LUNA SEFARDITA Sephardic Moon (Ana Alcaide) Ladino Circle Dance Tutorial & Demo Ira Weisburd

LUNA SEFARDITA (Ladino)
Choreographed by Ira Weisburd (USA)
Song: Luna Sefardita
Singer: Ana Alcaide (SPAIN)
LA LUNA SEFARDITA
Se ha callado la soledad
En esta alborada nueva.
A orillita de la ciudad
Duerme la primavera,
Con sus ojos de abril.
Las colinas florecen, su trigo hacía el sol,
Se recuestan en oro,
Galas de despedida.

Díme Alina, ¿qué mala estampa
Hierve en tu sangre hebrea?
De la aljama sales cantando,
Con un puño de arena,
Vagas sin mirar atrás.
No habrá nadie que prenda la lumbre en tu hogar.
Sigue el signo de azar,
De la luna sefardita.

¿Dónde están las llaves de España?
¿Quién abrirá sus puertas?
¿Dónde guarda un pueblo sin alma
Todas las horas muertas?
Vienen de dos en dos,
Las carretas llorando sus heridas de amor,
A perderse en los ojos de la luna sefardita.

Sephardic Moon
Loneliness has gone quiet,
At the coming of a new sunrise,
On the little edge of the city,
Spring sleeps within it, (spring sleeps)
With its eyes of April,
The hills flourish, their wheat towards the sun
And lay over gold,
In festive farewells.

Tell me Alina: What evil mark
Burns in the blood of a Hebrew woman? (Boils in your Hebrew blood?)
You come out of the aljama1 singing,
With a fistful of sand,
You wander without looking back,
There will be no one to light the fire in your home,
Follow the sign of chance, (luck or destiny)
Of the sephardic moon.

Where are the keys of Spain,
Who will open their doors?
Where it keeps a soulless town, (Where does a people without a soul)
And all of the hours gone, (keep all the dead hours?)
They come in twos, (two by two)
In carts, crying over their wounds of love,
Lost in the eyes of the sephardic moon.

The lyrics were inspired by the 'Leyenda de las llaves de Toledo' (The Legend of the Keys of Toledo). This controversial legend dates back to the time when the Sephardic Jews were expelled from Toledo and other cities on the Iberian Peninsula. Forced to leave in haste, many of the Jews left with little more than the keys to their homes in hopes they might one day return. Still today there are descendants of these Sephardic Jews that claim to have the keys to the houses in Toledo that their ancestors left. The song tells the story of the exile through the eyes of Alina, a Jewish girl who left her home using the moon as her guide.

Aljama is a term of Arabic origin used in old official documents in Spain and Portugal to designate the self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Christian rule in the Iberian Peninsula. In some present-day Spanish cities, the name is still applied to the quarters where such communities lived, though they are many centuries gone. [Reference] (the word aljama is pronounced “al-ha-ma”)