Irving Berlin and Me
April 20, 2009
Irving Berlin is considered the greatest and certainly most prolific composer of popular music of the 20th century. Born in a poor Jewish ghetto in Russia with the name Israel Balain, he emigrated to the US with his family in 1893, when he was 5, settling in the Lower East side of NYC. Israel was the son of a cantor, and earned pennies singing on the streets of NY to help support his family after his father died. He never learned to read music, but sounded out the melodies of his songs using the black keys of the piano, letting someone else write the tunes into music notation.
My family’s story intersects with Irving Berlin’s at least twice. My mother tells the story that during the war, probably 1943, when she and her brother had been evacuated during the Blitz and were living high on the hog on a farm in Scotland, eating ham and bacon that they’d never tasted before, Irving Berlin brought his show, “You’re In The Army Now” to Glasgow. Her mum, my grandmother Elizabeth, took them to see the show and they went backstage afterwards. Mr. Berlin took one look at her, and yelled, “Liz!”, and threw his arms around her in a huge bear hug, surprising the cast and crew and greatly impressing my mother and uncle, especially because they knew that no one, but no one, was allowed to call her Liz.
Irving Berlin worked out the tune for In My Harem in 1912 while on the 20th Century Limited train to Chicago, and it was published with witty lyrics early in 1913. These lyrics allow the singer to choose between an Irish or Jewish protagonist (Pat Malone or Abie Cohen) who finds himself with “wives for breakfast, wives for dinner, wives for supper time” while taking care of a harem for a Turk who goes off to war.
That same year, 1913, my grandmother was 16. She was already an accomplished Ragtime pianist, accompanying silent movies in her mother’s movie theatre in Brooklyn. She dropped out of school and ran away from home to marry my grandfather, a Kosher butcher. When my grandfather promptly lost his job soon afterwards, she went out looking for work, and was hired by Irving Berlin to play his tunes in the window of his music publisher in Tin Pan Alley. This was her job until her first pregnancy the next year. It is likely that In My Harem was one of the tunes she played every day, with her rollicking left hand that jazzed up all her playing all her life.
The Academy of Danse Libre performs In My Harem in Ragtime costume, at Cubberly Auditorium in Palo Alto, California, this Sunday, April 26, at 3:30 pm. The full program includes 16 dances from the Victorian and Ragtime eras, in authentic period dress and mannerisms, performed by 20 skilled dancers. Visit www.danselibre.org for more info, including photos and performance schedule.
What are Brawls And Why Should You Care?
March 26, 2009
Brawls (often known at Bransles or Branles) are wonderfully vital dances that were part of villages festivals in the Middle Ages and ballrooms of the Renaissance. The footwork and music of these dances are among the oldest in recorded history. Danced in circles with increasingly challenging rhythms, patterns, and gestures, they are fun, peppy, easy to learn and remember (sort of).
Dancing bransles continue to fascinate us teachers, historians and people-watchers. What’s the deal with a zillion variations? Why does the footwork always start to the left? Why are the women always standing on the men’s right? How to survive the aerobic thrills of simultaneous hopping in the Peas Bransle? Or, being thrown in the air in the Toss The Duchess variation? (Or, doing the tossing!)
You should care about these dances as they are gold in the classroom and in the community. Whether you are teaching math, history, experiential education for adolescents, or working socially with adults, these simple dances are grist for the mill, providing challenge, risk, rewards, and lots of laughter. For instance, the simple stepping left with large steps and then right with smaller steps – but in the same rhythm and tempo – offer up a bunch of spacial and coordination challenges leading to probable mis-steps, major screw-ups, and confusion amidst the steady precise stepping rhythm of the group. The individual finds his or her place within the circle of the community.
We will be teaching six variations of Bransles this summer in upstate New York, with lesson plans, music, and a choreography suitable for the classroom, festival, or stage presentation. Other dances in our historical survey include a sword dance, a weaving dance, pavanne, minuet, Grand March, vintage polka variations, rotary and cross-step waltzes including pivots, an historical cakewalk (not the party version), one-steps, two-steps, simple and complex swing variations (with an aerial or two!), Jitterbug Stroll, an original Gum Boot and a contemporary tango appropriate for classroom and community dancing.
Learn it all and more at our upcoming Dancing Through Time conference July 27 – 31, 2009 at Spacial Dynamics Institute International Training Center, Mechanicville, NY.
