How about trying some Circle Dancing?

Forthcoming Circle Dancing Workshop with International Teachers

THESE WORKSHOPS WERE HELD IN 2009 AND WERE FANTASTIC!

(Since then, Gail and I have attended several more workshops with Mandy and Judy overseas, and have brought back many of the dances to South Africa.)

Mandy de Winter and Judy King are known for their extensive dance teaching experience, their enthusiasm, musicality and humour, as well as their ability to take you beyond the steps towards a deeper understanding of the movement within the dance. Their repertoire draws on the rich traditional dances of the Balkans, Greece, Israel, Romania and Russia as well as the modern choreographies to all kinds of music from around the world - including contemporary music. Their visit to South Africa in 2006 was a rich experience for all who danced with them.

Mandy and Judy will return to South Africa in March/April 2009.

Their workshops will be:


Cape Town: 27 to 29 March
Gauteng first workshop: 3 to 5 April
Gauteng second workshop: 10 to 12 April (Easter)
The workshops will consist of sessions on the Friday evening (19:00-21:00) and the Saturday and Sunday (09:30 for 10:00 to 16:30). The venue will be Beaulieu Preparatory School (same as 2006).

The first workshop will have a similar format to the 2006 one. The second, which will be offered if there is enough interest, will be (in Judy’s words) “for dancers who want to go deeper into the dance. We thought we'd call it From the Roots and have a weekend where Mandy teaches traditional Balkan … and I do 'attunement type' dances … using a lot of classical music. We'd try to show where it all began with the traditional [dances] and where it's developed with the modern choreographies.”

Cost: whatever you can pay between R480 and R680, if you attend one workshop.
If you attend both workshops, then total cost for both together: whatever you can pay between R800 and R1300.
If you need assistance with the fee, please discuss this with Gail or Yvonne (we will respect your privacy).

Contact details: Gail on resonature@telkomsa.net / 082 370 2828 / 012 329 0791
or Yvonne on yshapiro@telkomsa.net / 083 268 2763

A personal response to those who criticise the “usual suspects”

Many years ago, I attended a lecture by an industrial psychologist at what was then Southern Life. A thought-provoking point that she made was that, if you take a continuum within each faith or ethnic grouping, from the most reactionary types of people at the one end to the most free-thinking types at the other, you will find that people have more in common with those who are at similar positions along the various other continua than they do with those who are further away from them along their “own” continuum.

Hence the term “like-minded”. I would venture further and say “like-souled”. I am in a position on the “Jewish continuum” that could best be described as peace-loving but activist. I gravitate towards others who want peace and are prepared to stick their necks out for this. Hence, I have more in common with everyone who actively opposed apartheid (funny how one can’t find Jewish people who supported apartheid any more!), who campaigned, went door-to-door, went to prison, etc. There certainly were other Jewish people on my part of the continuum (including several members of my own family), but I mostly had to look to other continua to find friends and associates. This situation persists to this day. It also explains why I am prepared to look beyond the narrow confines of blind loyalty to a state that is thousands of kilometres away: I cannot justify being loyal only on the basis of a place being linked to my ethnicity. Furthermore, it explains why my immediate family members have taken partners such that we are dubbed the “mini united nations”.

No, I am not a “usual suspect”. You probably haven’t heard of me. But I sign petitions from time to time, based on the “ethical one-off” – each case on its merits, guided by my own internal thought processes and soul processes, not yours, and definitely not those of a board that purports to speak for me but doesn’t consult me first. You have, however, heard of my brother, Zapiro, of whom I am particularly proud. But don’t claim him as your own, just because he is Jewish: remember, he is not at your end of the continuum.

Yvonne Shapiro
Pretoria
January 2009

(This posting is a response to the following: firstly, the Jewish Board of Deputies purporting to represent all Jewish people in South Africa when making a statement about the Middle East conflict; secondly, a press release, signed by more than 300 South African Jewish people, including me, refuting this - see
https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/193052/responsetoBOD.html; thirdly, some rather hectic letters in the Jewish Report, http://www.sajewishreport.co.za/pdf/2009/jan/23-january-2009.pdf.)