Transiting to the fair

The Arden Fair of 2009 met on Saturday, September 5th. The Wilmington session of Israeli dancers, led by Sharon Kleban, was to perform at 2:00PM in the Gild Hall following the International Folk Dancers set to perform at 1PM. This year it was going to be a little different as the groups were going to perform on the stage of thge gild hall while a simultaneous book sale was in operation through the rest of the gild. That day, we took our camera to record the frenzy of the fair, the dance performanaces and the book sale and the following script details these activities.

The Arden fair is an event that many in the Wilmington area, and further, look forward to visiting and this day was no exception. It is tough to find parking on the streets and the fair officials make provision for this by having an agreement with the Brandywine Y, a few miles away, allowing fair goers to park on the Y's property and then bus into the fair grounds. Above to the left, we see the entrance to the Y, and you are not getting a real feel as to how many cars are parked there on what we believe is a soccer field. The second picture should give you an idea of the human traffic as fair goers line up to ride the busses and the final picture shows the bus as it is being boarded.


On the Arden Fairgrounds


The Preliminaries

Some of the above pictures show the inside of the Gild hall. It was kind of unique that day with two separate but equal events in operation simultaneously. Most of floor space was taken up in the book mart. At the front of the Gild hall was a set of chairs facing the stage and on stage at that point was an International Folk Dance presentation led by Jenny Brown who leads the Gild's International Folk Dance session on the 3rd Wednesday of every month. The montage on the right concentrates on the audience and book mart while the International dancers are doing their thing. Below, we will show you those picture of their performance but first, working along the right clockwise from top left, is a picture of the audience at this time. It was clear that some were using the chairs for a respite - they would watch one or two dances and then be on their way and who can blame them as there was a lot going on at the fair. Also apparent were those specifically interested in International folk dance who watches every dance and applauded accordingly. Prior to the Israeli dance performance, these people would be replaced by those who had come to see that performance which was scheduled to begin at 2:00 PM. The next picture shows the schizophrenic nature of the gild hall at the time as we see part of the book aficiandos who have absolutely no interest in the dancing and music emanating from the stage. For one observer, it was kind of humorous to watch where this schizm occurred. You could have just as easily been at the DMZ between the Koreas to experience this divide. At the bottom, we see a filtering in of those wgo will be performing the Israeli dance portion of the program and this shot specifically of Tammy Steel, her daughter, Son in Law and granddaughter. The Granddaughter would make it on stage to join her Grandmother at the end of the Israeli dance presentation. The last shot shows several Israeli dancers huddling, one of whom is Sharon Kleban, the Israeli dance leader who was doing double duty by participating in the International demonstration as well.

Now, we take a look at what is on the stage. The International folk dance session is demonstrating several of its dances. The group is led by Jenny Brown who is wearing the blue blouse. We see her in the first picture and at the extreme right as she is on the microphone. Similar to the Israeli dance presentation, Jenny introduces each dance. Not similar, she asks for volunteers from the audience so that if we were to have photographed each dance, different people would move in and out of the shots. Since this is an Israeli dance website (although some people have given argument to this statement over the years) we have concentrated on the Isreali dancers participating. Four will be seen in these shots: Sharon, the leader of the Wilmington israeli dance session, Susan, Barbara and Steve and you see them, and other dancers, as they do this performance. We should note that it was not something set in stone that these four would do this type of double duty. Having arrived early and seeing that the participation in this International folk dancing presentation was thin, they volunteered themselves and joined Jenny Brown up on the stage.


The Wilmington Israeli Dance session's presentation at the 2009 Arden Fair


The performance of the Wilmington Israeli dance session at the Arden Fair marked the 5th (and some say 6th) such appearance over the years. The group repeated this in 2010 and you can see the write up on this by clicking here.