Club Bar Mitzvah: Coming of Age in a Disco Inferno

The lights in the Woodland Hills Hilton banquet hall dim, and neon strobes flash across the ceiling to the throbbing beat of teen rock fave Smash Mouth. A team of dancers above the crowd on risers thrusts and gyrates in identical form-fitting black and red costumes.

“Are we ready to bring in Zack?” shouts emcee Billy Ruic into his detachable mike, strutting across the miniature stage like a rock star before a crowd of thousands. “Let’s make some noise. Put your hands together to the beat!”

A spotlight zooms to the rear of the room, and the doors swing open. A shy, 13-year-old boy with spiky, blond hair walks in, a pretty female dancer draped on each arm.

The strobe lights spin crazily. The song “Allstar” cranks up. The dancers get down. Under Ruic’s masterful, choreographed encouragement, the crowd of grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and friends goes wild.

Zack Gerson, the man of the hour, is surrounded by frenzied party-goers. “There is only one place to go from here,” yells Ruic. “And that is a celebrational horaaaaaaaa. . . .”

This is 13-year-old Zack Gerson’s bar mitzvah party. Zack, an eighth-grader at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, was bar mitzvahed a few miles away at Temple Judea. The elaborate theatrical production/aerobics workout/rock concert underway on the dance floor is a package of interactive entertainment available from Hart to Hart, one of this city’s hottest bar mitzvah party companies. Lots of people love the group. Some people don’t. But no one can deny the New York-based Hart to Hart is making its mark on the West Coast bar mitzvah landscape. The group does seven to eight parties a weekend--75% of them bar mitzvahs. Packed into vans, or onto airplanes, the group crisscrosses Los Angeles and the West to perform, traveling from Denver to San Diego to Vegas to San Francisco to help young Jews celebrate their initiation into religious adulthood.

Some of the more than 75 teenagers at Zack’s party project a certain ennui. At 13, they are already worn out by the endless cycle of fancy parties--with their parade of comics, magicians and glass blowers--which they attend almost weekly in this affluent Jewish community.

But most of Zack’s young guests said Hart to Hart is the only entertainment company they would even consider for their own parties.

“My sister had ‘em. My brother had had’em. And every single party I’ve been to except two had ‘em,” said Jeremy Mendelsohn, 12. Added Katie Bronow, 13: “They’ve done every single one I’ve been to except one, and that one was really boring.”

Glitzy Update for a Solemn Tradition

In Jewish tradition, a bar mitzvah marks a boy’s passage to adulthood, with respect to Jewish observances. Until a few decades ago, a bar mitzvah was a modest ceremony at the local synagogue. “We have come a long way from there,” said Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive vice president of the board of rabbis of Southern California.

Starting a few decades ago, more liberal Jewish movements in this country also began to celebrate girls’ religious initiation into adulthood, with a bat mitzvah ceremony.

Today, rabbis worry that some bar mitzvah parties have become so lavish they overshadow the meaning of the event.

“There is no official law saying you can’t have skydivers jump out of the sky, or dancers,” said Eric Kimmel, author of several Jewish-themed books, including one on bar mitzvahs. “But the important thing to remember is, this is a religious ceremony. There should be some dignity involved. You go to some of these parties, and they are break-dancing. What’s Jewish about that? After a while, these things begin to become a joke. They are so lavish, it’s funny.”

Bar mitzvah planners and rabbis say it is not unusual for a family to spend $20,000 to $30,000. Hart to Hart and its competitors charge between $1,800 and $6,000 for entertainment alone.

Hart to Hart, based on Long Island, was founded 21 years ago by Richie Hart, who conceived the business after helping his father, an orchestra leader, get people onto dance floors at parties. The West Coast branch in Woodland Hills was established nine years ago by Marsha Bliss, a former elementary school teacher, after she attended a Hart to Hart bar mitzvah party in New Jersey. She was so inspired, she flew the group to Los Angeles for her daughter’s bat mitzvah.

“There were deejays and bands, but there was nothing in between that captured both adults and children,” said Bliss, who manages a staff of about 50. Most of the dancers are college or graduate students or aspiring Hollywood types.

Today Hart to Hart is one of the leading bar mitzvah entertainment companies in Southern California, constantly raising the bar mitzvah party standard with its trained dancers, amped-up energy and in-your-face style.

Bliss said most clients book the company a year in advance, but a few eager families have already reserved as far ahead as 2003.

Hart to Hart fees start at $2,500 and can top $5,000. Packages usually include music, three to four dancers, an emcee, a deejay, lights, party favors, costuming, staging and a relentless, high-volume motivational patter.

During the cocktail hour, the team of dancers breaks up, spreads out and interacts with young guests like camp counselors, laying the groundwork for the evening. When the party starts, they take center stage, pumping up the guests out on the dance floor.

“The dancers and emcees are on the risers, to motivate the kids. We spotlight the family and the bar mitzvah child,” Bliss said.

Costumes are important, too. And playfully embarrassing a few key family members by suiting them up in outrageous get-ups--such as Afro wigs and sunglasses--can be a key ingredient to a good party.

“We might be told make sure you get Uncle Irv [on stage]. Make him lip sync, and make sure everyone follows along. We have the same thing for the Beach Boys and the Supremes.”

Although Hart to Hart is popular, competition is fierce. Perhaps its stiffest competition comes from Reseda-based “You Should be Dancing,” whose owner, Mike Ryan, said his 23-year-old business does 1,000 parties a year. “We are native Californians,” Ryan said. “We are not in people’s faces. Our goal is to make sure that our guests have a good time, that they are the stars of the show. Our goal is not to keep yelling at them and telling them what to do.”

He said Hart to Hart’s emcees hold their mikes with the ends in the air, like rappers, while his company holds their mikes with the ends down, like traditional performers. “We have hired people who have worked for Hart to Hart,” he said. “We have to tone them down some.”

Zack, who is shy and earnest with blue-green eyes and big puppy feet, said he picked Hart to Hart because his older brother had the group for his bar mitzvah, and it was cool. Indeed, he said he had never been to a bar mitzvah where Hart to Hart wasn’t doing the entertainment. Zack also specifically requested Billy.

“He’s one of the best, in my opinion,” Zack said. “He is more active than anyone else.”

In fact, Ruic is the most requested emcee at Hart to Hart. Ruic is 31, he says, “but I act 12.”

Is he the best?

“I’m not going to toot my own horn, but that’s what I hear,” he says with a grin and a trace of a Long Island accent. “Some guys are too formal, some are too street and hip hop. I’m a little immature, so that helps.”

Zack clearly placed preparation for his religious ceremony first. The day before his bar mitzvah, he played hooky to run through his Torah reading a few more times.

“This ranks as the most important thing I have ever done in my life,” he said. But he said he had managed to find some time to squeeze in a few break-dance moves on the kitchen floor.

That’s Entertainment

Just before the party starts, the Hart to Hart team runs through its moves and rehearses the evening’s events: There will be several themed sets: music of the ‘50s and ‘60s, disco, fiesta and “neon fantasy.” Each set will require a costume change, new props and games. Joining Ruic and a deejay, are four dancers--Ice, Paris, Nikki and Arielle.

Paris chugs an energy drink. Ice does a flashy spin or two. Arielle and Nikki adjust their outfits. Ruic pulls Zack aside. “If you have fun, your friends will have fun. If you are up on stage, and if you put your hands up in the air and say, ‘All right!’ your friends are gonna notice that.” Zack nods.

The dancers pull Zack into their huddle and break into a rowdy inspirational, pre-party cheer reminiscent of enthusiastic seals: “Ar, ar, ar, ar.”

The air is electric with pre-party jitters. Two minutes and counting. Ruic jumps off the stage and spins around on one hand upside down. He rights himself and declares, “We are ready.” In their elegant evening attire, 240 guests--young and old--swarm in from the bar. Entering the room is like stepping through a television screen and into an MTV video. The dancers are lined up on the risers and spring into motion. They groove to the left, groove to the right. The crowd follows the dancers like a clumsy aerobics class.

“Follow the Ice Man for Zack’s bar mitzvah. . . .” Tall and lean, with smooth, fluid moves and bleached curls, Ice takes over. “Do the Zack, do the Zack,” he calls to the crowd. The guests raise their hands and follow along, doing G-rated pelvic thrusts in their gowns, suits and cocktail dresses.

Not a bad crowd, Ruic says during a break.

“If participation sinks below 50%, there are different means you can take,” he says. “You can turn the music off. Or you can make them feel guilty. . . .”

The evening climaxes with the neon set. The dancers hand out white gloves and neon masks in orange, green, pink and blue. They distribute inflatable electric guitars, pull on white T-shirts and don big curly neon wigs.

The room goes dark, and the banquet hall is bathed in black light.

“They are spectacular,” gushes teen guest Amanda Wilson. “I’m going to have them at my bat mitzvah. They dance a lot and get you hyper and stuff.”

The party is a hit with older guests, too: “My friends are usually sitting in the back, with cotton in their ears, because they are all seniors,” said Zack’s grandmother Sandy Soll a couple weeks later. “But in the videos and in the pictures, they are all up on the dance floor. They stayed until the very end.”

Despite the flash, the energy, and the pizazz, midway through the evening, a group of teens gathers outside the hotel ballroom and raps with the man who checks coats. Some are already jaded bar mitzvah connoisseurs. Even Hart to Hart has become old hat.

“They come out here and talk to me; they are just so bored with it,” the coat guy says with a shrug. “A lot of them are here every weekend.”

“Their music is too old,” says 12-year-old Jenna Lolli. “I think they are good,” said Derek Segal, 13. “But I wish they had more props. Like TV cameras and stuff.”