THE DYBBUK DANCES By Giora Manor

port- better known by his nom de p[ume, "Ansky "- set out on a field trip to collect and record the folkIore of the Jewish population in the Ukraine- a search which was to take nearly three years. He was so impressed by the stories and legends, super-stitions and mythical beliefs he encountered, that he incor-porated them in his play, Between Two Worlds, or The Dybbuk. Among the customs he recorded was the traditional right of the beggars and paupers to dance with the bride before a wedding ceremony, which was to become a focal point of his play, which was produced for the first time, in Yiddish, in 1920, by the "ViIner Truppe". Ansky died a short time before the premiere and so never saw his play performed. Two years later the, then, "Habima Studio", which was at-tached to Stanislavsky's "Moscow Art Theatre", produced The Dybbuk in the Hebrew translation by Ch. N. Bia1ik, directed by Yevgeni Vachtangov. In 1924 Habima left Russia and travelled extensively in Europe and America, finally settling in Tel Aviv and later becoming the National Theatre of Israel. Vachtangov's expressionistic production with Habima became widely known and acclaimed as a masterpiece of modern theatre. The "Vilner Truppe " also went on several tours and performed The Dybbuk with great success. Many choreographers were inspired by the haunting mystic story of the Dybbuk, as the following (incomplete) list of Dybbuk dances shows