HaReshut
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Hebrew: הרשות, "Permission". Circle dance by Margolit Oved, 1957. (Moshiko's partner dance of the same name is done to a faster version of the music.) NOTE: When Margolit taught Hareshut in her classes at UCLA she did not use a recording and always sang the songs herself. She did so much faster than the "typical" recording, about the same speed as that used for Moshiko's partner dance.
Some sources, including videos and album covers, list Sara Levi-Tanai as the choreographer. It is widely agreed that this attribution is spurious. Levi-Tanai may (or may not) have created a dance to this music, but it would date from much later and could be a stage choreography for Inbal.
This dance seems divinely created for teaching the Yemenite step; the first part consists entirely of eight Yemenites. The subsequent parts are also extremely easy, yielding an ideal beginners' dance.
The only trick comes in the final part. Some dancers step L to L, cross R in front of L to L, repeated ten times. Though the step is trivial, a section with a count of ten is by itself unusual. However, the rest of the dance is done on the right foot, requiring fudge steps in the penultimate and final sections to free the left and then the right foot. Some dancers avoid these fudge steps by doing the final part as a step R to R and crossing L in front of R to the R. The origin of this left vs. right disagreement is that HaReshut was originally choreographed for the stage, and in the performance version, half the dancers opened to the right, while the other half opened to the left. When those performers adapted it for recreational purposes, each one taught it as s/he had performed it, insisting that her/his was the "correct" direction, and leading to the discrepancy. On this question, Yaron Meishar of Rokdim spoke with one of the performers, who commented:
התקשרתי לצבי הילמן (טאצ'ו) שהוא קצת יותר ותיק ממני ושאלתיו.
צבי הודיע לי חגיגית שהתנועה היא שמאלה בחלק השלישי. בעבר כשניהל את מוזיאון ישראל הוא גם הביא לשם את מרגלית עובד וגורית קדמן שנתנו הופעה עם מספר ריקודים וגם ריקוד זה. הוא גם זוכר שאימת נתון זה עם יוסי אבוהב ז"ל (שנפטר ממש לא מזמן). בקיצור – התנועה שמאלה.
מבחינת הגיון התנועה, כפי שאני מבין אותו, 2 חלקי הריקוד מתחילים בימין. על מנת לעבור לחלק השלישי יש לעשות משהו "לא טבעי" (שאני גם מדגיש אותו בהדרכה בצילום), והדבר ההגיוני ביותר היה לנוע ימינה ברגל ימין כששמאל משכלת לפניה. אבל מה לעשות ולא כך רצתה מרגלית.
I called Zvi Hillman (Tacho), who is slightly older than me, and asked him.
Zvi assured me that the direction in the third part is to the left. Once when he was director of the Israel Museum he brought in Margolit Oved and Gurit Kadmon, who gave a demonstration with a number of dances including this one. He also recalls confirming this fact with the late Yossi Abuhav (who passed away not long ago). In short: The direction is leftward.
As far as the logic of the movement, as I understand it, two parts of the dance start on the right foot. In order to transition to the third part it's necessary to do something "unnatural" (as I also emphasize in the instructional video). The more logical thing is to move right, with the left foot crossing in front of the right. But what can you do? That's not what Margolit wanted.
Although the typically-used recordings of HaReshut are instrumental, it does have lyrics; they are drawn from the song Sapari in the Diwan. (Many dances use the words to this song.) The page with these lyrics is here; look for the line starting הרשות באמת נתונה.
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