JCC BlogSpotJCC BlogSpot
By Jacob Rynar, Nashville JCC intern (About Me)
Ball Room Dancing…With or Without a Partner!
I cannot dance. I have no rhythm, no grace, no coordination (on the dance floor), and I definitely sweat too much to wear traditional ballroom attire. However, I am completely drawn towards ballroom dancing. Maybe Al Pacino’s blind brilliance in Scent of a Woman or Jane Austin’s fantastical ballroom courting in Pride & Prejudice have romanticized this classic setting. Still, I too watch Dancing with the Stars and wonder just what it takes to look like Jerry Rice, twisting with Superbowl-like finesse in a frilly, unconventional outfit in front of millions of Americans salivating at my beautiful partner. I sat in the Tango bars of La Boca in Argentina, sipping on Mendozan Malbec just dreaming of a life of romantic movement—well, maybe that is a bit hyperbolic. Nonetheless, I always wonder what it would take to turn the infamous daddy daughter Bat Mitzvah dance into a whirling dervish ballroom spectacle—that my friends, is no joke.
Ironically, ballroom greats utilize this apparently feminine art to achieve the pinnacle of masculinity: they dominate the room with athletic movement, hold their partner with unrivaled poster and poise, and all the while maintain a look of absolute determination. From my three salsa lessons in Quito, I know that it takes work to break the foot-stamping robotic hip habits that we have developed so clumsily over time. Luckily, starting March 3, and continuing every Wednesday until March 24th, the GJCC is offering Ball Room Dancing Lessons (no partner needed). Men: this is a great opportunity to accumulate brownie points (for when the game interferes with Grays Anatomy). Women: this a great opportunity to get your husbands looking like Richard Gear in Shall we Dance.
This class has additional fees associated with it. For more information and to sign up contact Meryl Kraft, meryl@nashvillejcc.org
Passover Desserts
Not all Passover Seders are the same. In fact, in my 21-year Seder experience, I have had delicious, melt-in-your-mouth brisket, and I have had the type of rock-hard brisket that you need to dip in salt water just cut. I have had fantastically well-made Matza Ball soup that consumes your taste buds in ecstasy, and I have the chicken broth mess that begs for salt, pepper, and grandma’s special seasoning. More importantly, I have had Passover desserts so fantastic—chocolate covered macaroons with an impeccable blend of soft and crisp—that I found myself questioning the true value of flour. On Friday, March 26th, the GJCC is sharing some these delicious Passover dessert recipes in our two hour cooking class. If three glasses of wine and a Haggadah as long as the Iliad do not evoke mouthwatering hunger from your table, then amazing Passover pastries will get the appetites rolling.
Cooking Tapas
There are many Spanish customs that would not work in Nashville. El Encierro (the running of the bulls), and La Tomatina (the tomato festival) would not fly in Music City. However, there are some more feasible Iberian traditions that Nashvillians may find quite attractive. Many of us would love to implement the siesta—to cut our coffee addictions with a post lunch snooze. Many of us would also love to learn how cook delicious Tapas at home—to break the monotony of dinner a, b, and c with a collection of small, exciting Spanish dishes. The bad news is that we would miss American Idol if we extended our workday an extra two hours to nap. The good news is that Kevin Alexandroni, Founder and Executive chef of SOVA catering is coming to the JCC on Monday, March 22 to run a Tapas cooking class. Kevin is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and achieved his undergraduate degree at Belmont University. He runs a successful kosher catering company (SOVA) and has owned his own Tapas restaurant. So, if you are looking to spice up your dinner, or if you are simply yearning for some exotic appetizers to impress dinner guests, you should take advantage of this amazing opportunity.
Don’t Know What to Wear?
If you are like me, fashion is as foreign as Sanskrit. If you are a Fashionista then you probably still struggle to get a firm grip (or hanger for that matter) on today’s most stylish wear. Fashion is an elusive, transforming art that either requires great foresight or great help. Luckily, we have recruited some seasoned fashion professionals—Martha and Bob Nemer from The Cotton Mill—to give our JCC members the inside scoop on the hottest upcoming styles of the Spring, Summer, and Fall. On March 5th, less than a month after the 2010 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, the owners of this trendy Hillsboro shop will provide our members with an exclusive preview of fashion’s next big hits. So, if you are looking for an exciting way to detach yourself from daytime TV, or if you missed out on the UGG trend and you are still catching up, come to our fashion exposé on March 5th from 10-11:30AM.
Myth and the American Family in the Movies
On Wednesday, February 3rd, I had the pleasure of attending Jeffry Stein’s fascinating lecture entitled “Slaying the Father and other Paradigms of Growth in Movies about American Families.” Mr. Stein—a man who has spent much of his life mastering every intricate end of the movie industry—dissected several fundamental themes embedded in some of Hollywood’s most beloved productions. He extracted the classic human struggles that make movies so compelling; he reconstructed the connections that we feel so passionately, but have trouble articulating.
I always knew that good conflict made movies fantastic. Characters who do not run into giant walls are not that interesting. Internal crisis is inescapable and natural. In fact, our constantly changing biology—our physical and emotional growth—demands introspection. If Morgan Friedman’s character in The Shawshank Redemption embraced his freedom from prison instead of struggling to find his place in a foreign world, his performance would not have been half as forceful. While we cannot truly understand his complex life behind bars, we have all experienced his strife: to some extent, we all depart from the life we know and venture into a scary unknown.
Mr. Stein did every movie enthusiast an incredible favor: he spent years studying human development through several different lenses, and solidified the classic archetypes that form the skeleton of brilliant cinema. Essentially, he explained the sympathy that we feel towards characters—even those who look, sound, and act so differently from ourselves. Borrowing from history, psychology, anthropology, and several other disciplines, he painted the framework of “Myth and the American Family.” Just like we do, the characters we love experience some form of “Death and Resurrection.” Although Mr. Stein’s description of this process is significantly more complex (and somewhat awe-inspiring), he reuses this plunge and revival metaphor as the backbone of his theories. In his lecture, he takes the audience on a journey through clips of Hollywood classics such as High Noon and The Graduate. He uses specific scenes to highlight the “Death Point” (the exact moment in which one’s former existence perishes).
In the end, I wanted to hear more. Mr. Stein’s lecture was empowering. He unlocked the core of successful movies, and unraveled the patterns in great stories. His book, Life, Myth, and the American Family Unreeling: The Spiritual Significance of Movies for the 20th Century is available on Amazon, and is headed to my doorstep in the next few days. For all of those movie buffs out there, and for the dude who cried a little too hard at the end of The Notebook, here is your chance to understand just how movies elicit such strong emotional reactions. | 
