What We Do
General Structure
The Israeli Dance DeCal class meets weekly during the semester. We usually begin the 2nd week and continue until the last week (about 15 meetings). In the past, we have met at the following times (and it is likely to remain the same):
| Class | Time |
Instructors |
| Advanced | 5:00-6:30 PM |
Aaron, Inbal |
| Beginners | 6:30-8:00 PM |
Danielle, Rebecca |
We meet at the Hillel (Jewish student center) on the UC Berkeley campus. Hillel is located at 2736 Bancroft Way, near Piedmont Avenue. A Google map is provided here. We meet in the Auditorium, which has a spring-wood floor and a high-quality audio system.
What's It Like?
The class has an informal structure. The instructors are students, just like you! We try to be very friendly and approachable. Each day in class, we learn new dances (anywhere from 1 to 3, depending on the difficulty), and we review dances from previous weeks. We'll talk a little about the significance of each dance. Remember, Israeli Dancing is fun, so we have a good time.
Proper attire: Think, comfortable. Jeans and a T-shirt work great. Skirts, not so much. You'll want to wear comfortable shoes (tennis shoes)—basically, something you could go running in. Lots of jewelry is discouraged (too easy to catch on something as you're doing a leap-turn or something).
Course Requirements
You get to choose whether you want to take the course for 1 unit or 2. Of course, if you don't need units, you're welcome to just audit the course.
1 unit
To pass, you must do the following:- Attend class and have no more than 3 absences
- Attend the Marathon event for 2 hours (good times!)
- Attend the Shabbat Cooking event for 1.5 hours (free food!)
2 units
To pass, you must do the following:- Successfully complete all of the 1 unit requirements
- Read 5 (interesting and short) articles and write 4-sentence responses
- Attend one Israeli Dance café evening for 2 hours and write 6 sentences about your experience
- Read a book about Israeli Dancing and write at 16-sentence "essay" (previous students have very much liked the book)
How Much Time Does It Take?
For the 1 unit course, it takes 1.5 hours per week, plus 3 hours of special events. Altogether, that's 26 hours. For the 2 unit course, the readings shouldn't take more than 2 hours all together, the café evening 2 hours (include travel time), and the book & essay 8 hours. That's an additional 12 hours over the course of the semester. Keep in mind that university policy stipulates that each unit should take 45 hours over the semester—yes, we're much less than that.
I Want to Enroll!
Great! Go to the Enrollment page.
