Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 16:27:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Elke Kaschl Elke Kaschl Beyond the Nation in Israeli Folk Dancing? The Politics of Space, Time and Authenticity at the 92nd Street Y and the Town & Village Synagogue Attending the 'Israel Folk Dance Festival' in New York on 5 April 1998, I found myself lost in a 'postmodern blur'. Advertised as a celebration of the State of Israel's 50th anniversary, the festival turned out to be a multi-media extravaganza, confounding conventional categories of national and ethnic classification. The music selected for the performances as well as for the open folk dance circle at the art fair mixed contemporary Hebrew rock with Viennese waltzes, Latin merengue with Middle Eastern pop. The dance choreographies reflected the diversity of the music, not only presenting a whole range of different ethnic and modern dance styles, but blending styles within each dance. Audience and performers were announced as having travelled from places as far away as California, Canada and Israel. Yet, mixing English with Hebrew, having dual, even triple citizenship, performing in one group and reappearing in another, people at the festival escaped any easy categorization and affiliation with one place. Even the flag and national anthem, powerful symbols of the nation-state, did not escape the influence of globalization. Framing the event were not one, but two flags - both the Israeli as well as the American - and the festival participants sang for both. At the end of the day, I was left to wonder: explicitly staged as a celebration of Israel's anniversary, what is it that made this festival and, in particular, the dancing, 'Israeli'? What kind of national community could be imagined through t hese transnational performances defined by blurring categories, colors, and styles? What importance does the 'nation' maintain at all in this context as a means of imagining community? Is Israeli folk dancing in New York a primary example of what happen s to the cultural reproduction of the 'nation' in a time of increasing globalization? Until recently, scholars agreed that large-scale communities are imagined as 'nations', and focused their research on investigating how cultural practices serve to construct the nation as a homogeneous entity bounded in time and space [Anderson 1991; Alo nso 1994; Foster 1991]. Under the increasing influence of globalization and the blurring of national boundaries, however, recent scholarship has called for a rethinking of analytical categories. Instead of investigating how cultural practices serve to c onstitute community as nation, Arjun Appadurai examines how communities are imagined beyond the nation's boundaries. Tracing flows of media and migration, Appadurai argues that people have begun to imagine their communities in new transnational or even p ostnational ways as "diasporic public spheres" [Appadurai 1996, p. 21]. To Appadurai, communities are thus no longer tightly linked to a specific national territory or history. Instead, communities are 'deterritorialized' and 'diasporic', while the nati on as a means of identification is, if not superseded, at least in crisis. According to Appadurai, "we are in the process of moving to a global order in which the nation-state has become obsolete and other formations for allegiance and identity have take n its place" [ibid., p. 169]. Taking a stab at the question of how people in a time of increasing globalization imagine community through cultural practices, I conducted a comparative ethnographic study of two weekly folk dance sessions in New York City: the 'Wednesday Night Open Se ssion' at the 92nd Street 'Y' and the Sunday night 'Rikudai Dor Harishon: Dances of the First Generation' at the Town & Village Synagogue on 14th Street. The session at the Y was instituted in the fifties as the first official Israeli folk dance session i n the city. Today, it constitutes the largest folk dance gathering outside of Israel. Around 250 people attend each week, many of whom are Israeli, and the organizers of the session play whatever dances are high in the Israeli charts and liked by the cr owd. The session at the synagogue is a lot smaller and frequented almost exclusively by Americans. Established to revive the 'old' dances from the era of the 'folk dance pioneers', only dances from the 40s through the 70s are played here. Comparing and contrasting the two sites, I foreground the question of 'authentication' [Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1992, p. 303]. How is Israeli folk dancing produced in both locations as a distinctly unique and authentic national folklore? What kind of spa tializing and temporalizing practices are employed in this process ? I focus on three markers of cultural authenticity that have been central to theorizing the nation as a cultural construct. First, following the notion that peoplehood is tied to living within a "single, shared spatial frame" [Alonso 1994, p. 382], I investigate to which degree Israeli folk dancers see the authenticity of their practices as directly linked to a national territory. What makes a folk dance Israeli? Does the choreographe r have to be an Israeli living in Israel? Can it be any Israeli living in the Diaspora? Or any Jewish choreographer? Second, I examine the production of an Israeli folk dance 'heritage' in both sites in relation to time. 'Heritage' has been theorized as a "mode of cultural production in the present with recourse to the past" [Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1995, p. 3]. How is the production of Israeli folk dancing as national heritage related to past and present in the two locations? Do folk dancers at the Y and Rikudai Dor Harishon , respectively, perceive the so-called 'old dances' choreographed in the early stage of the Israeli folk dance movement between the 40s and the 70s as more authentic than the so-called 'new dances' choreographed now? And if so, why? Third, I analyze how Israeli folk dancing as a bodily activity repeated over time serves to imagine the nation through constructing a "shared memory" [Connerton 1989]. How has the proliferation of new folk dance choreographies during the past two decades affected the ways in which the Israeli nation is imagined? Addressing issues of cultural authenticity in relation to performative practices and the nation, I see the contribution of my paper in two related areas. First, I hope to contribute to current theorizing on the imagining of community. To which extent do Israeli folk dance practitioners in New York imagine the Israeli nation as a homogeneous entity bounded in space and time? To which extent, in contrast, do they imagine the Israeli nation as independent of national territory and history? How has this perception changed over time? Second, I also see my paper as a contribution to current scholarship in Performance Studies concerned with the impact of globalization on performative practices. How has the increasing globalization and blurring of national boundaries during the past two decades affected Israeli folk dancing and the ways in which national community is imagined? My paper is mostly based on ethnographic data. I conducted interviews with the organizers of the two open sessions: Ruth Goodman Burger and Danny Uziel at the 92nd Street 'Y', and Haim Kaufman at the Town & Village Synagogue. In the interviews, I focused on the organizers' personal and professional involvement with Israeli folk dancing, their motivation for running the sessions and organizational strategies, their connections to the general Israeli folk dance scene in the US and Israel, as well as historic developments and current trends in Israeli folk dancing. To capture audience reception at both sites, I conducted interviews with selected folk dance practitioners and distributed a questionnaire. In my evaluation of the questionnaire, I am only including answers by participants who have attended the respective session for at least a year, assuming among these a higher degree of familiarity with Israeli folk dancing and identification with the session. I am basing my evaluation on a sample of 24 at the Y and 20 at Rikudai Dor Harishon. Some people indicated that they on an irregular basis frequent both sessions. I neglected this factor in my evaluation, since the number was very small. In my sample at the Y, 12 people had US citizenship, 7 had Israeli citizenship, 3 had US-Israeli citizenship, 1 had triple citizenship, US-Israeli-Belgium, and 1 was Venezuelan. At Rikudai Dor Harishon, 18 people had US and 2 US-Israeli citizenship. In addition to interviews and the questionnaire, I employed the traditional anthropological technique of participant observation. I regularly attended both events from January through April 1998. I lead informal conversations with participants and listened for commentaries on the dances as they were played and taught. I also actively participated in the dancing at both locations, thus going through the process of 'learning' Israeli folk dancing and gradually mastering and incorporating at least some of the various steps and choreographies. For purposes of documentation and comparison, I videotaped a complete night of dancing at each sessions. Spatializing the Nation: Cultural Authenticity and National Territory Recent nationalism literature has conceptualized the nation as a cultural construct brought into being through spatializing practices. These works have drawn particular attention to the ways in which the idea of peoplehood is tied to living within a single, geographically bounded national territory [Alonso 1994; Anderson 1991; Harvey 1989]. This conceptualization of the nation, however, is problematic in the Jewish case, where statehood within a national territory has only been realized 50 years ago and a majority of the nation's members is living outside its national borders. From the very beginning, Zionism in the US was therefore formulated as a national ideology, which allowed American Jews to "dwell differently" in the US [Clifford 1994, p. 308; 321-22; see also Boyarin 1993, p. 711-14]. Through cultural practices and political engagement for the Zionist cause, American Jews could imagine themselves as part of far-away Israel without actual physical dislocation. In contrast to conventional conceptualizations of the nation as spatially bounded, Zionism for American Jews thus constituted a form of 'deterritorialized' nationalism, which did not require one's physical presence within the national borders. The institutionalization of Israeli folk dancing in New York is intimately tied to the rise of American Zionism as an ideology of 'deterritorialized' nationalism. In 1952, Fred Berk, a Viennese Jewish immigrant to New York, established the Jewish Dance Division at the 92nd Street 'Y', a progressive Jewish institution which at the time had emerged as a center for the avant-garde in modern dance. In tune with the overall policy of the Y to promote art with a special Jewish focus, Berk set up a weekly 'Jewish Folk Dance' gathering designed as an open session. Students could come on an individual basis and pay each week at the entrance without having to register for a whole course. Through folk dancing, Berk sought to engage American Jewish youth in the Zionist project. He introduced a new form of Judaism to young Americans which was positive, uplifting and secular, and presented Israel as the physical embodiment of this new Judaism. As a member of Young Judea, a Jewish youth group, recalled about dancing at the Y: "What I loved was the Israeli spirit; we all wanted to learn Hebrew and go to Israel. Although in my family we had never been observant in the least, I went to services and tried to keep kosher. ... The leaders, I recall, either had all been to Israel and had come back to train Jewish youth, or they were just waiting until they were old enough to get there. They all danced at the Y; the fervor was high ... what we all seemed to be competing about was who had the greatest spirit." [quoted in Brin Ingber 1985, p. 81] At the same time, however, Berk presented folk dancing as a means for realizing Zionist ideals and becoming part of the Israeli nation through imagination, not migration. This ideology quickly found enthusiasts. The Y became a meeting point for young, ardent American Jews, who considered folk dancing as a way to be Jewish, American and Zionist at the same time, and who did not necessarily make their participation in the Zionist project dependent on immigration. As Naomi Jackson states, "[n]o doubt that many of the young people involved with folk dancing intended to travel to Israel. From a larger perspective, however, the Y represented a broader Jewish American perspective that asserted that Zionism need not entail making aliyah (immigration to Israel), but maintaining a strong awareness of Israel in the Diaspora: At the Y, people could experience the "Israeli spirit" but from a comfortable, American middle class background." [Jackson 1996, p. 315] Berk's interpretation of the new Judaism as a 'deterritorialized' nationalism was reflected in the choice of dances played and taught at the Wednesday night gatherings. Advertising the event as "Jewish Folk Dancing", he announced that "Wednesdays' participants will learn some of the old traditional, some of the Arabic and Yemenite dances, Jewish folk dances which were created in this country and the newest Israeli dances. Accompaniment will be an accordion and the songs will be taught."[Brin Ingber 1985, p. 80] According to Berk's announcement, the dances taught at his open session were not limited to the folk dances newly created in Israel at the time, but comprised a broad repertoire of Jewish dances, ranging from ethnic styles such as Yemenite Jewish and Chassidic traditions to the so-called 'American Jewish folk dances'. These American dances had been choreographed in the United States since the 1920s. Unfamiliar with the new choreographies slowly appearing at the same time in Palestine/Israel,leaders of American Zionist organizations had put together their own dances by drawing mostly on Chassidic traditions, but also incorporating some typically American elements like square dancing [Berk 1978, p.25]. In search for unifying practices and rituals, Zionists in the United States performed these American Jewish dances as part of a distinctly unique American Zionist culture. With the late forties, the folk dances newly created in Palestine/Israel slowly started to make their way over to the United States. Yet, even as the new Israeli dances became known in the US, their transmission remained a difficult process, requiring p ersonal travel and laborious dance notations. Although folk dance teachers like Berk invested great energy to bridge the geographical distance between Israel and the US, these outer circumstances put constraints on the number of dances introduced to the American audience, as well as the speed with which these dances reached the States. As Berk described the arduous task of notating folk dances in Israel during his traveling: "When I saw a dance I liked, first I'd write it out in longhand, describing all the parts as best as I could. At night, I would try to reconstruct it; then I'd go and watch the dance again and try to compare it to my notes."[Brin Ingber 1985, p. 87] By teaching a wide variety of Jewish dances, rather than just the new dances coming from Israel, Berk instituted a folk dance tradition at the Y which defined its repertoire less in terms of national territory, but instead in terms of a more general association with Judaism. Throughout his career, Berk maintained this more general focus on Jewish, as opposed to strictly Israeli themes in his artistic work, combining Israeli elements with Jewish traditions that he knew from Europe or the United States [Brin Ingber 1985]. From its very beginning, Israeli folk dancing at the Y thus constituted a 'deterritorialized' practice and functioned as a means of imagining the Israeli nation beyond the restraints of national borders and bounded territory. Increasing possibility for travel as well as technological advances have greatly affected the nature of Israeli folk dancing in New York during the past decades. As long-distance communication became faster, the transmission of new dance choreographies between Israel and the US was increasingly facilitated. As a result, more dances could be brought to the US in less time. The 'Jewish Folk Dancing' started by Berk at the Y turned into an 'Israeli Folk Dance Session', shifting the focus of the repertoire from general Jewish dancing to choreographies created specifically under the label of Israeli folk dances. By the seventies, the original American Jewish dances had been completely replaced by Israeli folk dances and were almost forgotten [Berk 1978, p. 25]. During the past two decades, increasing globalization has spurred this trend. Laptops are replacing the cumbersome stacks of tapes at folk dances events. Dancers, choreographers, organizers of dance sessions and teachers are moving faster and traveling more: within the city, within the country and between the nation-states. Choreographies circulate via video, internet or postal system, thus allowing for the almost instantaneous reproduction of dances in the most distant geographic locations. As Danny Uziel assured, any new choreography 'released' in Israel arrives within days in New York: fully recorded and annotated on video, ready to be taught [interview, 1/28/98]. If the transmission of dance choreographies from Israel is longer a problem of communication, how has the definition of cultural authenticity in relation to 'national territory' changed since the early days of Berk's teaching? Do Israeli folk dancers at the Y and Rikudai Dor Harishon link the cultural authenticity of their practices to a national territory? Or do they imagine Israeli folk dancing to be independent of national territory? In other words, under the impact of globalization, does Israeli folk dancing remain a 'deterritorialized' practice, or has it become 'territorialized'? The variety of dances played at the Y does not suggest a selection in terms of national territory, but rather business acumen. The organizers explain that they choose their dances according to the night, depending on the mood and the people present. They play what people like, mostly the 'hits' of the recent past. Although most of the songs are in Hebrew and were created in Israel, anything liked by the crowd goes from Turkish pop to Latin merengue. In contrast to the Y, the dances played at Rikudai Dor Harishon are chosen from a preselected repertoire. Haim Kaufman, the main organizer of Rikudai Dor Harishon, emphasizes that the session's stated goal is to provide a space in which people can enjoy the early Israeli folk dances, created in Palestine/Israel in the time between the 40s and 70s and introduced to an American audience through people like Berk. In addition, Rikudai Dor Harishon promotes the so-called 'ethnic Jewish dances' such as Yemenite and Chassidic traditions, which the choreographers of the first Israeli folk dances had taken recourse to as 'authentic' models for their new dance creations and labeled as 'ethnic' in relation to national Israeli culture. The mission statement of Rikudai Dor Harishon thus limits the repertoire to da nces that have either been created in Palestine/Israel during a certain time period or were classified as ethnic dances by the first Israeli choreographers. In short, at the Y, the commercial aspect plays a decisive role in defining what is played at the session under the name of Israeli folk dancing. Although officially advertised as a national practice, the dances are not necessarily linked to national territory. In contrast, at Rikudai Dor Harishon the organizers only play Israeli folk dances that have a connection to Israeli territory, either directly by virtue of the location of their creation, or, as in the case of the ethnic dances, indirectly by virtue of association with people located in Palestine/Israel. In response to the official set up of the two locations, how do Israeli folk dance practitioners interpret authenticity in relation to national territory? To capture audience reception, I asked dancers at both sites to define what makes a folk dance 'Israeli'. The question was geared to find out to which degree the dancers themselves define cultural authenticity as dependent or independent of a direct link to Israeli national territory. Prior research had indicated, that three factors play a role in defining what makes a folk dance 'Israeli': the origins of the person who choreographed the dance, the origins of the person who composed the song, and the origins of the song itself. I thus divided the question into two parts, first letting the participant choose which of the three factors she/he considered decisive for a definition, then asking her/him to specify their choice. The question was presented in the following manner: In your opinion, the characterization of a folk dance as Israeli depends on which of the following: (check one) ( A - origins of the person who choreographed the dance ( B - origins of the person who composed the song ( C - origins of the song itself If you checked answer A, please go to question 2 A on the next page. If you checked answer B, please go to question 2 B on the next page. If you checked answer C, please go to question 2 C on the next page. 2 A) Please specify what concerning the origins of the choreographer makes a folk dance 'Israeli' (check one): Dance is choreographed by ( any Jewish choreographer ( any Israeli choreographer (living in the Diaspora) ( Israeli choreographer living in Israel 2 B) Please specify what concerning the origins of the composer of the song makes a folk dance 'Israeli' (check one): Song is composed by ( any Jewish composer ( any Israeli composer (living in the Diaspora) ( Israeli composer living in Israel 2 C) Please specify what concerning the origins of the song makes a folk dance 'Israeli'(check one): ( any song in Hebrew ( any ethnic song of Jewish origin ( Israeli folk song sung in Israel I divided the responses into four groups: - Group A - anybody who checked either one of the answers: Israeli choreographer living in Israel, Israeli composer living in Israel, or Israeli folk song sung in Israel; - Group B - anybody who checked either one of the answers: any Jewish choreographer, any Jewish composer, or any song in Hebrew; - Group C - anybody who checked the answer: any ethnic song; - Group D - anybody who checked either one of the answers: any Israeli choreographer living in the Diaspora, or any Israeli composer living in the Diaspora. In my analysis, I classified group A as employing a territorialized definition of authenticity, since the respondents in that group made the characterization of 'Israeli' dependent on the simultaneous fulfillment of two criteria, both of which are directly linked to a national territory: the person producing the song/dance must be of Israeli nationality and live in Israel, or the song must be considered Israeli and sung in Israel. I considered group B as using a deterritorialized definition, since they decided for the least restrictive choice. Their only criteria was religion, which in this case must be seen as independent of national territory. I classified group C as using a partially territorialized definition. Respondents in this group chose ethnicity as the defining feature, implying an indirect link to national territory since a song is classified as 'ethnic' in relation to the national Israeli culture. I saw group D as employing a not territorialized definition, since they linked authenticity to nationality, yet did not make it dependent on immediate physical presence in the country. I obtained the following results. At the Y, group A comprised 37.03 %, group B 8.33 %, group C 29.16 % and group D 8.33 %. 16.6 % did not answer the question. At Rikudai Dor Harishon, group A constituted 25 %, group B 10 %, group C 35 % and group D 10 %. 20 % did not answer the question. The number of people who chose not to answer this question was unusually high. As I noticed during prior ethnographic research, the question of what makes a folk dance 'Israeli' constitutes a major point of dispute among folk dance practitioners. There is no clear definition, not even agreement concerning the essential factors that could serve as the basis for a definition. A number of people thus felt that they could not adequately answer the question in the form it was presented. Group A 'territorialized' Group B 'deterritorialized' Group C 'partially territorialized' Group D 'not territorialized' 92nd Street Y no answer: 16.6% [4 people] 37.03 % [9 people] 8.33 % [2 people] 29.16 % [7 people] 8.33 % [2 people] Rikudai Dor Harishon no answer: 20 % [4 people] 25 % [5 people] 10 % [2 people] 35 % [7 people] 10 % [2 people] At the Y, a clear majority (37.03 %) linked the classification of folk dances as 'Israeli' directly to national territory, thus using a territorialized definition of cultural authenticity. At Rikudai Dor Harishon, 25 % linked the classification of folk dances as 'Israeli' directly to national territory. Most people here (35 %) used a 'partially territorialized' definition, stressing ethnicity instead of the direct link to national territory. At neither session did a significant number of people choose a 'deterritorialized' definition, or a 'not territorialized' definition. The answers at Rikudai Dor Harishon more or less reflect the mission statement of the organizers, which defines authenticity in terms of a territorialized (direct link to national territory) as well as partially territorialized (ethnicity) definition. The number of people who preferred a partially territorialized to a territorialized definition was only slightly higher, 35 % in comparison to 25 %. In addition, I found people at Rikudai Dor Harishon to be very aware of and interested in the ethnic origins of the different dances played at their session.1 Also, although the great majority of the participants are US citizens, most of them have traveled to Israel (70 %) and even participated there at folk dance events (50 %). Thus, at Rikudai Dor Harishon, people to a large degree define the authenticity of their cultural practices in terms of an either direct, or indirect link to national territory. At the Y, I obtained similar results. 37 % interpreted the authenticity of Israeli folk dancing in terms of a territorialized, and 29 % in terms of a partially territorialized definition. In contrast to Rikudai Dor Harishon, where people's responses reflect the organizer's ideology, people's responses at the Y differ from the organizer's set up of the session. While the organizers at the Y promote a definition of cultural authenticity that is not necessarily tied to national territory, the dancers emphasize this link. Interestingly, among the people at the Y who defined authenticity in relation to national territory was an unproportionately high number of Israelis. 4 of the 6 Israelis who answered my question belonged to group A (66.66 %). Among the US citizens, only 4 of the 11 people who answered the question fell under group A (36.36 %), and 4 under group C (36.36 %). A greater percentage of Israelis thus chose an answer which directly linked authenticity to national territory. These results allow for an interesting observation. During the initial phase of Israeli folk dancing at the Y under Berk, communication between Israel and the US was relatively restricted and slow. As a result, Berk initiated Israeli folk dancing as a dances' such as Yemenite and Chassidic traditions, which the choreographers of the first Israeli folk dances had taken recourse to as 'authentic' models for their new dance creations and labeled as 'ethnic' in relation to national Israeli culture. The mission statement of Rikudai Dor Harishon thus limits the repertoire to da cultural practice which was not directly tied to national territory. Instead, Berk placed emphasis on the more general Jewish character of the dancing, including dances that had no connection to Israeli territory, such as the American Jewish dances. Curiously, with increasing globalization, faster communication, technological advances, and the dislocation of Israelis who come to reside in the 'Diaspora', Israeli folk dancing increasingly came to be defined in territorialized, rather than deterritorialized terms. At both the Y and Rikudai Dor Harishon, the flows of people and technology across the globe help to promote a definition of cultural authenticity that is territorialized. Communication with Israel is speeded up and allows for an intimate and rapid exchange of information and dance styles. At the Y, the newest hits from Israel can be taught within a matter of days. In addition, globalization enables the rapid flow of people back and forth from Israel, bringing with them their taste in music and knowledge of dance styles. At Rikudai Dor Harishon, globalization likewise enables the 'territorialization' of the session. Dance teachers from Israel are invited throughout the year to present the 'authentic ethnic' and 'old' dances from the period of the 'Israeli folk dance pioneers' and keep their memory alive. In short, globalization has provided the very means through which to imagine the Israeli nation in terms of national territory. Instead of resulting in the increasing deterritorialization of cultural practices, globalization thus has contributed to 'territorializing' Israeli folk dancing in the Diaspora. Temporalizing the Nation: Heritage Production in Relation to Past and the Present In contrast to contemporary theorizing on heritage, which defines heritage as a "mode of cultural production in the present with recourse to the past" [Kirshenblatt- Gimblett 1995, p.3], Israeli folk dancing in the 30s and 40s was instituted as a mode of cultural production with recourse to the present as well as a strong emphasis on novelty and artistic creation. Since the 1920s, Central European immigrants to Palestine had been involved in folk dance activities in the kibbutzim, mostly performing the dances they had known from their countries of origin. During the late 30s and early 40s, these European dancers launched a conscious effort to provide the newly emerging Israeli nation-state with its own, culturally unique national folklore. In search of a 'new style' that should be distinctly 'Israeli', they sought to break with their European past and dance traditions increasingly associated with anti-Semitism and the horrors of World War II. In addition, the European folk dancers sought to establish a direct connection to the land they were settling and the ancient past of biblical Jewry. Searching for 'authentic models' after which to create their new national heritage, the European folk dance initiators turned to the contemporary dance styles of Yemenite Jews, Palestinians and Chassidim [Brin Ingber 1974]. By using these dance traditions as models, the European folk dance practitioners laid the foundation for a 'new Israeli folk dance heritage' that did not take recourse to their own past, but recreated a past out of the present of others. As Gertrud Kraus, an expressionist dancer from Vienna who had come to Palestine in 1935, commented on the new folklore: "The folkloristic treasures and the cultic customs of these peoples [Yemenite Jews and Arabs[ reach back to Biblical times. Nothing has been lost through their contact with Western culture. On the contrary, open-minded, susceptible to the depth and simplicity of this age-old folklore, the Europeans and particularly the artists among them, have readily absorbed the oriental impressions and influences, and today their festivals with their Biblical and folkloristic dances clearly prove the result of their gradual growth into oneness with landscape and people."[Sorell 1949, p. 13] By taking recourse to the cultural present of Yemenites and Palestinians, the European folk dance leaders sought to authenticate their newly created heritage and imbue it with the aura of times past. They produced a national heritage that was rooted in a biblical past, yet defined authenticity in terms of novelty and artistic innovation: the 'old' European traditions were to be discarded and replaced by a 'new' style for a 'new' country, created by a 'new' people. Rupture with the past, innovation, artistic creation and novelty became the defining features of the early dances created in Palestine/Israel. In Judith Brin Ingber's words, the early folk dance choreographers "pushed new roots into the worn-out land, the roots of a new life and its new arts. What resulted was a new kind of folk dance, shining with a concentrated brilliance which had taken other folk dances generations to attain."[Brin Ingber 1974, p. 5] Since the 70s, the number of Israeli folk dances has greatly proliferated. New music and dances are constantly produced and disseminated among the 'folk' at a neck-breaking rate. As a result , Israeli folk dancing is no longer merely conceptualized in terms of novelty. The 'new' Israeli heritage now also contains the dimension of the 'old'. Until the late sixties, all Israeli dances were considered to be 'new dances', symbolizing the 'new Israeli nation' [Brin Ingber 1974]. After the 67 war, the focus in Israeli folk dancing shifted and the 'new dances' began to be referred to as 'old dances', while new 'new dances' were being choreographed. Today, the formerly 'old dances' are referred to as the 'classic tradition' [Haim Kaufman, flyer], while 'new dances' become 'old' in a matter of a few years. To complicate the classification of dances in terms of 'old' and 'new', there is a sense of old and new elements in a dance from any period. How does the complicated relationship between 'old' and 'new' affect the contemporary production of Israeli folk dancing as national heritage? If Israeli folk dance practitioners take recourse to the present instead of the past in defining the cultural essences of their practices, how does the instability, fuzziness and fragmentation of today's globalized world affect the production of Israeli folk dancing as a national heritage? Do Israeli folk dance practitioners reconceptualize their mode of heritage production and definition of cultural authenticity? If so, in which terms? In particular, where do folk dancers at the Y and Rikudai Dor Harishon locate authenticity, in the present or the past? In other words, do folk dancers at the Y and Rikudai Dor Harishon , respectively, perceive the 'old dances' as more authentic than the so-called 'new dances' choreographed now? Learning the 'new' dances is an integral part of the Wednesday session and many people explicitly come for that reason. In tune with the initial format of the session under Berk, Goodman and Uziel offer two hours of teaching each week, followed by free dancing later in the night. To them, novelty and artistic creation are a central part of Israeli folk dancing and accounts for its wide-spread popularity today. As Uziel points out, people like to face new challenges. The repertoire of dances never gets boring and there is always something new in store [interview 1/28/98]. Goodman and Uziel thus follow in the tradition laid down by the initiators of the folk dance movement in the 30s and 40s. They produce an Israeli folk dance heritage that draws on the present for creating tradition and defines its cultural authenticity in terms of flexibility, change and artistic innovation. In today's globalizing environment, however, the present from which Goodman and Uziel can draw for producing heritage is no longer defined in stable and fixed terms, but has become destabilized, shifting and blurred. While the early folk dance choreographers created dances by identifying with other people's alleged cultural essences, Goodman and Uziel resort to a postmodern amalgam of styles. At the Y, music and dances blend into an unidentifiable alloy of different cultural influences. A waltz step is combined with a Yemenite left and right, following a quick step and Samba. The music mirrors this creative crossing of conventional categories of classification. As Goodman concedes: "The songs of Israeli folk dancing today are all derivative. They are really more like world music, since the world is so small and the different influences are so strong."[interview, 11/4/97] Yet, both Goodman and Uziel stress the positive side of this development, arguing that, after all, people are having fun and enjoy the constant innovation and ever new learning experiences offered at the Y. Rikudai Dor Harishon can was established in 1987 in reaction to the changing cultural environment of the past two decades. A group of people came together who "felt that the early Israeli folk dances possess an energy , spirit and optimism unique in Jewish culture, and is a heritage that should be preserved."[Hora 48-49 1988, p. 8] Instead of creating ever new, innovative choreographies, these folk dancers sought to recover and restore the early Israeli folk dances from the time of the 'pioneers' which were in danger of being forgotten. In accordance with this mission statement, teaching at the session occurs only occasionally, mostly during special workshops with an invited guest. When teaching occurs, it does not serve the purpose of learning 'new' choreographies, but reviving old ones. Rejecting the conceptualization of Israeli folk dancing as ever new, innovative and changing, Rikudai Dor Harishon thus reproduces the folk dancer as 'pioneer' and relocates cultural authenticity from the present to the past. To capture audience responses at both sessions concerning the issue of authenticity in relation to past and present, I asked people to respond to the following question: In your opinion, are the 'old' Israeli folk dances choreographed during the 1940s, 50s and 60s more authentic as folk dances than the 'new' dances choreographed now? (check one) ( Yes - the 'old' dances reflect the spirit of the early Zionist settlers ( No - 'new' dances are also authentic because they reflect the changing spirit of Israeli culture ( don't know ( Other: At the Y, 41.6 % agreed that the old dances are more authentic than the new ones, 45.8 % disagreed, and 12.5 % answered that they don't know. In contrast, at Rikudai Dor Harishon, 65 % thought that the old dances were more authentic, 25 % held that the new dances were equally authentic, and 10 % did not answer the question. Yes No don't know 92nd Street Y 41.6 % [10 people] 45.8 % [11 people] 12.5 % [3 people] Rikudai Dor Harishon 65 % [13 people] 25 % [5 people] 10 % [2 people] The high percentage of people at Rikudai Dor Harishon (65%) who agreed that the 'old' dances are more authentic than the ones choreographed since the seventies clearly reflects the ideology of the session. As one respondent commented: "Dances reflect their times. The older demonstrate the strength and character needed by a pioneer. Modern dances just show Israelis to be whimpy with a bad attitude." Another person felt obliged to specify that "many later dances became a hodgepodge of stylelessness and pseudo-international pretensions. They are diluted and silly. They have lost their quality and connection to Israel." At the Y, a relatively smaller number of people (41.6%) thought that authenticity is located in the past. Yet, this percentage is surprisingly high when considering the official set up of the Wednesday night session. Thus, while dancers at Rikudai Dor H arishon answered according to expectation, people at the Y did not. The number of people who located authenticity in the present such as this respondent who scribbled on the questionnaire: "A new spirit for a new timer!" was surprisingly low. This result complicates any easy division between the two folk dance sessions. The high percentage of people at the Y who located authenticity in the past indicates that people's definition of 'authentic heritage' is not easily dichotomized according to the ideology of the two sessions. The impression emerges that despite an official mode of heritage production which privileges the present over the past as a source of artistic inspiration, people are not giving up the past as a referent for imagining community. On the contrary, in a globalized environment defined by destabilization, displacement and shifts in conventional categories, people seem to feel the need to take recourse to fixed, stable terms according to which they can organize their life-worlds. A timeless and unchanging past becomes increasingly important in the context of a present that is kept in flux and speeded up by global flows. This search for stability, unchanging categories and a stable past are even reflected in the official set up of the Y. Increasingly, so-called 'Nostalgia Nights' are advertised: Saturday night dance events organized by Goodman and Uziel to bring back the "oldies"[flyer] and remember the dancing of earlier times. Memorializing the Nation: Imagining the Nation Through Shared Memory Israeli folk dancing was created as a symbol for a new present. Simultaneously, however, Israeli folk dancing also functions as a central means for imagining the nation through memorialization and production of a collective past. According to Paul Connerton, performative practices such as folk dancing are a central means to create senses of community through producing a "shared social memory" [Connerton 1989]. Through the repeated execution of folk dance steps and choreographies, the body incorporates these practices and automatizes them. Dancing folk becomes a 'natural' process, carried out without further reflection or conscious questioning of the movements involved. In addition, the continuous repetition of the same dances establishes a connection to the past, and creates the impression of tradition and community as timeless and natural. As Tamar Katriel specifies, memorialization thus constitutes a process of invoking the past "through ritualized actions designed to create an a-temporal sense of the presence of the past in the present" [Katriel 1994, p. 1]. Yet, the view that shared memory is constructed through performative practices is founded on the premise that these practices are repetitive, simple and can be exercised by all members of the community. How does the proliferation of ever new, diverse and increasingly complicated Israeli dance choreographies affect the imagining of the Israeli nation? What happens, if members of the community can no longer keep up with learning the new dances, leave alone incorporate them? The initiators of the Israeli folk dance movement greatly emphasized that Israeli folk dances should not only be novel, but diverse. They promoted folk dancing as a means of culturally integrating new immigrants to Israel by including their dance practices as part of the new national folklore. 'Unification-in spite-of-diversity' [Jackson 1996, p. 314] became the slogan of a Zionist cultural policy, which defined Israeli folk dancing as a means of homogenizing the nation by displaying its cultural diversity. As a result, tensions which this policy entailed for marginalized groups such as Sephardim or Palestinians were glossed over and depoliticized[see Said 1996; Shohat 1996]. Yet, Israeli folk dancing indeed emerged as a culturally hybrid form, blending an enormous range of different dance and music styles. At the Y, the diversity of Israeli folk dancing as well as its flexibility to integrate new dance styles is foreground. The dances and music played at the Y contain stylistic elements from all corners of the globe, combined with influences from ballet, modern and postmodern dance. For Goodman, the flexibility of Israeli folk dancing is an essential means for drawing wide-ranging, diverse audiences to the dancing and including them in the Israeli nation. As she writes in a short overview of the history of Israeli folk dancing: "Israeli dances are now being danced all over the world and offer an active means of identification with Israel and Jewish roots. Its energy and diverse ethnic quality give it an appeal to people of all backgrounds." [Goodman, no date] Yet, Goodman's key terms in the description of Israeli folk dancing - 'energy', 'active', 'diverse' - which stress its constantly changing and fluid character, take on a different quality in the context of globalization. In an environment where categories are no longer fixed and stable, the dynamic quality of Israeli folk dancing for many often reads as fragmentation. In reaction to what they perceived as the commercialization, overproduction and fragmentation of Israeli folk dancing, the organizer's of Rikudai Dor Harishon established their session as a "memory site" [Katriel 1994, p. 2] for the 'classic' tradition. Continuity is foreground at Rikudai Dor Harishon. The event is organized to 'remember and revive' a fixed repertoire of dances choreographed from the 40s through the 70s which are simple, easy to follow, and repetitive. In addition to performing a more or less unchanging repertoire of dances, the organizers at Rikudai Dor Harishon nostalgically recreate the dancing of the early days through events featuring live music and communal singing. In addition, they evoke the memory of the early folk dance leaders, stressing their personal involvement with these early dancers and celebrating special events in their honor. The naming of the session as well, 'Dances of the First Generation', emphasizes this connection. Doing the "old favorites" and "still costing only $4" [flyer], Rikudai Dor Harishon thus mythologizes a collective past in order to construct community in the present. Evoking the memory of the first folk dance 'pioneers', the organizers seek to restore senses of togetherness and national identification which they feel to be threatened in the contemporary cultural environment. As Kaufman emphasizes in his description of the session, dancing at Rikudai Dor Harishon bridges the generations and reimagines the present in terms of the early days of the Israeli community: "While the post-war baby-boomers tend to predominate among the 40 to 50 participants on a typical Sunday evening, one can see three generations dancing together holding hands in a circle or line. ... Regardless of age or marital status, it is the love of the early Israeli dances that is shared in common and helps create a warm and welcoming community environment for newcomers as well as regulars."[Kaufman 1988, p. 9]. Exploring audience reception concerning the issue of diversity, I asked people at both sessions to evaluate the impact which the constant production of new dance choreographies has on Israeli folk dancing. How does the existence of 'old' and 'new' dances affect the ways in which people imagine community through a shared memory? In your opinion, what is the main effect that the constant production of new dances has for the Israeli folk dance community? (check one) ( people like the diversity ( starting Israeli folk dancing is becoming too difficult ( people don't know the dances played and taught at other sessions ( people stop dancing because they can't keep up with learning the new dances ( Other: People answered as follows. At the Y, 66.66 % checked the first answer, 12.5 % the second, 12.5 % the third, and 8.33 % the fourth. At Rikudai Dor Harishon, 15 % checked the first, 20 % the second, 15 % the third, and 50 % the fourth choice. 1. choice 2. choice 3. choice 4. choice 92nd Street Y 66.66 % [16 people] 12.5 % [3 people] 12.5 % [3 people] 8.33 % [2 people] Rikudai Dor Harishon 15 % [ 3 people] 20 % [4 people] 15 % [3 people] 50 % [10 people] Only the first choice offered a positive judgment of the proliferation of new dances. The other three answers judged the development to be negative. There was an obvious discrepancy in people's responses at the two locations. At the Y, an overwhelming majority of 66.66 % chose answer 1 and thus indicated that they considered the constant production of new dances to be positive since people like diversity. At Rikudai Dor Harishon, only 15.4 % gave a positive evaluation of the proliferation of new dances. The overwhelming majority here (85 %) rejected what one respondent described as the "production craze". This split clearly reflects the official ideologies of the two locations. People come to the Y because they enjoy the variety, style, pace and artistic challenge of the new dances offered there. As one respondent noted, "[p]eople like change, and the Israeli folk dance community enjoys it in particular because change means moving forward, growth and development - a symbol of what Israel has become now." In contrast, people dance at Rikudai Dor Harishon because they prefer the 'classic tradition', which contains a clearly defined and limited set of dances, that are simpler, easier to exercise and known to the group. The very different responses obtained at the two locations indicates a clear split. As I learned through informal interviews and conversations at the Y, mainstream Israeli folk dance practitioners are aware of the negative consequences that the proliferation of dances entails for Israeli folk dancing at large. Comments I heard were that "people are intimidated from not knowing the dances", that dancing is increasingly acquiring "competitive undertones" and that some people miss the old dances which are not played as much. Yet, when asked to define the main effect of the proliferation, a large majority opted for the positive answer. In tune with the official ideology promoted at the Y, people considered diversity in general to be an essential, and positive quality of Israeli folk dances. Rather than dividing the community, they perceive diversity as a means of integration and enhancing the size of the imagined community. As one dancer remarked at the Y: "Why should it be negative? It is fun, diverse and draws many people". Yet, this imagined Israeli folk dance community has its outcasts. The overwhelming majority of people at Rikudai Dor Harishon judged the proliferation negatively and a large percentage (50 %) indicated that it leads people to actually stop dancing. Thus, although a majority of folk dancers welcome the new dances, some people perceive them as a very real threat to the community and their own participation in it. Shared memory, ideally constructed through Israeli folk dancing, stands no chance against the proliferation of new choreographies. As one person from Rikudai Dor Harishon wrote on the questionnaire: "Obviously many people still participate - they are mostly Israelis - but [the proliferation of new dances] has changed the character and style of the dances. It is becoming too difficult." People cannot keep up with learning the new choreographies. The new productions are too numerous and complicated in style. As a result, some people feel alienated in folk dance circles such as the Y. They do not share the same incorporated practices and can no longer participate, neither in the dancing nor in the imagining of national community. Beyond the Nation in Israeli Folk Dancing? Investigating the cultural reproduction of the 'nation' through the lens of Israeli folk dancing complicates the conventional periodization of history in terms of a prenational, a national and then a postnational phase. Israeli folk dancing from its very beginning in the 40s and 50s constituted a transnational activity, defined in terms of deterritorialization. Through a shared repertoire of Israeli folk dances, American Jewry could imagine themselves as part of the Israeli nation without actual physical dislocation. At the same time, geographical distance, as well as constraints in communication and technology prevented the imagining of the Israeli nation as 'territorialized'. American Jewish dances formed part of the repertoire instituted at the Y, and the emphasis lay on a broad association of the dances with Judaism, rather than their explicit link to Israeli territory. While started as a deterritorialized and transnational practice, Israeli folk dancing under the impact of globalization during the past two decades has emerged as a means for consolidating the 'nation'. At the Y, Israeli folk dancing today is perceived as a 'territorialized' practice. A majority of the people directly link the authenticity of their dances to a national territory. Likewise, an astonishingly high number of people at the Y relocate the authenticity of their practices to the early days of the Israeli folk dance movement, and judge the proliferation of new dances to be disruptive for the Israeli folk dance community at large. The establishment of Rikudai Dor Harishon, in turn, reflects this development and shows how people in a globalized environment take recourse to reimagining their community as nation. Folk dancers at Rikudai Dor Harishon directly link the authenticity of their practices to Israeli national territory and perform a fixed repertoire of dances, reproducing a national past. Technological advances, faster communication, increased migration as well as the threat to national community which people associate with globalization have thus contributed to territorializing Israeli folk dancing in case of the Y, and reviving the nation in case of the Town & Village Synagogue. In contrast to current theorizing, which sees the nation as undermined by global flows, globalization in the case of Israeli folk dancing actually spurred the imagining of community in terms of the nation. In a globalized environment defined by destabilization, displacement and shifting categories, Israeli folk dancers in New York more so than in the past take recourse to the nation in imagining community. Theoretical Literature: Alonso, Maria Ana. 1994. The Politics of Space, Time and Substance: State Formation, Nationalism, and Ethnicity. Annual Review of Anthropology 23: 379-405. Anderson, Benedict. 1992. Imagined Communities. rev. ed. New York: Verso. Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Clifford, James. 1994. Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology, vol. 9 no. 4 (August): 302- 338. Connerton, Paul.. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [will use his notion of 'incorporated' and 'inscribed' practices]. Foster, Robert. 1991. Making National Cultures in the Global Ecumene. Annual Review of Anthropology 20: 235-60. Gillis, John R. The Politics of National Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Harvey, David. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Katriel, Tamar. 1994. Sites of Memory: Discourses of the Past in Israeli Pioneering Settlement Museums. The Quarterly Journal of Speech 80 (1): 1-20. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1995. Theorizing Heritage. Ethnomusicology 39 no. 3. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1992. Tourism. In Folklore, Cultural Performance and Popular Entertainments, ed. Richard Bauman, 300-307. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Said, Edward. 1996. Zionism From the Standpoint of Its Victims. In Dangerous Liaisons. Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspective. ed. Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti and Ella Shohat, 15-38. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Shohat, Ella. 1996. Sephardim in Israel: Zionism From the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims. In Dangerous Liaisons. Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspective. ed. Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti and Ella Shohat, 38-55. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Literature on Israeli Folk Dancing in the USA Berk, Fred. 1962. New Israeli Folk Dances. Twelve Dances With Music, Text and Instructions. Notated by Fred Berk. New York: Youth Department of American Zionist Council. Berk, Fred. 1962. Staging Folk Dance. Dance Magazine, (May): 68-69. Berk, Fred. 1965. The Jewish and Israeli Folk Dance. New York: Youth Department of the American Zionist Council. Berk, Fred. 1968. Folkdance in Israel. Hora: A Quarterly Review of Israeli and Jewish Folk Dance News (Fall): 1-4. Berk, Fred, ed. 1972. Ha-Rikud: The Jewish Dance. New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregation. Berk, Fred. 1976. The Story of Israeli Folk Dance in Israel and America. Israel Dance: 11-14. Berk, Fred. 1978. Machol Ha'am: Dance of the Jewish People. USA: American Zionist Youth Foundation. Berk, Fred. 1978-79. Palestinian, Jewish, Israeli Dance in America. Israel Dance: 7-8. Delakova, Katya and Fred Berk. 1947. Dances of Palestine. New York: B'Nai B'Roth Hillel Foundation. Goodman Burger, Ruth. n.d. An Overview: The Evolution of Iraeli Folk and Jewish Dance in Israel and America. Unpublished paper. Halprin, Ann. 1960. Israel Dances. In Jewish Dance, ed. Fred Berk, 27-35. New York: Exposition Press. Brin Ingber, Judith. 1974. Shorashim: The Roots of Israeli Folk Dance. Dance Perspectives no. 59 (Fall): 3-60. Brin Ingber, Judith. 1983. Fred Berk: America's Jewish Dance Pioneer. Arabesque 9 no. 3 (Sept.-Oct.): 10-13+. Brin Ingber, Judith. 1984. Fred Berk: The Metamorphosis of a European Dancer 1939-1949. Dance Chronicle 7 no. 1: 1-32. Brin Ingber, Judith. 1985. Victory Dances. The Story of Fred Berk, A Modern day Jewish Dance Master. Tel Aviv, Israel: Israel Dance Library. Jackson, Naomi. 1996. Converging Movements; Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92nd Street Y, 1930-1960. Dissertation in Performance Studies, NYU. Kadman, Gurit. 1968. The New Israeli Folkdances. Unpublished paper. Kaufman, Haim. 1988. A Revival of the Early Israeli Folk Dances. Hora 48-49: 5++. Manor, Giora. 1986. Influenced and Influencing - Dancing in Foreign Lands. The Work of Choreographers/Dancers Persecuted by the Nazis in the 1930s in Emigration. Unpublished Paper. Myers, Therese. 1959. Dancing in a Biblical Land. Dance Magazine (January): 50-53, 64-65, 75-76, 92. Sorell, Walter. 1949. Dancing in Israel. An Interview with Israeli Dancer Gertrude Kraus. Dance Magazine. (February): 12-17+. Taylor, Barbara and Susie Hofstatter, eds. 1977. 100 Israeli Folk Dances. Choreographed in Israel and Available on Records Recorded in America. Notated by Fred Berk. New York: Israel Folk Dance Department of American Zionist Youth Foundation. Formal Interviews: Ruth Goodman, 11/4/97. Danny Uziel, 1/28/98. Haim Kaufman, 2/20/98. 1 At Rikudai Dor Harishon, 59% of participants correctly answered a question asking for the ethnic origins of the 'Debka', an Arab line dance generic to the Eastern Levant. At the Y, only 45% answered the question correctly. 34