Dance Names
Every dance has a distinct NAME. Often the dance name is the same as the song or music recording that it is associated with, but not always.
Israeli dances are typically named using Hebrew words, and then transliterated into latin characters. A handful of dances have foreign names that are transliterated into Hebrew.
A choreographer creates a dance and assigns a name to it. That name might be one or more of the following:
- The name of the song
- Recognizable lyrics in the song
- The name of a person
- A concept
- A word from another language
- Artistic expression
The name of the song
It is usually clear when the name of the song is exactly the same as the name of the dance.
Examples:
Ad Sof Haolam (עד סוף העולם) is the name of the song, the dance, and repeated in the lyrics.
Erev Kachol Amok (ערב כחול עמוק) is the name of the song, the dance, and repeated in the lyrics.
Recognizable lyrics in the song
The dance name matches the words in the chorus.
Examples:
Ein Li Divar (אין לי דבר)
Erev Ba (ערב בא)
The name of a person
The dance is named after a person, which may have no obvious relationship to the name of the song or lyrics.
Examples:
Debka Nufar (דבקה נופר) is a dance to the song Ahava shel yom chadash (אהבה של יום חדש).
A concept
The dance name is associated with a memorable concept.
Examples:
Erev Ba (ערב בא) means "evening comes".
Boker (בוקר) means "morning" and "good morning, good morning" is in the lyrics
A word from another language
There is a large potential for confusion when a dance name is a title of an international song.
Examples:
Asereje is from the spanish group Las Ketchup and is often known as "The Ketchup Song".
The English name is the song title, and the hebrew (אסרחה) is transliterated from Spanish.
Yakalelo is the exact name of the song from a French Algerian group.
The dance name (יקאלאלו) is transliterated into Hebrew.
Artistic Expression
The dance name is inspired by artistic inspiration.
Examples:
Enchat Haadama (אנחת האדמה) means "sigh of the earth". It includes music and language from other cultures.
In all cases, when a name is shared in association with a dance, that name is perpetuated by media filenames, meta-data, and word of mouth.