Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Sandy's Cacak & more - virtually

We’re still dancing virtually in the North Bay – with Israeli class on Sunday mornings and Balkan/International on Monday nights. Both classes will continue through late December, and then start up again in early January.

In the Balkan class, we brought back Sandy’s Cacak, an old favorite that had dropped out of our repertoire. I have a vivid memory of longtime Petaluma folk dance stalwart Sandy Clemmer leading this dance, always wearing his opincas. In Serbia it's simply referred to as "Cacak Kolo; Sandy introduced the dance locally, hence the name. And we’ve been taking a fun deep dive into Albanian dances, some of them traditional (Valle Iusuf, Vallja e Katushkes, Populli Jon)l, others choreographed, including Valle e Permetit and Moj Maro. I also introduced great new music for Valle Pogonishte with vocals by well-know Albanian singer Merita Spahiu.

 

In the Israeli class, we’ve been having fun dancing favorite line dances including Hine Ma Tov #2, Vals Agur Zahav (originally done as a couple dance, but I found a video from Japan of folks doing it as a line dance), Sixteen Tons, (music by Tennessee Ernie Ford – a testament to the fact that Israelis will choreograph to any music), Jaimale, Pata Pata, Homey Twist (not Israeli, but a favorite Urban Soul line dance), and – of course – Jerusalema.

 

I invite any of you who are looking for more opportunities to dance to contact me at 415-663-9512 or cjay@horizoncable.comif you’d like to join us.