APRIL 2017 DABKE Study Guide and Program Information There are many reasons people dance. In almost every society dance has been used as a means of communication. It is a unique way for people to connect to the world. Dance can help people understand their own power. It has always been an important part of community life. In early traditional societies, rituals were thought to give people magical power. People danced to celebrate a birth, a marriage or any important event. For many, dance is a way to connect to nature, a way to communicate with higher forces. Every culture has dances that bring people together to celebrate. The final show of Repertory Dance Theatre s 51st season is an evening-length work by Zvi Gotheiner. Blending Middle Eastern folk dance, Arab pop music and contemporary dance, Dabke is about conflict in the Middle East and conflict in the world. Recognized by The New York Times as one of Alastair Macaulay's TOP TEN DANCE FAVORITES OF 2013, Zvi Gotheiner's "Dabke" is based on a Middle-Eastern folk dance, a line dance often performed at weddings, holidays and community celebrations. Strongly referencing solidarity, the dancers, linked by hands or shoulders stomp the ground with complex rhythms, emphasizing their connection to the land.
About the Choreographer One does not just watch a dance by Zvi Gotheiner. One enters a world with its own internal logic, a sensual, organic world of movement, language, and images where one is pulled along by currents unseen and inevitable." [Dance Magazine] I was born and raised in Messilot, a kibbutz in northern Israel. I encountered music at the age of five when I began playing the recorder, and more deeply at the age of nine when I began playing the violin. Very quickly I recognized my musical interests, and my talents did not go unnoticed. The kibbutz provided funds for me to study in Tel Aviv with renowned violin teacher Yair Kless and composer Shlomo Yoffe from the age of 12 to 17. Although I had danced folk dance as a child, I came to artistic dance late in life, first encountering the art at 17 when I saw the Bat Sheva Dance Company. Their work blew me away. I saw this performance as an alluring invitation into a world of fantasy and selfdefinition. I began taking dance classes at the local high school on the kibbutz and made my first drafts of choreography. Shortly thereafter, the legendary Gertrud Kraus happened to be in attendance at the kibbutz as I was showing my first dance work, to music by Prokofiev, in public. Ms. Kraus took me under her wing, inviting me to audition for a dance scholarship with the America- Israeli Cultural Foundation, which I received in 1971. At the time, I was conscripted with the Israeli Army. Through the support of the scholarship, upon completion of basic training I was stationed near Tel Aviv, permitting me to start taking dance classes on a regular basis. On my final day of service with the Army in 1974, I was invited to join the Bat Sheva Dance Company, dancing in works by Martha Graham, Kurt Jooss, Glenn Tetley, Talley Beatty, Donald McKayle and Norman Morrice, to name a few. The company took me out of Israel for the first time in my life, as we toured throughout Europe and to the United States. In 1978, I was awarded a rare America-Israel Cultural Foundation provided me with a rare scholarship to come to New York City for one year to further my studies in dance and choreography. I studied at the Martha Graham School and the Alvin Ailey School, while slowly shifting my attention to ballet, concentrating my studies with renowned teacher Maggie Black. After returning to Israel to dance with Bat Sheva Dance Company for an additional two years, I returned to New York in 1981, dancing with Joyce Trisler Dance Company, Feld Ballets/NY and Garden State Ballet, among others. In 1983, I returned to Israel where I founded Tamar Ramle Dance Company, considered to be the beginning of the fringe movement in the Israeli dance scene. My works concentrated on site-specific/outdoor performance. In 1985, I returned to New York and focused my attention on developing my choreographic craft. In 1988, I returned for an extended stay in Israel, where I directed the Tamar Jerusalem Dance Company. I returned to New York in 1988 for good, and in 1989 founded ZviDance. My goal with ZviDance is to bring a passionate vision of community to audiences in a world full of conflict. ZviDance is a collaborative alliance among my artists, celebrating our diversity by melding movement genres into the a distinct dance vocabulary. It is my goal to immerse our audiences into the depth of the human experience. These days, I find myself in an interesting place with my craft. I certainly gain personal confidence with my ability to construct work. Nevertheless, I feel restless and unable to rest on past achievements, pushing myself to places where I am in the dark and in an experimental mode. I find the creative process to be the most powerful force in my life. While making new movement phrases, I shed inherited sequences imprinted in my memory, and research the invention of new ones with my collaborators. My starting point is the body. I may relate the body to other realms of experience, but I always return to it. I aspire to make my work reflect on the now. Lately, I have conceived and choreographed projects involving technology as an observation of new patterns and rituals in the contemporary sensibility. My goal was to reflect on new realities available to performance through technology, that in turn allows for new identities, new communities and new exposure. In my latest work ZOOM, I spent many hours of research on social networking sites, observing new ways of... (continued on next page)
sharing intimacy and connectivity, but also new ways for promotion and marketing. I integrated these concepts into the work and structured it in a fragmented way, assimilating an experience like opening new links on Facebook. Over the last ten years, I have been slowly evolving my creative process to allow for greater collaboration with the dancers and project designers. I have shifted my role from a "knowing" director to a collaborator seeking to discover the evolution of ideas. I have incorporated a system of critical response and feedback that are now essential for me in the creation of new movement vocabulary and the overall shape of a given work. This loose system allows me to invent a new creative process tailored to each work, and a flow of creative intelligence from an entire team. The more deeply I observe the creative process, the more mysterious making something from nothing becomes. I feel lucky to have these opportunities to immerse in invention, and a remarkable group of collaborators that brings it all together. About the Composer SCOTT KILLIAN (Composer) has composed works for such major American companies as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Hubbard Street Dance-Chicago, Nikolais/Louis Dance, and the Josà Limón Dance Company. Zoom marks his 14th work with Zvi. Mr. Killian created over 20 works with long-time collaborators Danny Shapiro and Joanie Smith, as well as numerous works with Cherylyn Lavagnino, Johannes Wieland, and others. As a composer/sound designer for theatre, Mr. Killian has served as Resident Composer for the Berkshire Theatre Festival since 1997. Among the many other theatrical venues are the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop, Public Theater, Womenâ s Project, The Acting Company, Rattlestick Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre of Washington D.C., Shakespeare & Co., Seattle Rep, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, George Street Playhouse, Baltimoreâ s Center Stage, Bostonâ s Huntington Theatre, GEVA Theatre, Theatre Calgary and the Vancouver Playhouse. Music for film includes Witnessing, a documentary film which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and aired on MSNBC, the film Undetectable: the Changing Face of AIDS (premiered on PBS and the NOW Film Festival/NYC) and Swan Lake, Minnesota an awardwinning video adaptation of the classic ballet produced by the A&E network in conjunction with PBS.
About the Performance (Portions of the information were taken from an interview with Zvi and also from a term paper written by Janet Schroeder, a student in New York) Watching Dabke is like looking into someone s heart or diary. The dancers let the audience see their souls, frustrations, insecurities, passions, their yearnings, fears and their hope. Dabke is a Levantine folk dance, which means it originated from a region in the Middle East that includes the countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. Legend says that people in that region during that era made the roofs of their houses with tree branches and mud. Anytime the weather would change, the mud would crack and members of their family or community would come and help patch it by forming a line and joining hands and stomping the mud into place. In colder months, they would sing to help keep their bodies warm. Once better roof-making technology was available, the story of their work dance/song was passed on through generations to remind them of the importance of family, community, and tradition. Today, dabke is seen all throughout the world at weddings, family gatherings, and celebrations. The typical dabke step involves the left foot crossing over the right two times and is normally accented with a variety of different hops. Each line has a lawweeh, or leader, that is the most skilled and controls the tempo and energy of the line. Sometimes a handkerchief or small stick is used to join the lawweeh with the rest of the dancers. The leader improvises and shows off more difficult moves. They can choose to break from the line and dance in the center or switch positions with another person in line. The music is very distinct and has very strong downbeats. In creating his evening length work, Dabke, Zvi gathered dabkeh folk dance video material from YouTube and his dancers learned the steps. They noticed both the similarities and the differences between the steps from different countries. Some groups held hands and some joined their arms around someone s waist or danced shoulder to shoulder. Zvi and his dancers began to experiment with the traditional steps, using choreographic techniques and manipulations such as direction, spatial patterning, spatial relationships, repetition, timing, etc. to create solos and duets, and group work. The dancers and Zvi were very invested in the creation of the movement and Zvi gave the dancers a lot of freedom in the movement development and phrasing. Each solo or duet says something about how individuals confront conflict or a challenge or a dramatic situation. The dancers would bring their own issues to their process and sometimes they embodied the issues of their friends.
Some of the gestures are about how people feel about territory. The men sometimes show that they feel entitled. Sometimes the women try to break from conventional or traditional roles. Zvi would sometimes give a dancer or dancers a specific motivation to inspire the development of a solo. Zvi s Dabke choreography lets us see something about the social structure and the kinds of roles that men and women have in many Middle Eastern countries. We also see how women are trying to challenge those traditional roles. We are shown relationships among people by using a movement language that is sometimes a social language (folk dance) and also a personal language (modern dance). Reflecting on the recent Arab Spring movement with unstoppable forces for change, Dabke is about conflict in the Middle East, but it is also about conflict in the world. Zvi has stated in a program note, that his intention was not to reconstruct a traditional Dabke dance per se, but to use it as inspiration for exploring a different movement sensibility. Dabke both enacts and is the twenty-first century global community. Lesson Plan Using YouTube as a resource, try learning some traditional folk dances off the internet. Students can pick a specific type of folk dance or a specific country and research the origin of the dances and how and the reason they are traditionally danced. Have the students share this information with the class and take turns teaching each other the steps of each dance. Using choreographic tools and devices, have the students begin to experiment with the movements they learned. Break them up into small groups and have them create their one movement sequences based on the traditional folk dance material.
Why Use Dance in the Classroom? Dance is the oldest language. Dance is a total experience involving the physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and aesthetic dimensions of an individual which helps us perceive and communicate who we are and what we aspire to become. Dance is a great resource for teaching and opening minds and imaginations. Dance is a form of non-verbal communication, a powerful language that everyone can understand. Dance allows all children to explore their own physical and creative potential in a non-competitive environment. Standards for Arts Education: Utah Core Curriculum Moving: Increasing strength, flexibility and endurance Investigating: Discovering the elements of dance: time, space energy and the body Creating: Exploring the creative process Connecting: Appreciating dance, its historical, cultural and personal origins The Elements of Dance There are four elements of dance: time, space, energy (force and flow) and the body. The body is the instrument of dance. It is the vehicle of communication, based upon the dancer s kinesthetic sense. Dance exists in both time and space. Time can be rhythmic and based upon meter, or body rhythms and breath rhythms. Space is concerned with the visual design of dance. It consists of body shape, levels, floor patterns, group relationships and volume. Energy relates to the force with which the movement is released. Another term for energy is dynamics and may be described by specific qualities such as: percussive, staccato, sustained, swinging, suspended, vibratory and collapse. A variety of energy levels make a dance more interesting and create texture within the movement. How to Prepare for the Dance Performance Turn off and put away all cell phones, mp3 players and any other device which may cause distraction, and remove any chewing gum. Clear your mind of other thoughts (general or personal). Open your mind and spirit to the moment; concentrate and raise your awareness to the immediate environment. As the lights lower and/or the music begins, take a deep breath and relax in your seat. You are beginning to watch motion, movement, shape, line, rhythm, tempo, color, space, time, energy...dance. Allow yourself to release the notion that you already know what dance means, or has to mean, or that you have to figure something out. Release the notion that you have to look at dance as if you were reading a book. Dance doesn t necessarily have a storyline. If you watch the dance with openness, you may experience an emotion, an image, or a feeling that you may not be able to describe. You may not know why or where reactions come from, but don t worry. That is a part of the magic of theater. Every piece of choreography has a reason for being. Dances may be celebrations, tell stories, define moods, interpret poems, express emotions, carve designs or visualize music. As you watch a dance, a story may occur to you because of your past experience. However, not all dances tell stories. The sequences do not have to make literal sense. Allow images and personal feelings to come to the surface of your consciousness. After the performance, feel free to discuss your thoughts with others, but do not be disturbed if you find others have a different reaction than yours. Think about your own personal images and thoughts. Was it fun to watch? Did the dance remind you of any experiences in your own life? Did the choreography inspire you to express yourself, write a poem, draw a picture, or make up your own dance?
Dance Criticism and Questions for Written Analysis and Discussion Criticism (writing or talking about dance) or evaluation of a dance performance is affected by past experience, sensitivity, involvement, and personal judgment. Criticism involves three processes: description, interpretation, and judgment of a particular piece being analyzed. When you write or talk about a dance performance you should consider or analyze four different aspects of the dance. The choreographic elements: the overall form, use of space, rhythmic and timing factors, use of dynamics, style, music, and movement invention The performance elements: the technical skill of the dancers, their projection, commitment, ability to communicate. The production elements: the costumes, lighting, props, sets, and music The general impact: the clarity of intent, concept, invention of the dance performance. When answering the following questions, try to be multi-dimensional in your responses by describing visual and auditory perceptions and feelings. Make sure you state your reasons for anything you liked or disliked. 1. What emotional reactions did you have? What moved you? 2. What was the most interesting feature of the performance? 3. What in particular do you most remember about the experience? 4. Was there an apparent motive for the dance? Was it dramatic, abstract, a mood piece, etc.? 5. Were there any social, political, or historical elements? 6. What did you notice about the form of the dance? 7. Were the performers skilled technically? 8. How well did they portray their characters or communicate with movement? 9. What kind of music was used? 10. What were your reactions to the technical or production elements, the staging, décor, props, lighting, costumes? These questions may stimulate great discussions in the classroom, or may allow the students to delve deeper into their performance experience. RDT s Goals for Arts-in-Education Using dance as a way to help people become more: Connected, Compassionate, Aware, Inspired, Original, Focused, Courageous, Passionate, Human \ To provide alternative ways of learning in order to achieve basic educational objectives such as concentrating, creative problem solving, planning, visualizing and conceptualizing To develop skills and insights needed for emotional maturity and social effectiveness-sharing, cooperating, integrating, and interacting. To develop an individual s physical and mental discipline at all levels of ability. To open participants minds and imaginations by developing tools of communication To develop feelings of self-worth, confidence, and achievement by giving students and teachers opportunities to explore movement, the art of improvisation and the creative process. To develop an understanding and appreciation of American Modern Dance. To deepen the understanding of the relationship between art and life. To develop Life Skills by encouraging good citizenship, by helping students be responsible and understand their relationship to the other members of their group, family, class or community.
RDT and Arts Education REPERTORY DANCE THEATRE founded in 1966, is a professional modern dance company dedicated to the creation, performance, perpetuation, and appreciation of modern dance. RDT s long standing commitment to arts in education focuses on enriching young students lives and providing on opportunity for students to experience the joy of living through dance. The company of outstanding performers, teachers, and choreographers has created new pathways for audiences to experience and value the art of dance. Residency activities that include demonstrations, movement classes, and teacher in-service workshops encourage students to integrate movement into their learning and teaching process. RDT s residency activities are specifically designed to assist teachers and students in achieving the standards for arts education. The following organizations and donors generously support Repertory Dance Theatre s Arts-in- Education Activities: Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation Salt Lake City Arts Council Arts Learning Grant Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts & Parks Program George S and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation Emma Eccles Jones Foundation Utah State Board of Education POPS Program Ally Bank Lawrence T & Janet T Dee Foundation Utah Division of Arts & Museums and the National Endowment for the Arts HR Burton Foundation BW Bastian Foundation 4Life Deluxe Corporation Foundation For more information about Repertory Dance Theatre, our upcoming workshops, performances, residencies, etc. Please visit our website at www.rdtutah.org or contact us at 801-534-1000.