HaGavia
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Hebrew: הגביע ("The Goblet"). Partner dance by Danni Heiman, 1970.
The lyrics to the song are by the great Israeli poet Yoram Taharlev.
The music (by Nachum Heiman, possibly related to the choreographer?) has an unusual meter: It consists of twelve-beat phrases, each with four three-beat measures, except that the very first of these phrases has three four-beat measures.
The dance does not follow this pattern at all: each of its sections has three four-count measures. Moreover, the dance doesn't start on the first beat of a measure, but rather on the final beat of the intro---at the same point that the singing begins. It continues in this way, each phrase of the dance beginning on a musical upbeat, so that the dance never really aligns with the music. Many dancers intuitively feel that the dance starts too early since it doesn't begin on the downbeat.
Both partners start on the right foot. Each piece of the first part has eleven steps followed by a hop, and this happens three times, so that the first part ends with weight on the right foot. Since the second part begins with balance right and left, it must be fudged the first time with a hop on the right foot, rather than a step to the right.
Note that the second section is danced with both partners facing center, the woman facing the man's back. At the end of each piece he turns one and a half times (540°, 3π radians) to face her and touch left hands.
Because of the counterintuitive connection between dance and music, this dance causes confusion whenever it is played. For example, in this teaching video from Stockton Folk Dance Camp, Yaakov Eden does the entire dance one beat behind the "correct" version from Rokdim below. The source of this discrepancy is unknown.
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