Michaela Harrari

Two posts in one day! Making up for previous slacking....

So, as promised, I'm going to start posting interviews as I get then transcribed. I debated between editing and leaving then raw, and when I can and it still makes sense, I decided to just leave them as is. I apologize for those who aren't interested in this part, so skip if you get too bored. Kenya posts will keep coming.

Michaela Harrari is a board member of the Domari Society for the Gypsies of Jerusalem. A Jew who made aliya in the 1990's, she is now married to Moshe Amirav (I'm using his most recent book Jerusalem Syndrome for context research), and is a flamenco dance teacher and English teacher in training, with background in non-profit work. She is the first person I recorded, and this is the first of two parts- the second was recorded later because of interruptions (which happened a lot with these interviews).

Michaela Harrari

(unimportant introductions)

T: Where to start, because your perspective is as someone who is on the board.

M: You can ask Amoun about how active I am.

T: You also teach classes to the kids, yes?

M: I think all of four classes.

T: Oh, well, better than none. So how did you come across the Gypsies?

(Side conversations)

M: How did I meet Amoun. An email from an acquaintance who is an musician, who knew I was interested in Gypsy music. He had found out from someone that there was an evening at the Jerusalem Hotel, which is next to the bus station, and I went, and I met Amoun. I don’t remember the year, 2000.

T: How did you get involved in the capacity as a board member, rather than just an acquaintance?

M: They asked me. I got caught! I have some background in non-profit organization in the States.

T: Oh, what did you do in the States?

M: I worked in various kinds of non-profit marketing jobs.

T: How did you get interested in Gypsy music?

M: Because of my work. I teach flamenco dance. I perform flamenco dance. One of my goals in my flamenco activities is to make some kind of connection with the communities in this area, and so there is a connection between the Domari and the Gypsy roots of flamenco. At the end of the day, I discovered actually, the connection isn’t really a live connection, because there aren’t active artists in the Jerusalem area. But on the other hand, it was certainly an interesting project, and with my social work background, I thought I could be of some assistance.

T: What do you do today?

M:I am a flamenco dancer teacher, and I am the director of a performing group of musicians and dancers, and I have children, and that’s about it. Oh, and I’m also learning how to be an English teacher.

T: Oh, ok. To teach where?

M: In a public school.

T: Wow, that’s hard.

M: Yeah, but I like children, I like the classroom. (side conversation) So it seemed right that I should be connected with Amoun, and I really admire what she is doing, and it’s a great step to take. I hope that at some point in time we will find some kind of cultural meeting point, and that’s why I came back to the girls, some of them did a little part of a show that I organized last year with three other professional dancers. We did a show about the Gypsy trail, and each dancer took one aspect of Gypsy dance and performed it, and we opened the show with Amoun’s nieces.

T: I know you talked about that cultural aspect really isn’t in this community anymore, are you trying to bring it back, or try to reinvigorate that aspect of it? Because you have a lot of background knowledge in Gypsy dance?

K: I actually don’t have background knowledge. I don’t have dance material that relates to their style. This particular gypsy community is different than the Andalusian Gypsy community. They have their own music, and their own language, and their own dance, so I don’t really see myself as a catalyst for anything; however, in my flamenco work, I would like to reach out to more children in the Arab community, and maybe my relationship with the Domari is a window. I don’t know, we’ll keep trying.

T: What kind of stuff do you teach the girls in the dance music, what kind of stuff do you do?

K: The truth this, this dance class has an unknown content that we discover as we go along, there has only been 4 or 5 meetings. Normally I start with general warm-up, and then I teach rhythm, and then I teach steps. And then I teach choreography. That is the general scope of the flamenco learning. However, this group doesn’t know if they even want to do flamenco, and I don’t even know if it is right they do flamenco. I think it is better to strengthen what natural movement then have by themselves. I am trying to pick up on that, and have them repeat them over and over and get confidence. Understand what physically they are doing; body awareness. But usually when you teach kids, it has to be goal-oriented; they aren’t so process oriented. So the goal is to let’s make a piece. I let them choose the piece, I brought them some fusion music, that has Arab elements and Spanish elements, and they liked it so now we are making a piece. But we don’t really have the conditions, because dance is visual, and there is no way they can see themselves. I hope, my goal is to have some kind of framework, where the same girls could come, and we could bring in other girls from the area, and maybe I could bring in someone who is a little more familiar with Middle Eastern dance. Another possibility is to hitch on to one of the dance forms that is accepted and performed in Jerusalem, and that is depka.

T: Depka? Could you describe that for me?

M: Depka is line dancing, it is usually for social and family special events.

T: Is it something practiced throughout entire Jerusalem, or is it more of a Jewish tradition?

M: It’s not Jewish at all. Depka comes from, as far as I understand, Circassian roots. But there are also of Bedouin roots. It’s a line dance it’s a folkdance. It has a lot of footwork in it. But that is why I thought, because of the footwork, we could find some kind of common language. The Gypsy don’t do depka so developed; however, I have heard about, and I have seen a number of depka projects come out of Jerusalem. With other groups of people. Depka, at least what I saw, is reserved for the young. However, at family events and weddings, everybody gets into it. It is a folk art that has developed into a performing art. It is the national Palestinian dance in a way, but it also goes beyond Palestine in a way, it is done in Syria and Iraq and Iran.

T: I had no idea.

M: It is the folk dance of the Levant. It doesn’t’ have the sensuality problem that oriental dance has. I can’t remember the Egyptian word, the Arabic word for dance.

(side conversation)

T: How did you come to Jerusalem?

M: I made aliya in 1992, I came with my first, now ex-husband, we made aliya from New York, and I got a job in Jerusalem, so we lived here.

T: I guess, based on, so you’ve been involved since 2000 with the Domari community. How has it really grown since you’ve been here? What have you seen changed, developed?

M: I can’t tell you about the community, because I am not part of the community, but I can tell you about the organization. It is evolving, and its certainly changed, I think the self-perception of some of the people in the community, the notion of empowerment, identity, those things, that maybe weren’t so strong before Amoun started it, have really crystallized. The organization is all the time in transition. It has a lot of growing pains, because we are talking about an oriental culture, and then all kinds of criteria that culture places on definition, and activities, and behaviour, so there is a culture clash, but on the other hand, I think Amoun has struck a pretty good balance. I think that participation in organization itself is not a natural attribute of Oriental people. They are much more family-planned and the whole notion of being part of an organization is foreign to them, being part of a family is not. So in that sense, the Domari organization is a family organization. That is the way it has to be, or its not expressing the nature of the people it represents.

(finish)