the KlezmerShack

Here is a fascinating account of a century of traditional Jewish life leading to Jewish dance, from the Yiddish Dance Network:

… the paper I wrote last year is now online through "Mofa, Magazine of the Performing Arts," published out of Tel Aviv U., edited by Avraham Oz from Haifa U.: Reappearing Acts: From Jewish Life to Jewish Dance Theatre, by: Karen Goodman, Los Angeles date: 2008-01-14

In 1913, in Lodz, Poland, a fifteen year old cheder boy pushes his payes under his hat to go tango dancing with his sister. He wins a ballet scholarship to Berlin; and this youngest and only son of thirteen, whose Chasidic mother wants him to be a rabbi, changes tracks. Soon he is performing for even the Kaiser, with the Berlin Opera Ballet, then as soloist in operettas, and studying drama with Max Reinhardt. He enters the U.S. illegally in 1920. [more]