debka_notion

Avi Perez was visiting and teaching in Boston this Monday night. He taught two dances, once a circles dance which was unabashedly mediocre- and in which he said the title (B'Atzvut Shketa, apparently) so quickly and slurredly that I thought it was one word, and caught the 'b' at the beginning and the 'eta' at the end, except that it sounded like 'etchka', and so I figured it was a Slavic place name (and therefore one of those "back in the Old Country" sorts of songs)- and then was rather puzzled when the music wasn't Slavic sounding at all.

His other selection was a couples dance- Hakol Dvash, for anyone paying attention to that. It was decent- don't know if I think it's any good or not yet. Not horrid though, at least. It ends with a sort of lunge-into-your-partner thing for the women, which I expect I'd find at least a bit uncomfortable if I were dancing with someone I didn't know well. I suppose that's part of me that isn't quite a dancer-ly as some might be. On the other hand, it raises the question of what audience does one choreograph for- how do you determine the boundaries of the populace. I mean, there is this whole body of dances which get done, which are fairly popular even, but which many, many people refer to as being a bit too explicit, that make them a little uncomfortable- but then they still do them. It's a strange phenomenon, a little.