The hora? Klezmer? Stress release?
These three essentials unite thanks to the latest production from nonprofit dance company Boston Moving Arts. Its newest show, “Welcome Home,” is all about finding comfort amid stressful situations through a variety of contemporary movement performances. It runs at the Boston University Dance Theater Oct. 18-19, and there’s a Jewish tie-in.
Boston-based choreographer Rachel Linsky stages “Gathering Sparks” as part of the production, which premiered last year at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston’s Hanukkah celebration. The encore performance is a fusion of contemporary dance and Yiddish folk with—wait for it—live klezmer music from the infectiously energetic Ezekiel’s Wheels Klezmer Band. Here’s what to know about her portion of the show (which just might involve some degree of audience participation!).
The show comprises Yiddish folk dance essentials: freylekhs and honga (joyous circle and line dances) and zhok (a slow hora). “Audiences will notice some elements of angularity and asymmetry in the body, and that actually comes from some theories on Yiddish dance that compares the very angular and asymmetric shapes of the body to the shapes of the Hebrew letters,” Linsky explains. “You’ll see we do a lot of this motif with the hands that mimic the crowns that you see on top of the Hebrew letters in scripture … there’s a lot of extreme torque and opposition, meant to reflect the very bittersweet Jewish mood, where joy and sadness have long coexisted.”
There’s diversity on stage. “Yiddish folk dance is not a national folk dance, unlike other folk dances of the same regions: Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It’s not about putting a nation on display,” she explains. Instead, there isn’t overarching unity; dancers can, to some degree, do their own thing: “Everyone in the group is having their own dialogue with the music, while still being physically connected to one another and dancing to the same overarching rhythm,” she says.
Judaism is essential to her practice. Linsky also directs “ZACHOR,” an ongoing project series that aims to preserve the words of Holocaust survivors through dance, supported by a CJP arts and culture grant. (Read more about “ZACHOR.”) And it inspired this piece. “Along the way of creating that work, I just found myself so lit up by the research into klezmer music and Yiddish dance and the many rich layers of Jewish history and culture that are embedded in those folk forms,” she says.
The music is collaborative. “Ezekiel’s Wheels Klezmer Band is absolutely core not just to Boston’s klezmer scene, but to the contemporary klezmer scene at large,” she says. “I always find that there’s such a hierarchy among musicians and dancers. And in the classical world, dancers are usually at the bottom hierarchy. But with klezmer music, it’s so important that musicians learn the dances and be able to play for dancers. I’ve been in classes where the musicians put down their instruments to come join in the dancing.” She suggests that audience members just might be asked to dance, too.
This is a true form of self-expression. “My Jewish identity has always been a huge part of myself, my family and community, and just the stories that I hold and share and a big piece of what inspires me. Dance, for me, is a really big way of creating meaning of our experiences. Judaism is so much about symbolism and searching for meaning, finding meaning and creating meaning. They’re naturally intertwined,” Linsky says.
