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Repertoire, Values, and Social Meaning in the Wedding Dances of a Yemenite Jewish Village in Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Shalom Staub
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Extract

Despite the popularity that the Yemenite Jewish dance has achieved among a general public, through Israeli folk dance and stage adaptation by groups such as the Inbal Dance Theater, scholarly treatment of this dance tradition is still in its early stages. My intent in this paper is to address an area neglected by other researchers: the examination of Yemenite Jewish dance in the context of village life in Israel, and further, the consideration of the social significance of the dancing. I will identify the significant social subsets of the village, examining the similarities and differences of dance repertoire and criteria for aesthetic evaluation among these groups as seen in the course of wedding celebrations. These similarities and differences will introduce the dimension of social meaning the intersection of form and function, symbol and meaning, dance and culture.

A moment for definition of basic terms: I use the term culture in its sense as a common conceptual framework, including beliefs, values, and symbols. Culture, as a common conceptual framework, is constantly enacted and re-enacted in actions, events, and symbolic expressions. This formulation is similar to Geertz's definition of culture as “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic form by which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life.” I approach dance as one such symbolic form. Dance style is not arbitrary. It is a learned and patterned activity. By carefully investigation native attitudes, it is possible to learn how dance operates as symbolic and expressive behavior.

Type
Dancing into Marriage: Collected Papers on Jewish Wedding Dances
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , Fall 1985 , pp. 59 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1985

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References

NOTES

1. A review of this scholarly literature can be found in my review article, “General Trends in the Folkloric Literature and a Review of Research on Yemenite Jewish Dance” in Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Newsletter 4(3–4) 1981:13–14.Google Scholar

2. Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p.89.Google Scholar

3. This communicational model for the investigation of social meaning draws on the work of Ray L. Birdwhistell. See “Communication: A Continuous Multichannel Process,” in Conceptual Bases and Applications of the Communicational Sciences (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1968)Google Scholar and Kinesics and Context (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

4. Katzir, Yael, “The Effects of Resettlement on the Status and Role of Yemeni Jewish Women: The Case of Ramat Oranim, Israel” (Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1976)Google Scholar and Hazelton, Leslie, Israeli Women: The Reality Behind the Myths (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977)Google Scholar.

5. Spector, Johanna, “Bridal Songs and Ceremonies from Sana'a, Yemen,” in Patai, R., Utley, F.L., and Noy, D., eds., Studies in Biblical and Jewish Folklore (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960), pp. 255–284Google Scholar.

6. The rikud hazakeyn is a movement example of what linguists identify as code-switching and multi-lingualism, specifically “interlanguage switch with interference.” This terminology refers to a temporary switch in language, as Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett explains with reference to American Jews of Ashkenazic background: a switch is made from standard English to “a form of English where the phonemic, grammatical, or semantic systems of Yiddish intrude upon those of English as in ‘foreign English’ and ‘immigrant English.’ [cf. “Traditional Storytelling in the Toronto Jewish Community: A Study in Performance and Creativity in an Immigrant Culture” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University, 1972), p. 341Google Scholar.] It is important to note that this code-switching is often a resource used in immigrant and ethnic humor. Switching into an exaggerated Yemenite accent or use of Yemenite Arabic for a joke's punchline provides an analogue to this switch in movement repertoire represented by rikud hazakeyn.

7. A detailed account of these differences can be found in my earlier article, “An Inquiry into the Nature of Yemenite Jewish Dance,” Essays in Dance Research, Dance Research Annual 9 (New York: Congress on Research in Dance, 1978), pp. 157–168Google Scholar.