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In the beginning....I can't really remember my first dance step, but I do remember going to Lillian Fenster's studio in East Meadow for my first lessons. As I recall, it was a studio built off her house, maybe a closed-in garage similar to the one I have now. But her studio was much nicer. And of course, it seemed much bigger. I don't know how old I was, but my brother (who is practically two years younger than me) was still nursing. We did 'creative movement': one of the exercises was to start lying still on the floor and then begin to move slowly, as the teacher counted to ten. By ten, you were supposed to be standing on your feet. For parents' day, my dad came. I think he may have been the only dad there. The parents were to do the exercise while the children counted to ten. On the count of one, my dad brought his hands up to waist level and wiggled his fingers. During that time period, we went to see The Nutcracker in New York City. It was supposed to be special because Lillian Fenster was dancing as a candy cane. I sort of wondered what the point of knowing that was because I never could see who she was on stage.
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My foray into ethnic dance....By the time I was seven, I started going to summer camp. It was a YM-YWHA, as in Hebrew, camp (yes, they have those back East). Lunch was at 12:00 noon, but you were supposed to come down and gather near the director's house at 11:45. I think most campers didn't care and didn't come, but it was a time I waited for. For those 15 minutes, there was Israeli folk dancing. I don't recall who led it or who taught it, but I was an avid fan. It was there I learned Mayim, Harmonica Bat Harim (which remains one of my favorite dances to this day) and many of the other early dances. My grandmother brought me a copy of Geula Gill and Troupe Oranim Zabar's LP and I listened to it during the time I was not in camp, dancing around the house.
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Around the time I turned 15, I joined Young Judea, the youth group associated with the synagogue my family belonged to. I had been bat mitzvahed there and had tried to keep some Torah, I hadn't really felt like it filled any need in my life. My family was not religious but kept some traditions--Passover seders, Chanukkah menorah lighting, Yom Kippur fasting. I guess we went to synagogue on Rosh HaShanah too. But it was a cultural attachement, not one of faith. The youth group was full of culture, supposedly Israeli culture, and there was lots of dancing. There was a performing group with costumes and late nights performing who remembers where. I went to Tel Yehuda, the summer camp associated with Young Judea, the summer before my senior year, served as president of my region that year and spent the next eight months in the promised land on the program sponsored by YJ. It was here the my spiritual journey began, although I was not that cognizant of it at the time.
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Into the entertainment industry...In college I had a friend who had studied Middle Eastern dance and she sometimes performed with our Greek dance troupe. When I moved to Kalamazoo, I signed right up for lessons at the Y. It was a big fad at that time and you could take lessons anywhere. There were what we called 'ten-week-wonders', women who had taken a few lessons and suddenly felt qualified to teach their entire community this art form. Or worse, they learned how to dance from books--there were no video-tapes in those days! Because I'd been dancing almost my entire life and was familiar with the musical styles, I was a natural.
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Dancin4yeshua..No matter what your plans or reasons for doing something, G-d alone knows the true result, the true outcome. He is always working toward your highest good. So although I moved to Athens GA because 1) it was a cool place to be from (you know: REM, Kim Basinger, B-52's) 2) the Atlanta airport was close enough so I could easily fly around the country 3) there is very little snow 4) it is a small town with a big university (=lots of culture) 5) to get away from all my bad habits, G-d brought me here to show me who I really was and to find out that "wherever you go, there you are". There is no escaping self. Within the context of that experience, I was ready to meet Him. Not some amorphous, mentally pleasing 'higher power,' but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and to come into a personal relationship with Him through His anointed Son Yeshua. Unfortunately for the body of Messiah, dancing has not been generally accepted as a form of worship in the recent past. However, Yeshua knew the desire of my heart and the gifts He had placed within me. An old friend in Athens directed me to the DePass Studio of Dance, where I began teaching Middle Eastern dance and resumed my study of ballet. A believer herself, Ms. DePass was in the midst of forming a Christian dance company, Ballet En Theo. When she asked me to join, I just laughed and said, "I'm too fat!" But she asked me to pray about it and in doing so, the Lord showed me that I could not do both Middle Eastern dance and dance for Him at the same time. So He gently brought me to the place where I was able to lay down what I had lived, eaten, breathed and slept for 15 years. He gave me a way to express my praise and worship through the gifts He had given me.
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