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Welcome to Home Shalom and Shalom Farm. We pray your visit here be blessed. We are learning to walk in the Ways (Torah) of our Father YHWH and follow Y'shua, His Messiah until He returns to "set things straight". We call it a "Messi-Life". Our walk is neither tidy nor perfect, but it is filled with passion, devotion and desire to serve our King. We are learning to be humble servants, and to be good stewards of the things that He has entrusted to us: His Word, our marriage, our children, our family, our community, our health, and our farm. Hitch your horse and stay a while--our door is always open!

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Hebraic (Davidic) Dance

I have had requests for Hebraic Dance Resources. There are some great instructions dance DVD's available  as well as live dance camps that can be found at Messianic Dance Camps which put out the Teach Your Feet Dance DVD Series. Instructors are a married couple,  Ralph and Mindy Seta.  They also host live dance camps and trips to worship in Israel.

Here is a wonderful overview of Biblical Hebraic Dance History, by a lady who's name I do not know. She has a few videos I will be featuring here from her You Tube Channel Rejoice in Dance.


However there are many instructional worship videos that can be accessed for free on You Tube or God Tube.  They will teach specific song or specific steps.  If you like their style, after viewing them here, go to their source location and subscribe to their channel so you can go back to use them again and again.  It is good to first learn the steps with their names.  This will help you greatly when the "names" are called out for the song instructional on other videos or in person at Shabbat or feast gathering.  So lets start there:

This is Shannon Compo she has a You Tube Channel called Shay4Dance


Another great resource is the Key Of David International channel on Your Tube which has a wonderful series of videos that teach one step at a time in each video.  This is done in a very clean and concise way and they give a little traditional history to origin of the steps as well.

There are a few levels of difficulty (Davidic or) Hebraic Dance.  I would encourage you to start with songs with simple step combinations to get the hang of it.  There are dances for everyone though, so I want to show you some of the beginner level low impact dances to start with.  Some songs can become a serious aerobic workouts and get you huffing or make you feel like you have two left feet, if you re not conditioned to dance.  If you jump in with too much to fast, you become discouraged and think you can;t do it - so please know that there are different levels.  Sit out on those more advanced ones and study them - you will get there if you choose too increase your skills and physical endurance - stick to it.  

Now, lets talk about choreography.  There are traditional hebrew songs that have very universal steps, that have been handed down and most places will do them the same.  However, you may run into variations.  Especially in newer songs or in Messianic circles.  The reason being is because there are different folks choreographing and different communities will learn dances from different choreographers.  So don't be surprised if you run into this.  You can share differences with friends and once you learn the foundation steps and get comfortable with them, you will get to the point where you can hop into a circle on dances you have never danced or ones that have slightly different choreography and join right in, because the foundation is the same it just the combinations that change.  Most Hebraic dances are done to a 4 count.  Most dances are done in s a circle formation, but there are a few exceptions that are choreographed in lines.  Hebraic dance if doe both men and women.  However some communities have different customs regarding whether men and women dance together in the same circles.  It is wise to take note of what those customs are, if you are joining a new group, before you hop into a circle. :)


Here are a few sample of some beginner dances that came to mind:

This video is one of the first songs I learned by my former dance team, about 10 years ago.  It is still one of my favorites.  This video was taken from Mindy Seta's You Tube Channel and is one of the videos in her DVD series mentioned above.   Unlike the videos I share below by Rejoice in The Dance, she shows the dance first than teaches you how to do it.



Last but no least, here is a great You Tube Channel by some friends of ours.  This was started by a young man in our community.  Sometime you see an imbalance of  more women than men in hebraic dance in our Messianic Circles which is a shame.  Because in our circles, when the men get together it is so powerful and so beautiful - especially when it is all men alone.  They often choose more dances of spiritual warfare and when they do - man, get out of their way and it can get serious - it will make your skin tingle!! We have been blessed to be able to dance together before.  he has lots of good stuff on here- Enjoy!

I will leave you with the last dance video, its one of my all time favorites.  It takes place at some friends' wedding.  This wedding party is dancing in celebration and is comprised of the two families being joined together through this marriage.  All are walking in The Way together. 
Ya gotta love love love it!!


I pray this post blesses, equips and encourages you to pursue 
this beautiful expression of community worship.

Shalom,

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