3/15/2020 — Seattle, WA. Creating Ashkenazic Dance In The Wild: A Workshop for Musicians, Dancers, and Dance Leaders.
This is a two part workshop with klezmer accordionist Christina Crowder for musicians and dancers who want to dig deeper into the mechanics of playing Ashkenazic dance music, and for instigating fun and supportive Ashkenazic community dancing.
Sunday, March 15 at Studio Current
1100 E Pike St Seattle Wa 98122 In The Capitol Hill Arts District
Session I – 11am-1pm
Session II – 2pm-4pm
Suggested donation $20 for individual session ($30 for both sessions). ~ but, pay what you can — all income levels welcome. Please register/RSVP at the Eventbrite links below to receive links to tune pdfs and other updates before the event. If you would like to make your donation in advance, please visit our “support” page here. This allows us to buy local bagels instead of paying ticket “convenience” fees. THANK YOU!!!
Session one: The Musical Mechanics of Ashkenazic Dance Music.
The morning session will be primarily for musicians. We will explore how to create danceable rhythms and textures for specific Ashkenazic dance genres including freylekhs, khosidl, bulgar, and zhok (slow hora), through both playing and working on our feet. Our goal will be to understand how rhythm and tempo support the physical impulses for each dance genre, and then to create those textures within small sub-groups of the participants. We will also spend some time talking about how to identify the appropriate dance genre of tunes when titles can be misleading.
A potential repertoire pool will be made available in advance via pdf and (where possible) recorded examples, and will be chosen from commonly known tunes of an easy to intermediate level of difficulty. Our focus won’t be so much on learning a specific tune, but on identifying rhythmic structures that can be used for any tune in that genre.
Session two: Ashkenazic Dance In The Wild: Dance Leading, Crowd Management, & Building Dance Sets
The afternoon session is oriented toward both dancers and musicians. We will focus on building skills to instigate fun and authentic community dance events wherever we might encounter the opportunity to create them. For musicians who have attended the morning session, this is the chance to focus on playing while observing how what we play works on bodies in motion. For dance leaders and experienced dancers, we’ll explore topics such as consent, posture, crowd management, communication with musicians, and leading figures such as “thread the needle.” We will touch on the basics of freylekhs, bulgar, khosidl, and zhok (slow hora), though we might end up spending more time on freylekhs and bulgar.
Where is it?
Studio Current, 1100 E Pike Street, Seattle, WA 98122 — Access is on Pike St. (which is the door next to No Parking (boutique shop)).
http://studiocurrent.weebly.com
Who is this workshop for?
Musicians: This workshop is open to any musician who wants to get a better understanding of how to play for Ashkenazic dancing. The tunes chosen won’t be difficult, but we won’t spend time learning them as such. You should feel comfortable on your instrument and come prepared to spend some time on your feet as we alternate between playing and moving.
Dancers: This workshop is open to anyone who is interested in Ashkenazic dance from relative beginner to experienced and aspiring dance leaders. We will spend a little bit of time learning basic steps, but will really focus on how we can create fun and supportive dance experiences when we’re in community.
What to bring and what to wear:
— comfortable clothing
— shoes you can move in
— (optional) a vegetarian snack item to share
— your instrument and music stand (if you use)
— printed or digital copies of the music provided in advance, and (optional) your klezmer “book” in case we want to explore tunes we find that most participants know but that didn’t make it into the advance folder.
For more information: Christina Crowder, 203-909-3318, Christina@klezmerinstitute.org
Please pre-register/RSVP with a free “ticket” at the eventbrite link so that we can send you links to the music files and other announcements.
Eventbrite Links:
Session 1 –
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ashkenazic-dance-workshop-session-i-for-musicians-tickets-95291448287
Session 2 –
About Christina Crowder: Christina has been performing and researching Jewish music for over twenty years, beginning in Budapest, Hungary in 1993, continuing with a Fulbright grant to Romania to document Jewish music in 1999, and since 2002 with an active research, teaching, and performing career in the US. Her current research is examining the connections between Jewish, Bessarabian, and Greek music through a project with Walter Zev Feldman at NYU Abu Dhabi, and she is the Operations Director of the newly-founded Klezmer Institute. Christina lives in New Haven, Connecticut, and performs with her chamber klezmer quartet Bivolița. She also performs regularly with Michael Winograd and the Honorable Mentschen, the Alexander Fiterstein Trio, the Goldenshtayn Kompaniye, and the Dave Levitt Klezmer Trio. She has been a guest instructor in klezmer accordion and ensemble performance in the US, Canada, and Europe, and will be both musical director and performer in the 2019 Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of the Broadway play “Indecent.”
