Last night we celebrated Equinox at Neskaya.\u00a0 Spring Equinox is when the days start to be longer than the nights, so we do a lot of sun dances.\u00a0 This year, the Jewish festival of Purim came on the same day, so we celebrated it as well.
\nThe first half was fairly lively dances.\u00a0 We started with \u201cFour Seasons\u201d, a classic dance that we do on the Equinoxes and Solstices. We do a dance from the Faroe Islands to an English song.\u00a0 Then we did \u201cSunrise\u201d, \u201cLe Printemps\u201d, \u201cSuvetar\u201d, followed by \u201cVeseni Chorovod\u201d which is a braiding dance \u2014 the dancers create a tunnel, and then the leader comes through it, breaking out of the tunnel of winter to spring.\u00a0 We were 8 dancers, and it turns out that letting the music play twice was just right for each of us to get a chance to be leader.\u00a0 Because part of the celebration of Purim involves wearing masks and costumes, we followed that ritual dance by putting on masks (Neskaya has a varied collection) and waving scarves.\u00a0 The music was a piece that Pablo brought from South America.\u00a0 I really enjoyed watching everybody swirling through the room waving scarves, hidden by masks, in some ways it felt like the dance floor was filled with spirits.
\nAfter break I put on the music for \u201cBells of Norwich\u201d and we just started dancing to it.\u00a0 It\u2019s simple and well-known so I didn\u2019t have to teach.\u00a0 The song is based on the story of Julian of Norwich:\u00a0 \u201c…let the winter come and go..\u00a0 All shall be well again I know.\u201d We did the Bach Sun Meditation, one of the first choreographed sacred circle dances, and David Melech, a song\/dance about King David in which he goes to sleep at the end.\u00a0 Judy Felsen, our expert in Jewish holidays, especially the esoteric meanings, told us that a sleeping king fit right into the symbolism of Purim.\u00a0 We followed that by The Awakening, a lovely dance, celebrating the awakening of Spring and of our hidden nature (another theme of Purim).\u00a0 Then we did Kore, another dance from the beginnings of Circle Dance.\u00a0 It was choreographed by Kalliroi K Ortmann from dancing female figures on a Greek vase.\u00a0 The music is from Mikis Theodorakis, a great contemporary Greek composer. Kore is the archetypal spring dance for the Equinox, it reminds us of the emerging of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, from her six month sojourn in the Great Below. We followed with Danza Solar, again celebrating the sun, day\u2019s triumph over night, and ended the evening with our usual Midwives dance, coming into a hug at the end.<\/p>\n
For more on the story of Kore\/Persephone, see post for March 21, 2010<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night we celebrated Equinox at Neskaya.\u00a0 Spring Equinox is when the days start to be longer than the nights, so we do a lot of sun dances.\u00a0 This year, the Jewish festival of Purim came on the same day, … Continue reading