This Saturday night, November 9th at the Club Regent Event Centre at 7:30pm, one of Winnipeg’s oldest folk ensembles will be celebrating 60 years of dance, music, and the joy of life.
From its humble beginnings, starting with a small group of dancers gathered in the North End basement of the late Sarah Sommer in 1964, the Sarah Sommer Chai Folk Ensemble has grown to be North America’s oldest and largest Israeli dance ensemble.
Consisting of more than 40 singers, dancers and musicians, the group has travelled the world spreading their love of Israeli dance and Jewish culture. They perform music and dance numbers representative of countries throughout the Jewish diaspora, including Israel, Morrocco, Ethiopia, Russia, and Spain to name just a few.
Wherever they have gone, they have been ambassadors for Winnipeg and have entertained audiences through their high-caliber, high-octane performances.
Their concert this Saturday, which is called Full Circle will celebrate Chai being a beacon of Jewish culture for six decades.
The title and the date of the concert carry a great amount of significance. In Hebrew, all numbers have corresponding letters. The number 60 is represented by a symbol called the samech.
Sarah Sommer is the Granddaughter of the Chai founder and one of the current Co-Artistic Directors for the group, as she explains, “If you look at the way that it is written, it is like a closed circle. As well, all letters have a metaphorical meaning, so this letter samech and the shape of the circle really represents the interconnectedness, and the way of upholding one another, and I thought that was a beautiful message to impart for our 60th anniversary.”
The date of the concert, November 9th also carries significance because it is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, known in English as the Night of Broken Glass. This event took place in 1938 Germany. Jewish businesses and synagogues were destroyed by the Nazis in a pogrom that lasted two days. From November 9th to the 10th.
There will be selections in the Full Circle concert that will commemorate this horrible event.
There will also be selections representing the vast Jewish diaspora. Elan Marchinko is a choreographer and Artistic Advisor of Dance for Chai. As she describes the program, “The repertoire runs the gamut from traditional Israeli... to fusion of flamenco and Moroccan. We have a few Yemenite pieces as well as contemporary dance and traditional Jewish music. That is what makes this group amazing...is that you look at these performers in a full group rehearsal...they must learn to embody all these very distinctive styles and languages. It is just tremendous and very, very diverse.”
Joining the core ensemble will be many alumni dancers, singers and musicians spanning all generations of Chai. Alumni will be flying in from all over Canada and the United States to take part in the concert and celebrate the strength and resilience of the ensemble and Jewish culture in Winnipeg.
Marchinko’s partner Jeffrey Schachter, is an alum of Chai, he sums up the concert beautifully, “On the night of broken glass, we dance with bare feet. It is a declaration that we are still here, and we will be here.”
The Sarah Sommer Chai Folk Ensemble’s concert Full Circle on Saturday, November 9th at the Club Regent Event Centre at 7:30pm is going to be fantastic, and an evening full of nostalgia and celebration. Chai’s energetic and uplifting performances on stage are sure to put a smile on your face.
For more details on the Sarah Sommer Chai Folk Ensemble’s Full Circle concert click here.