liturgical choreography (geeking)

[cellio]

A question came up after services this morning about choreography rather than text, and I realized I don't know where to look such things up. Ok, some (most? all?) siddurim from Artscroll contain some instructions for choreography ("bow here", etc), but I'm looking for a bit more than that. Ideally there'd be discussion, as I'm interested in intended symbolism, history, and variation. Elbogen is text-centric (though I haven't looked for choreography info there so maybe those bits are there too), and Klein doesn't cover liturgy much at all.

The specific issue that prompted the question is this: In most congregations I've been in (including my own), the barchu is done thus: chazan says "barchu..." while bowing, congregation responds "baruch..." while bowing, and then you go on. In Sim Shalom, though, they specify chazan, then congregation, then the chazan repeating the congregation's response. So when I'm the chazan I've been deferring my bow until that repetition, because it makes sense textually -- first I say "let's praise", which is a call to worship, and then we all bow when we actually praise (the next line). When there is no repetition by the chazan the chazan has to bow during the call because otherwise he'll be left out (unless he joins the congregation in the response, which I haven't seen anywhere). (Hmm, I wonder which approach is older -- is Sim Shalom innovating or returning to an earlier practice?) So that was my assumption and my reasoning, but this morning someone suggested that I should be bowing during the first part. Hmm. (I have, by the way, seen both in this congregation -- there's no strong minhag. And this person only brought it up because I'd raised a different question with him and he said "oh by the way if you're interested in these questions...". So not being pushy at all.)

Comments

[goljerp]

While I wait for Windows Update to do its nefarious thing, I might as well update this:

The Second Jewish Catalog has a big chart on choreography: Pgs. 293-295, by Shulamit Saltzman. Actually, it's two charts: one is "Types of Movement", with "When", "What", "How", and "Why" columns. Due to the format, it's not exactly what you want; as an example:
When: Borkhu What: bowing How: bow from the waist as the hazzan says "Borkhu" and as you respond "Barukh..." why: to bow before the King

The other chart is a "Stand up chart", which just has "When" and "Who" columns: for example
When: Prayer for the new moon Who: in some shuls you stand

There are also comments about Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox practices in some parts of the table.

No sources, though.

Wait, hold on. I missed the beginning of the chapter, starting at pg. 265. On pg 291, there is a short bibliography:

1. The best book on prayer and the service is Abraham Millgram's Jewish Worship (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1971). It's lucid, complete, and very readable.


2. Take a look at the Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972) articles on the Synagogue and Liturgy and Prayer. They're all good.


3. Finally, look at the Bibliography under "Prayer" in Catalog 1 (in the chapter on Creating a Jewish Library)

I hope this helps!

[cellio]

Thanks. I have the three Catalogs; I'd forgotten that they might contain information. As you said, their article is kind of sparse -- but the bibliographies you mentioned look useful. I'll have to see if I can find a copy of Millgram to look at; that might be just the thing for this sort of question.