Ha'Ir Be'Afor

Hebrew: העיר באפור (The City in Grey). Circle dance by Moshe Eskayo, 1968. (The Aussie Database lists two other dances with the same title and music, circle dance by Rivka Sturman and partner dance by Dani Dassa, both 1970, including videos. It's not clear if or where these variants are danced.)

The dance is Eskayo's first, by his own statement. Dancers frequently add extra turns, for example turning twice instead of once in the middle of part one, or turning two and a half times instead of once and a half in part two.

The music and lyrics are by Naomi Shemer; the "city" that is "in grey" is Paris. Shemer was living in Paris with her daughter Haleli at the time (1964). She was entranced by the song "Elle était si jolie" by Alain Barrière which won fifth place for France at Eurovision 1963. She wrote the lyrics Ha'Ir Be'Afor for that same tune. She later decided that the lyrics should have their own music and composed the tune we use today for the dance.

The song is directed to Shemer's daughter, who was tired of the greyness of Europe. Shemer is offering to return her to the city of "white houses", namely Tel Aviv. (In 1959 Shemer had written the song Ir Levana ("White City") for Tel Aviv's jubilee year, giving the city its nickname.)

Many years later, Avraham Levi put Hebrew lyrics to Barrière's original music; that song is called BeNetiv M'urpal. It was released on Daklon's album "Yotze Laderech" in 1989 and was used by Naftali Kadosh for his dance Ahava Asura; more information and links here.

Links

Hebrew lyrics

English transliteration and translation

Ha'ir Be'Afor performed to its original tune, that of Alain Barrière's "Elle était si jolie", which we know as Ahava Asura

Ofer Gavish's blog post (in Hebrew) on Ha'Ir Be'Afor, which tells the story in more detail and explores connections with Shemer's song Lichvodcha

Ha'Ir Be'Afor at israelidances.com

Video at Rokdim