Dancing in Austin

Katie and I spent Saturday in Austin for an Israeli folk dance workshop. The teacher, Ya'akov Eden, was raised on a kibbutz in Israel, spent several years in a professional folk dance ensemble, and has spent the rest of his life studying Israeli dance. It's a really unique type of folk dance, because the Jews have only had their own country for sixty years. Most Israeli dances from before the 1940's feel very much like Balkan or gypsy dances. The dances we learned are from Israeli choreographers who wrote dances specifically for Israel during the early days of Israeli independence.

Katie and I decided we must be crazy about dancing. We went to our regular dancing in Houston Friday evening, had morning and afternoon workshop sessions in Austin, then went to Austin weekly dancing on Saturday evening, which goes from 7:30 to 11:00. Oh well, it was fun and worth it, and our feet and knees survived without injury.