‘Dancing to a Jewish Motif’ to be lecture topic

The final session in the Jewish Historical Society of Central Jersey’s fifth annual lecture series, The American Jewish Experience, will be held at 10 a.m. on Nov. 11 at the Monroe Township Jewish Center, 11 Cornell Ave.

Guest speaker Carolyn Dorfman, founder and director of the dance company that bears her name, will offer a talk titled "Dancing to a Jewish Motif." She and several members of her eight-person troupe will demonstrate dance routines.

The New Jersey Council on the Arts has named Dorfman a Distinguished Artist, and in 1994 the Prudential Foundation awarded her its first Foundation Prize for Non-Profit Leadership in the Arts.

Dorfman has created dances with Jewish motifs, including her two most recent ones, Ehad and Mayne Mentshn. Both dances are responses to her visit to the Holocaust concentration camps as well as the events of Sept. 11.

Tickets for the program, which has been partially underwritten by an anonymous donor to help defray expenses, are required and may be purchased at the door or from the Jewish Historical Society office, 228 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick.

Each ticket holder may bring one guest free of charge. Admission is $5 for members, $8 for nonmembers. Ticket holders will receive a copy of Uncommon Lives, the most recent publication by Ruth Marcus Patt, lecture series chairwoman.

For more information and to reserve, call the Jewish Historical Society of Central Jersey at (732) 249-4894 or log on to www.jewishgen.org/jhscj.