Dancing For and With the Torah on Simkhes Toyre, with Steve Weintraub

We warmly invite you to participate in Dancing For and With the Torah on Simkhes Toyre: How to Express Love and Joy in a Jewish Way, a workshop with Steve Weintraub (based in Philadelphia).

With so many of us having been in isolation for so long, this presents a perfect opportunity to explore expressive individual Yiddish dancing. You’ll be able to use the skills you learn whether your Simkhes Toyre observance in September is at home or (gasp!) back in shul!

An individual’s dance can communicate high emotion and joy, and they can share that as a gift at any occasion. This is especially significant at Simkhes Toyre (Simkhat Torah) when we are meant to express our love and joy of Toyre (Torah) with dance. Through a series of dance etudes we’ll learn a vocabulary of movements and considerations (a grammar of sorts) for expressive dancing. Since dancers at Simkhes Toyre often dance holding torah scrolls, at home we will use a sidr (siddur), Tanakh, or other large book as a stand-in for the Torah to learn and practice some typical dance figures involving the Torah.

This workshop will enhance not only your Simkhes Toyre experience, but also your individual dancing anytime you wish to be expressive in a stylistically Jewish way to klezmer music; solo, with a partner, or in company.

The event begins at 11am Pacific Time (2pm Eastern, 7pm London, 8pm Paris, 9pm Tel Aviv. Please check your local time).

About Steve Weintraub» Steve is a teacher, choreographer, and performer of Jewish dance, particularly  Yiddish dance, the dance to klezmer music. Born on New York’s Governor’s Island, Bar Mitzvahed in the Bronx, and living now in Philadelphia, Steven Lee Weintraub received his dance training in Manhattan with Alvin Ailey and Erick Hawkins, among others. He is in international demand as a teacher of traditional Yiddish dance at festivals and workshops including Klezkamp, Klezkanada, and festivals in Krakow, Furth, Paris, and London. He delights in introducing people to the figures, steps and stylings of the dances that belong to klezmer music. He has often been called the “Pied Piper of Yiddish Dance”; his years of experience leading and researching Yiddish dance allow him to quickly weave dancers and music together in astonishing ways. Young and old, from all backgrounds, find it easy to share in the joy of Yiddish dancing.

To reserve a space, scroll down to BOOK EVENT, click on NEXT, and complete the registration form. Registration ends four hours before the workshop begins, i.e. 7am Pacific Time (10am Eastern, 3pm London, 4pm Paris, 5pm Tel Aviv) the day of the event. After then, write workshops@klezcalifornia.org; we cannot promise to notice your email if you contact us after the deadline.

Registering for this event includes giving KlezCalifornia permission to take still and video images and use them for educational or other organizational purposes. If you do not agree to such use, please turn off your video when you join the event. To keep you informed of future events, we enroll registrants in our free monthly newsletter, which includes klezmer and Yiddish culture events in the San Francisco Bay Area and online. You may unsubscribe at any time. KlezCalifornia does not share its lists with other organizations.

Those who have registered by the deadline will receive sign-in by 8:10am Pacific Time that day. If you have not heard by then, write a.s.a.p. to workshops@klezcalifornia.org. Please do not wait until just before the event begins to notice whether you have the sign-in info.

KlezCalifornia relies on donations from participants to cover the costs of our events. Donations of $25 (or whatever you can afford) are greatly appreciated to enable us to continue to connect you with Yiddish culture and to assist presenters, many of whom have lost most of their income because of the pandemic.

This project has been made possible in part by a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, in partnership with the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts, and The California Endowment.