by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

July 30, 2009

Anyone for learning to chant from Torah while doing interpretive dance? It may not be Dance Dance Revolution, but Trope Aerobics is designed to make religious school a lot more fun.

Cantor Sharon Brown-Levy at Temple Emanu-El of West Essex in Livingston developed the system and is about to take it public.

Trope Aerobics teaches the musical notation for Torah chanting, known as trope, by getting kids up on their feet and using movement to reinforce the lessons.

It sounds very 21st century, but it has roots in the earliest traditions of public Torah reading. When the system of cantillation for chanting the Torah was developed after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, chironomy — a system of hand prompts — served as the precursor to the diacritical marks that tell a modern reader how to sing a line of Torah.

When Brown-Levy learned about chironomy after she developed her system, she was thrilled to find movement so deeply rooted in Jewish tradition and practice. But she takes those hand signals to a whole new level.

In her lessons, Brown-Levy’s entire body becomes a letter of Torah. If the trope symbol sits above the letter, she reaches up and creates the form of the symbol with sweeping arm movements. Does the sound zig-zag? So will her body. If the trope symbol sits underneath the letter, her arms sweep low. And if the sound drops, so do her knees.

Before developing the system, Brown-Levy taught at a synagogue in Florida.

There, she said, “the kids were totally turned off. Seventh-graders — you’re lucky to get them in a classroom much less focused and paying attention.”

After she introduced them to her system, she said, the same students “went nuts. It makes trope accessible, fun, wild, crazy, and theatrical. It eliminates the intimidation factor.”

It doesn’t hurt that the cantor herself has plenty of charisma, as well as dance and theater training, and is willing to get creative and a little goofy if necessary. (Before entering the cantorate, she trained as an opera singer and performed both in opera and in musical theater.) But, she insisted, her system can be used by anyone.

Trope Aerobics also bridges the gap between English and Hebrew. After students are taught a musical pattern using the Hebrew trope names, they get to insert silly English phrases like “I love my dog; his name is Spike,” or “I think this class is really dumb.” (For trope enthusiasts, try those phrases to the tune of “Merha tip’ha munah et’nahta.”) She invites kids to make up their own nonsense phrases; eventually, they move on to Torah verses.

Brown-Levy copyrighted the system earlier this year and is in the midst of getting it patented. She and her husband, Eytan Levy, have created a small business to sell the system, including a DVD and a packet of materials, and they expect to have a website up and running this fall (www.tropeaerobics.com).

So far, 11 cantors have expressed interest, but she is still waiting for her first signed contract.

Emanu-El is launching the Trope Aerobics curriculum throughout its religious school, beginning with third-graders. Brown-Levy believes trope ought to be taught “right along with the alef-bet.”

With such an early introduction to learning trope, she said, “by the time their b’nei mitzva roll around, it’s not so difficult for the kids to insert the words. After all, they’ve been singing about their dogs, and slowly adding Hebrew words for years.”

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