn” [54]), cookies and
dainties in a variety of shapes, baked and fried with
professionalism. The extended families
{221} of the bride and groom gathered from the towns of the
area. This family gathering participated in the prayers on the
Sabbath preceding the wedding, when the groom was called up for
an aliya to the Torah. An opening party (“Forshpiel”) took place
at the end of the Sabbath. Friends were invited to take part in
the joy of the bride and groom. They received their invitation
cards with the heading “The voice of the groom and the voice of
the bride, the voice of joy and the voice of happiness”. The
ceremony was conducted with great splendor. Many tears of joy
and sadness were shed as they cut the hair of the bride [55].
The jester succeeded to entertain the guests with verses and
rhymes. The “Sheva Brachot” celebration took place for seven
days in honor of the young couple. The rabbi conducted the
chuppa [56] marriage ceremony for the important people of the
city. For the simple folk, the judges or other rabbis, who were
qualified for this purpose, conducted the ceremony. Well-known
bands played popular and Hassidic tunes “dvinot valachlech”.
Mottel Krebs was the fiddler, and Leib Bass played his
instrument, with the accompaniment of flute and clarinet
players. At the more modern weddings, Fishbein's (a dance
teacher) group played tunes of Polonaise, Quadrille, Waltz, and
Polka, and the youth danced. As was the custom in those days,
wedding organizers served the guests. These were not simple
waiters, but bearded Jews who were called “Sarvarim” (from the
Franco-Latin word “service”). The most famous of them were the
Schwartzbart family (who immigrated to America already in my
youth) and the Szynweiter family.
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/bobruisk/byb139.html
Memorial Book of the Community of Bobruisk
and its Surroundings
(Belarus)
53 °09' / 29°14'
Translation from: Bobruisk; sefer zikaron le-kehilat Bobruisk u-veneteha
Edited by: Y. Slutski, Former Residents of Bobruisk in Israel
and the USA
Published in Tel-Aviv, 1967
Besides the general theater there also used to come visiting the Jewish
theaters, which were strongly ongoing in the Jewish world. We
have news of a visit of Avraham Goldfaden's troupe in Bobruisk
(April 1881). The troupe appeared six times and performed the
famous plays from the beginning of the Yiddish theater: Koldunie
(The Sorceress), Breyndele Kozak, Dvoshe the Spletnitse, etc. In
1887 there came to the city Tantsman's troupe and they played
for a full house Doctor Almosada.
It is clear that all this news was fortuitous, because the Yiddish
theater was, as is known, illegal in those years and forbidden
to advertise.
In 1892 we hear already about a local amateur troupe in which
participated educated young people of the city and High School
seniors. The troupe organized an evening for charity purposes.
In that year is was already so far away, that they brought from
afar two dance teachers, and "Jewish daughters learned to lift
their legs and hop as one must." They taught song and dance for
a small price, an hour a day, with them stood together "some two
or three bokherim." The subjects of study were not interrupted
even in the nine days; and Yosef Dobkin, the reporter from the
Tribune, discovered the secret, that "also on Tishe-vov they
danced. And not only Jewish daughters, but really bokherim and
maidens together
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Borszczow/bor002.html
The Book of Bortschoff
(Borszczow, Ukraine)
48°48' / 26°03'
Translation of Sefer Borszczow
Edited by: N. Blumenthal
Published in Tel Aviv, 1960
How They Spent Leisure Time
By Shlomo Reibel
Translated by Miriam Beckerman
Edited by Myrna Neuringer Levy
In the years before World War I young people started to perform.
Around the year 1910, the first play was put on and it was Moshe
Richter's comedy, “Moshe the Tailor.” This was performed with
great success. The boys and girls acted no worse than the
professional actors who used to come to Borchov. For many years,
there was talk about how so-and- so performed. People would sing
the melodies that were heard on the stage.
The admission monies from such plays were given to a “worthy
cause.” In order to increase the income they would arrange a
dance evening with surprises where boys and girls used to dance
well into the dawn.
Orthodox Jews, very observant Jews, were not particularly inspired
by this new activity. Nevertheless, the forward - looking ladies
used to go to these performances and dance evenings, as “guards”
for their growing daughters.
Up to that time girls would dance only among themselves. For
instance [they would dance] a quadrille where one woman led the
dance and gave the calls. “One lady forward,” etc. They would
dance only at weddings.
Because of the new behavior they hired a dance teacher and every
mother considered it her duty that her daughter learn the new
dances because shortly there would be a new [dance] evening and
the daughter might, God forbid, remain at home. The small
shtetls around Borchov did not lag behind: Coralivka, Skala,
Aszieron.
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/klezmer/kle268.html
PARYSOW (P). Sefer Porisov (Parysow; A Memorial to the Jewish
Community of Parysow, Poland*). Ed.: Y. Granastein. Tel Aviv,
Former Residents of Parysow in Israel, 1971. (Hebrew, Yiddish)
"A Wedding in Town," by Melekh Poskinski, pp. 152-53. (Yiddish)
In Parysow there were different wedding customs that were
observed. One included hiring a gentile called the "red shaygetz,"
who led the mixed dances.
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