Yael Flexer.  Photo by Chris Nash.

Born in Israel, Yael Flexer is a well-known fixture in London’s bustling contemporary dance scene.  After directing Bedlam Dance Company for over a decade, she joined forces with her frequent collaborator Nic Sandiland to form Yael Flexer, Nic Sandiland/Dance and Digital Works.  Now the partners are treating dance and art-lovers in Tel Aviv to several views of their unique creative vision.  Flexer is teaching a workshop for dancers at Studio B on Wednesday, April 7 and Saturday, April 10, and her latest dance, The Living Room, will be performed at Tmuna Theater on Friday, April 9.  Meanwhile, Nic Sandiland will discuss some of his works, which cross the borders of artistic disciplines, at the Kalisher Gallery on Wednesday, April 13.

I caught up with Yael Flexer via Skype prior to visit to find out more about her work.  Read on to learn about her partnership with Sandiland, the pair’s outlook on performance, her movement style and choreographic aesthetic, and how the The Living Room is connected both to British and Israeli culture.

* * *

Deborah Friedes Galili: When did you start working in London?

Yael Flexer: Oh, ages ago. Probably in 1992.

Deborah: Was that when you founded Bedlam Dance Company?

Yael: Yes, just about.  I was choreographer in residence at the Place Theatre.  And then, as part of that, I set up the company.

Deborah: I understand that the name of your company is different now.  What is the exact name?

Yael: It was Bedlam [Dance Company] for many years.  I did many projects and touring productions and various things, and then the last five or six years I’ve been working more closely with Nic Sandiland.  We’ve been doing more interactive and digital works, and we’ve had a quite a few commissions for different spaces to make works specifically for them that are digitally based, and so it felt like the right time to change the company.  Also, we kind of reached the age/place where it felt a bit more appropriate to just name the company after us.  So people would associate the work with our names . . .

I think a company as a ‘dance company’ suggests something else, and I think we’re more artists that are making work – and it happens to sometimes be live work, and sometimes digital dance work – so I think it’s just to reflect that.   So the company name is basically our names, Yael Flexer, Nic Sandiland/Dance and Digital Works, which is like an umbrella, or a production company.

Deborah: You said that especially around five or six years ago, you started working more with Nic.  Had you worked with him prior to that as well?  Was he part of Bedlam from the beginning?

Yael: No, he made his own work.  He originally trained as an electronics engineer and got into performance in the ‘80s, and then started making his own work.  His work is less dance-specific; it falls under the dance category, but really it’s a whole mixture of things from live work to installation, some of which has more of a dance element.   Others have been commissioned by poetry societies or a variety of venues.  So it doesn’t necessarily have to be dance.  But I think his outlook is really the idea that in some way the public is partner to the choreography and it’s the encounter with virtual performers, in some cases, or between the public and virtual settings.   In a sense, he choreographs the public and considers the public’s movement within the work.

Deborah: Can you tell me a bit about the work that you’re bringing here to Israel?

Yael: Yes, it’s called The Living Room.  But actually, I should say that right from the start, from setting up the company – although sometimes we make commissions for other organizations or companies where we have a lot of digital [work] or projection in performance – for our own work, we like to make very separate things.  So the live work is very intimate and has very little – well, has no digital element.   And then we’ll make installations for galleries or public spaces that have choreography in them to varying degrees.  But we like to keep them quite separate.   It’s almost like two sides of the coin, working in two different mediums.  I think sometimes when people hear “Dance and Digital Work,” they think of work that’s very high tech, and actually, the live work is very low tech, no tech at all.  And the installation work, even though it is high tech, it doesn’t have that high tech aesthetic.  It’s really about intimacy with the viewer.

Yael Flexer’s The Living Room.  Photo by Chris Nash.

Anyway, the live work is called The Living Room, but it’s not really a living room.  I think it’s more a rehearsal space, and in some ways we’re inviting the audience into our space.  So there’s a kind of informality about the presentation.  It’s a very formal work choreographically, but there’s something about allowing people into our space and having a very light or inviting essence of us all being together in one room.  And there are quite a lot of jokes.  Some of them are between us, and some of the jokes are between us and the audience.   There’s quite a lot of banter that goes on that allows that informality.

I think this is quite different from the work you see in Israel, because you don’t really see that level of humor and that amount of text in work.  Often it’s much more movement driven in Israel.  And although this is also very movement-driven – there’s some very strong and physical movement sections – there’s a way in which the work is a bit more open for the audience to be part of it without any audience interaction, as in no audience participation.  I think that’s kind of been a thread through all of my works, this idea of intimacy between an audience and a performer, and the idea that we witness one another so it’s not just about the audience watching us but it’s also about us in a sense watching them, and there’s a kind of equality of gaze and an equality of power between us.  It’s always breaking the fourth wall, which is a term that is often used . . . it always talks about performance and opens the question of performance.

And we imagine things [in this work].  It’s called The Living Room, so we imagine furniture throughout the show.  We walk around pretending to be bits of furniture.  And there’s a way in which the work talks about the domestic, the very day to day, or the passage of time, and about dancing as well.  In Hebrew you’d say tmunat matzav; it’s a kind of picture of us living through time.  We’re slightly different ages; the youngest is 22 and the oldest is 39 – that’s Karni, the composer.  We’re talking about the differences between us and our different experiences in time, so it feels like it’s more about living than about a specific living room.  It’s living in a room [rather] than necessarily a living room.

Deborah: And are you performing in it as well?

Yael: Yes . . . [laughs]

Deborah: I thought I read that somewhere, so I wanted to check!

Yael: I haven’t performed I guess for five years.  I’m in it, but I’m not much in it.  I’m performing in about two sections, dancing.  Mostly I read; I’m the reading light.  And it’s kind of clear that I’m the choreographer’s voice in there.

Deborah: Is the text original text that you as a cast have developed, or is it taken from somewhere?

Yael: There are two kinds of text.   The text that I read is mine.   And the text that we have between us is very simple text.   It’s kind of simple pleasantries, almost.  It’s quite English – thank you, don’t mention it, you’re welcome – things like that which we developed with a dramaturge, Gary Stevens.  He’s a live artist who makes his own work.   We invited him to come along for this production, and he’s brought with him this idea of the furniture, or the imagined furniture, and the text that follows.  I wouldn’t really call it text.  It’s more deconstructive than that; it’s words, really.

Deborah: I’m curious – how does Nic play a role in this?  Obviously, as you said, you keep these things very separate; in this case, it’s the live work, it’s the dance, as opposed to, say, having the technology layered on.   So is he an active collaborator in this piece as well?

Yael: No, it’s a live work.  I collaborate with him on the installation works.  But we recently did the show [The Living Room] at The Place Theater in London, and we did present an installation called Orbital, which has quite a lot of similarities to the live work.  So in a sense we work concurrently, we work at the same time, and one influences the other.

Orbital is an interactive work where the audience circles a projection that’s on the ground.  The speed with which the viewer walks around affects the projection and causes it to move.  The viewers circle the projection, and obviously that [is the] idea of orbit, or orbiting the projection.  And in the piece [The Living Room] we have quite a lot of circles as a kind of feature of the furniture spinning around the room.  So I think they [the works] start to influence one another, almost unconsciously.

The last production was called Doing, Done and Undone, and it was much more clearly related; when we filmed, the camera was almost like another dancer in the dance, and as people move through the installation, they make the footage go back and they affect the time and the speed in which it’s played back.  There’s a sense in which the viewer is inside the performance.  So there’s some works where that relationship is clearer.

We’ve really done so many installation works alongside this live work; there’s others which are more . . . really about the public. We have shop installations placed in high street or in shopping malls where the viewer affects what they see.

But I think in this case, the installation Orbital and the live work The Living Room are two that work together. You’re not going to see Orbital in Israel, but Nic is going to be giving a talk about his work at Kalisher Gallery, part of Seminar Hakibbutzim School, and he’ll talk more about various installations and the theoretical underpinnings of that.

Deborah: Can you talk a little bit about your movement style and your movement aesthetic for this work?

Yael: Generally, my aesthetic is quite functional.  It’s release-based – that’s the technique, anyway.  But it’s very punchy, it’s very fast – but it’s very functional.  There’s a sense in which dance is not decoration. It’s somehow about form and function.  So you’ll see lots of angles and lots of work with joints, breaking through the joints, collapsing towards the floor; there’s quite a lot of material that happens on the floor.

Choreographically, there’s always a kind of mathematical rule or physical rule that leads each particular dance.  Although it is dancing, there is a kind of inert rule that we follow, whether it’s about dancers being in contact and that’s the idea of that particular section; whether it’s about circling and orbiting being an idea for a section; whether it’s about triggering movement, one dancer triggering movement in others, or chasing one another.  We always have quite a clear logic for us as we make the choreography, so that as you view it, you can maybe not work out the logistics or the logic of it but have a sense of coherency about it.  But certainly the movement style is very physical, but very functional . . .

Yael Flexer’s The Living Room.  Photo by Chris Nash.

Often, dance is described as kind of pure dance or dance theater, and I would say the work aligns more with pure dance in that it’s really concerned with the mathematics of space and time rather than trying to convey a kind of drama or relationships in a dramatic sense.  We’re always ourselves when we’re onstage.  We’re never transformed or anything like that. So there’s no sense of transcendence or big drama.  It’s very, very much in the here and now and the how we meet each other and simply being ourselves as people, as dancers.  And I think the work – and certainly the text in the work – talks about that to some degree.
I think what might be interesting for an Israeli reader/viewer is that – because I’m in it and I’m the choreographer voice in it – The Living Room has quite a lot of the notion of the “unhomed.”  I don’t know quite how to translate it to Hebrew, but in some way it’s a word that could only be made by an Israeli not living in Israel in that it talks about the kind of longing but also the loss of a home, in that sense of where I grew up is not where Israel is now.  I think we mention this question of the “unhomed” or the not having a home a lot, and therefore we’re imagining furniture, because we ultimately don’t have a home.   And there are some references [in The Living Room] that are also very English and talk about the dancers and their background, and I think that might be an interesting thing to consider, that kind of reading of the work.  So it’s talking about dancing through time but also the idea of difference, or the idea of a kind of mixed cast of different places and different backgrounds and the sort of longing for a home or to be “homed”.

Deborah: That’s really interesting for me to hear.   I’m from the U.S.; I came to Israel because I was intrigued by Israeli dance and I stayed here.  Some of the things you talk about, I can connect to on a reverse level – you know, what I feel in terms of my relationship to the U.S., although I haven’t been gone as long.  Also, a lot of people certainly ask me – and especially when I was first here and looking at work by Israeli choreographers, I wondered – if there was something that they were saying or that they were dealing with that was coming somehow specifically from their relationship to their home, just in the same way that you could look at anybody who’s American or British or whatnot and see if there’s something culturally specific that they’re considering.  So it’s interesting for me to hear that you do see, somehow, a connection specifically to these issues.

Yael: This particular work definitely refers a lot to cultural baggage, or what is culture and how is it a part of you, or what is you and what isn’t you.  I think it has that perspective of being nearly 40 and having children and being away from Israel and those kinds of questions.  I mean, not everyone would read it in that way, at all, but I think if you want to read it in that way, there are those links.  I’m really interested in performing in Israel, because it would be great to see how an Israeli audience reads it.   Also in a sense, whenever you make work as an Israeli outside of Israel, you are the voice of Israel – whether you like it or not – if you reference Israel in any way. So there are things there that are interesting for an Israeli audience to view, thinking, “Okay, this is what an English audience is seeing about Israel,” or how we are represented through me, I suppose, and through Karni.   So there’s a kind of element of explanation that maybe you would never use if you were only making it for a predominantly Israeli audience.  I mean, I don’t know if it’s the case; I don’t think it’s that much explanation, but I think there are some words that only an Israeli audience would get and in other places it’s just Hebrew; they (an English audience) have no idea what we say.

Deborah: And based on what I saw online, did this just premiere a few weeks ago?

Yael: Yes, we just premiered two weeks ago.

Deborah: So this will be the first performance of it outside of the U.K.

Yael: Yes.

Deborah: Have you brought any of your work to Israel before?

Yael: I have but a really long time ago.  I’ve been doing lots of work in Israel but mostly teaching.  This is the first time we got funding from the British Council to bring the work over, just because it’s a big company.

Deborah: It’s six dancers?

Yael: It’s five dancers, me, and the cellist as well, Karni.

Deborah: Can you talk a little bit about the music?

Yael: Well, there are three composers.  Really there are two, and there’s one track that we used from a different composer (Dougie Evans) that I’ve worked with.   It’s Nye Parry and Karni Postel.   I’ve worked with Karni on two other productions in the past, so it’s an ongoing collaboration, and I’ve worked with Nye for ten years.  And I kind of forced them to get together!  And it’s been great, actually.

The sound score is different from other scores in that it’s more filmic in a way, and having Karni play live just brings a kind of edge to it, and there’s an element of improvisation at play – not entirely, but she has a little more freedom to respond to us with the cello.  We’re really looking at what we called the beautiful cello – this idea of a quite pleasing or harmonic sound and the more distorted, heavy, uncomfortable sound, and the work plays with those two extremes.  So sometimes it’s very comfortable, and sometimes it’s very uncomfortable.  And similarly, sometimes we’re very comfortable and kind of cozy with the audience, and other times we’re a little more edgy or in some senses less familiar with them and with each other, so there’s a sense of maybe more destruction or discomfort or disharmony . . . so that sense of being “unhomed” comes through in the music as well . . .

What else can I tell you?  We’re doing lots of workshops when we’re in Israel.  And this is what we do quite a lot; education work, mostly at the university level but sometimes with youth as well, and sometimes with adults.  I think there’s an element of wanting to know our audience to some degree and that familiarity, so it kind of runs through.   It’s a way of breaking the ice as well, so we’ll have some participants who have done our workshops coming to the show, and I think that’s always nice.

Yael Flexer’s The Living Room.  Photo by Chris Nash.

Deborah: Is there anything else that you think is particularly important to say about the work or your company?

Yael: It’s good to mention that the dancers are a very equal part in the making of the work. It’s a very adult company, I mean, although we range from 22 to 38 or so. The way I approach it is very democratic; it’s quite a social and democratic way of conceiving and making the work. So even though I direct it and make certain decisions, obviously, it’s not hierarchical in any way. That’s really important for me. You know, we always have a really good laugh making the work, and I think you can see that when you see the work. That’s a device to get what I want out of the dancers and the kind of work I want to make. In a sense, the work represents a kind of process, and I think that might be different from other choreographers’ process. So the social part of being together and making work is just as much a part of the work, or becomes part of the work.

More Details

Yael Flexer, Nic Sandiland/Dance and Digital Works presents Flexer’s The Living Room at the Tmuna Theater in Tel Aviv at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, April 9.  Tickets (NIS 65) are available at (03) 561-1211.  Nic Sandiland talks about his work at the Kalisher Gallery on Tuesday, April 13; for more details, call (03) 516-5535.

Related Links

• Yael Flexer
• Nic Sandiland
• Tmuna Theater
• Studio B

Gaya Bommer.  Photo by Yossi Zveker.

Israeli contemporary dance has gained international renown over the last two decades, but the country’s small ballet scene is barely known abroad. Yet next week, one of the world’s most prestigious youth ballet competitions, the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), will include an Israeli: the 11-year-old Gaya Bommer.

Gaya Bommer started dancing as a young child at her mother’s studio, the Nadine Bommer Dance Academy, and became more serious about her training at the age of 7. Now, under the tutelage of Nadine and ballet teachers Jay Augen and Roz Sobol, Gaya is bound for the YAGP in New York City. There she will perform one of Swanhilda’s variations from Coppélia as well as a contemporary solo choreographed by her mother in the hopes of placing in the top twelve at the Pre-Competitive level.

Gaya’s trajectory to this elite competition was a quick one. Though Gaya always displayed an aptitude for dance, it was not until this summer that her singular talent became evident. While accompanying Nadine, who was teaching in Europe, Gaya entered her first international competition and won first place. She was subsequently invited to the semifinals of the YAGP in Italy.

Even at this stage, the presence of an Israeli was of note.  Nadine recalls, “When we were in the semifinals, they even talked about it that Israel was in this competition for the first time. It was also a surprise for them . . . They come from each country of the world with a big group, because they don’t bring only dancers at the Pre-Competitive age; they also bring the other ages. And when they called [the group from] Israel to come and present ourselves, only Gaya came!”

In Italy, Gaya drew attention not just for her nationality but for her fine performance.  Impressed, the judges advanced her to the finals in New York, which begin on March 21. There she will compete against approximately one hundred other dancers in her age group.

Nadine, who herself has won awards for her choreography including the crowd favorite prize at the 2009 No Ballet Competition in Germany, hopes that Gaya will not only shine in her classical variation but stand out from the crowd in her contemporary solo, Wild Horses. “I think she’s very unique in her contemporary piece of mine . . . I made something that I think will be interesting for [people at YAGP] to see, because what we do in Israel is really different in contemporary dance,” Nadine reflects.

Regardless of the outcome, simply to participate in the YAGP finals is a major achievement for Gaya. “For us, for Israel to have a ballerina or a dancer in this competition . . . it’s a very big, big, big, huge thing!” Nadine marvels. “I’m happy she’s going to have this experience.”

Related Links

• Youth America Grand Prix
• Nadine Bommer Dance Academy

On my first full day in Israel nearly two and a half years ago, I made a pilgrimage to the Suzanne Dellal Center.  Although I didn’t yet grasp the scope of the complex’s activities, I had heard that this was the epicenter of the Israeli contemporary dance scene, and that was enough to make me wander through the maze of Neve Tzedek’s streets until I finally found the right spot.

Throughout my first year of research, as I attended scores of performances and classes at Suzanne Dellal, my admiration and appreciation of the center only grew.  And now, as I visit the center daily, I am no less astonished by the activity it supports.  Classes, rehearsals, performances, and festivals keep the studios and theaters of Suzanne Dellal busy from nine in the morning to late at night, year-round.  Indeed, the numbers published by the center are remarkable: each year, the Suzanne Dellal Center boasts an astonishing 600+ performances and welcomes approximately  500,000 visitors. And since its establishment in 1989, the center has presented over 1,200 premieres – most of which are dances.

Throughout 2009, festivals and photographic exhibitions celebrated the Suzanne Dellal Center’s twentieth anniversary, calling attention to the center’s extraordinary contribution to the field of dance in Israel.  Although it’s now 2010, the celebration of the center’s activities is continuing: on February 23, Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar announced that the Suzanne Dellal Center would be awarded the Israel Prize, one of this country’s highest honors.

Chaired by Dr. Hadassah Shani, the selection committee commended the center.  “In its 20 years of activity, the Suzanne Dellal Center has caused dance in Israel to take off,” they acknowledged. “The many and varied artistic endeavors of the center have spawned a new generation of artists, creators and performers, in the arena of artistic dance. Creative excellence on the center’s stage has broadened, and continues to broaden, the circle of dance lovers [in Israel].  The center’s activities opened the gates of the world’s most important dance to the Israeli dance scene and made it possible for Israel’s artistic dance to make its stamp in the international arena.  This is a prize for initiators and supporters of the vision that became reality.”

The Minister of Culture and Sports, Limor Livnat, added, “The Suzanne Dellal Center is one of the most fascinating and unique centers in the field of dance in the entire world. In the 20 years since its founding, the center, under the direction of Yair Vardi, has turned into a center of pilgrimage for creators and dancers from the country and from the world.  The Suzanne Dellal Center brings us much pride, and the bestowing of the Israel Prize expresses the great appreciation that we have for the center and for Yair Vardi.”

The Israel Prize will be given to the Suzanne Dellal Center by President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin, President of the Supreme Court Dorit Beinisch, Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat, and Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar.  The award ceremony will be held at the Jerusalem Theatre on April 20^th, Israel’s Independence Day, and will be broadcast live on Channel 1.

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Interview with Yair Vardi: A View of Israeli Concert Dance from the Top
• Photodance Exhibit Celebrates 20 Years of Dance at Suzanne Dellal
• Tel Aviv’s 100th + Suzanne Dellal’s 20th = The Big Stage
• Remembering Big Performances at Suzanne Dellal’s Big Stage

Related Links

• Suzanne Dellal Center

Video: Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet performing Ohad Naharin’s Decadance

If you’re in Atlanta, Georgia – or if you know someone in Atlanta – here’s a heads up:

I’m happy to announce that I am speaking in the Emory Friends of Dance Lecture Series on Wednesday, February 24 at 7:00 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time).  My talk, Foreign Exchange: American and Israeli Dance from Martha Graham to Ohad Naharin, will precede a performance by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet of Ohad Naharin’s Decadance.  I won’t be in Atlanta in person, but I will be speaking via Skype and have an exciting presentation prepared!

Cedar Lake performing Ohad Naharin’s Decadance.  Photo by Paul B. Goode.

Here’s the official blurb about my lecture:

Forty years ago, Israel’s premiere dance company imported works by top American choreographers.  Now cutting-edge American troupes like Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet are drawing crowds with choreography by Israeli artists.  In this lecture, dance scholar Deborah Friedes Galili explores the dynamic relationship between American and Israeli dance and traces the meteoric rise of Israeli contemporary dance.  This lecture will be presented live from Israel via webcam prior to the performance by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.

Cedar Lake performing Ohad Naharin’s Decadance.  Photo by Paul B. Goode.

My lecture is free and open to the public, so if you’re in Atlanta, I hope you will come listen in the Chase Lobby at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, 1700 N. Decatur Road.  I will speak for one half hour, and then there will be a question and answer session.  Please let others know about this event as well!

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Batsheva Dance Company: From Graham to Gaga
• Americans in Israel: Cedar Lake in Tel Aviv Dance 2008
• Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed

Related Links

• Emory Dance Program Events
• Emory Report (article about the event)
• Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
• Batsheva Dance Company

The flyer for the Anna Sokolow centennial exhibition in Tel Aviv. Courtesy Henia Rottenberg.

Attention dance history fans: this year is the centennial of choreographer Anna Sokolow’s birth, and her artistic achievements are being commemorated around the world, including in Israel.  In this guest article, Hannah Kosstrin, who recently visited Tel Aviv to research Sokolow’s work here, reflects on Sokolow’s influence on dance in Israel and highlights upcoming centennial celebrations.

Celebration in Pictures: Anna Sokolow Centennial at the Dance Library of Israel

By Hannah Kosstrin

A new exhibit at the Dance Library of Israel celebrates the life and work of Anna Sokolow (1910-2000), whose centennial is celebrated this month.  Sokolow, an American-born Jewish choreographer who worked internationally and considered Israel her second home, carved out a space for herself in the Israeli dance landscape.  She first came to Tel Aviv in 1953 on the recommendation of Jerome Robbins and with the support of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, where she worked with Sara Levi-Tanai and Inbal Yemenite Dance Group (Inbal Dance Theatre).  In the early 1960s, she established her Lyric Theatre.  This company was active for months out of each year, and toured cities and kibbutzim throughout Israel.  Later, she choreographed for Israeli companies including Batsheva Dance Company, Bat-Dor Dance Company, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Chamber Theatre, Springboard Dance Company, and Habima.  Her work touched many dancers and teachers who remain prominent in dance in Israel, including Paul Bloom, Galia Gat, Rena Gluck, Yaron Margolin, Moshe Romano, and Rena Schenfeld, and Ze’eva Cohen and Margalit Oved, who work in the United States.

With the Lyric Theatre (1962-1964), Sokolow continued to develop her performance form that she termed lyric theater, a combination of dancing and acting that blurred the lines between disciplines and created works wherein performers drew from both movement and acting bodies of knowledge.  Such works include Rooms and Dreams, originally created in the U.S. and then performed by the Lyric Theatre, and Forms and Poem, for which Sokolow worked closely with Israeli dancers to mount.  Sokolow was concerned foremost with truth in movement and with honesty in dancers’ performance. Using elements of the Stanislavsky Method that she garnered through a trip to Russia in 1934 and work with Elia Kazan and the Actors Studio in New York through the 1950s, Sokolow drew from performers’ own experiences to craft their characters within the context of each work.  Sokolow trained in Martha Graham’s technique through her work with that company during the 1930s.  Many of Sokolow’s dances from the 1930s-1940s show a strong Graham influence in her own movement via initiations by torso contractions and spirals through the back.  Sokolow’s dances from the 1950s onward, however, feature pieces crafted from movement and gestures found in daily life, from running to grasping hands to slamming against a wall.  Her work also presents quieter, vulnerable moments with arched backs and reaching arms, all while retaining the immediacy of movement coming from the “gut.”

Sokolow is known for making dances of social comment, and for reflecting humanity in the most inhumane of situations.  Dreams (1961), an evening-length group work, contains vignettes of harrowing concentration camp scenes leading to a dignified and wrongful death, while In Memory Of…543246 (1973), a solo for Rena Schenfeld, is a portrait of a Holocaust victim.  And the Disciples Departed (1967), a collaborative work with director Thomas J. Knott for American television, comments on the Vietnam war, racism in the U.S., and the rape of Kitty Genovese.  Rooms (1955), Sokolow’s landmark piece that cemented her place as a canonical concert dance choreographer, exposes loneliness, urban alienation, and unrequited desire.  The work is set against Kenyon Hopkins’ jazz score that alternates between driving adrenaline and stark atonal punctuations.  Earlier, in the 1940s, Sokolow made dances with Jewish themes and about Biblical heroines to stand in solidarity with Jews worldwide during the Holocaust.  The most well-known of these dances is Kaddish (1945), a memorial for Holocaust victims in which Sokolow defied contemporary gender conventions by laying tefillin around her arm.  Sokolow kept her Jewish identity at the core of all of her work, and her time in Israel fed and reinforced this connection.

The exhibit at the Dance Library of Israel commemorates Sokolow’s career through photographs and other ephemera, and it runs through September 2010.  The Dance Library of Israel is located at Beit Ariela, 25 Shaul Hamelech Boulevard in Tel Aviv.  More information is on the Beit Ariela library’s blog.

For information about Sokolow Centennial celebrations outside of Israel, please visit:

• Sokolow Dance Foundation
• Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble

Hannah Kosstrin is a Ph.D. Candidate in Dance Studies at The Ohio State University (OSU). Her dissertation project focuses on Anna Sokolow’s work from 1927-1961. It is supported by the OSU Melton Center for Jewish Studies, the P.E.O. International Sisterhood, and the OSU Department of Women’s Studies Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Graduate Studies Grant for Research on Women, Gender, and Gender Equity. She has performed, choreographed, and taught in Boston, MA and Columbus, OH, U.S.A.

Ohad Naharin.  Photo by Maxim Vart.

It’s been a banner year for Ohad Naharin.  Just a few months after receiving the prestigious Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award, the choreographer was named as one of the recipients of a Dance Magazine Award.  Naharin will be honored alongside postmodern pioneer Sara Rudner, Balanchine ballerina Allegra Kent, and tapper extraordinaire Jason Samuels Smith on November 9 at the Florence Gould Hall in New York City.

The November issue of Dance Magazine features profiles of all four honorees, and I wrote the section on Naharin.  Scroll down and zoom in below to read my article about Naharin and learn more about these other dance greats.

Download (PDF, 3.8MB)

Related posts on Batsheva Dance Company and Ohad Naharin on Dance In Israel

• “Getting to Know the Batsheva Ensemble”
• “MAX – Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography”
• “Mamootot – Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide”
• “Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed”
• “Ohad Naharin to Receive 2009 Scripps/ADF Award”
• “Ohad Naharin in America: Out of Focus Documentary”
• “Batsheva Dance Company Premieres Ohad Naharin’s Hora“
• “The Batsheva Ensemble on Tour at Home and Abroad”
• “Batsheva Dance Company: From Graham to Gaga”
• “Phaza Morgana 2009: Batsheva Dance Company in the Desert”

Related posts on Gaga on Dance In Israel

• “Going Gaga: My Introduction to Gaga Dance Classes” (my overview of Gaga dance classes)
• “Gaga: Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language, in His Own Words” (featuring a quote by Ohad Naharin about Gaga)
• “Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language” (a reflection on my experience in Ohad Naharin’s Gaga classes)
• “Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)” (with a video of Ohad Naharin discussing some concepts from Gaga)
• “A Glimpse into the Gaga Workshop (2008)” (including a video from last year’s workshop)
• “Reflections on the Gaga Intensive 2009″ (dancers share their memories from this year’s workshop)
• “Gaga for Dancers: From the Gaga Intensive to New Open Classes”

Related links

• Batsheva Dance Company
• Dance Magazine

At Home

Lee In Soo’s Modern Feeling is part of Tel Aviv Dance.  Photo courtesy of Ora Lapidot.

Tel Aviv Dance 2009 is in full swing at the Suzanne Dellal Center and the Opera House.  Still to come are companies and choreographers from France, Spain, Korea, and Israel.  Check out the lineup in Tel Aviv Dance 2009 Mixes Global and Local Dance and get to the theater from now until November 13 to catch some of the best international dance around.

Sharon Vazanna’s Walking Inside Water.  Photo by Amina Husberg.

Noa Dar’s Us premieres at Curtain Up 2009.  Photo by Tamar Lamm.

Soon after Tel Aviv Dance finishes, another major festival will take its place on Suzanne Dellal’s stage.  Haramat Masach, or Curtain Up, is an annual platform for premieres by Israeli choreographers.  To celebrate the Suzanne Dellal Center’s 20th anniversary, this year the festival invited established choreographers to create new works and host fresh creations by emerging artists.  Curtain 1 opens with Nimrod Freed plus Anat Grigorio and Dafi Altbeb; Curtain 2 pairs Vertigo Dance Company’s Noa Wertheim with Elad Shechter; Curtain 3 boasts Yasmeen Godder and Iris Erez; Curtain 4 includes Tel Aviv Dance Company’s Yaara Dolev and Michael Miler; Curtain 5 features Noa Dar with Maya Brinner and Irad Mazliah; and Curtain 6 closes with the team of Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor as well as Noa Shadur.  The festival ends with a special performance of the Inbal Pinto Dance Company in Trout. Check back soon for more posts on Curtain Up 2009, and see below for articles about individual choreographers who will be participating in this year’s festival.

Video: Rina Badash’s Revealed Under the Covers

Although Curtain Up dominates the dance programming in late November, there are still a few dance performances to be found outside this platform.  On November 26, Tmuna Theater will host Rina Badash’s Revealed Under the Covers, a multidisciplinary work featuring a solo dancer, live music, and video art projected on four screens.

Abroad

Ohad Naharin’s MAX. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

After presenting Ohad Naharin’s Hora and Mamootot at home during the Tel Aviv Dance festival, the Batsheva Dance Company is packing its bags for a European tour.  Audiences in the Netherlands, France, and Germany can catch performances of Naharin’s Mamootot, Deca Dance, MAX, and Sharon Eyal’s Love. Want to read more about these works?  Take a look at Mamootot: Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide, Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed, and MAX: Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography.

Ohad Naharin teaching Gaga in Tel Aviv.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Meanwhile in New York, Ohad Naharin will receive one of the 2009 Dance Magazine Awards on November 9.  During his trip stateside, he will teach master classes in Gaga at Peridance in New York City from November 9-10.  Hear some of the choreographer’s thoughts on Gaga in Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video).

Noa Wertheim’s Mana. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Further south in Washington D.C., Vertigo Dance Company will perform Noa Wertheim’s new Mana at the General Assembly of The Jewish Federations of North America (the GA).  This year the GA will meet from November 8-10, and Vertigo will perform at the opening plenary which also features a speech by President Barack Obama.  Israeli audiences can see Mana when Vertigo performs at Curtain Up in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation.  Photo by Tamar Lamm.

Yasmeen Godder’s dancers are also headed to Europe for more performances of Singular Sensation in Belgium and Germany.  Learn more about the choreographer in Close Encounters Series: Yasmeen Godder.

For Young Dancers in Israel

Over the next several months, a select group of young aspiring dancers will develop their artistry in weekly Gaga classes and repertory workshops taught by members of the Batsheva company and staff.  Want to be part of this project?   If you’re between the ages of 14 and 22, you can audition on November 10 at Studio Varda in the Suzanne Dellal Center.  For more information, contact Michal at todance@013net.net.

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Tel Aviv Dance 2009 Mixes Global and Local Dance
• Vertigo Dance Company: Art, Environment, Community
• Close Encounters Series: Yasmeen Godder
• Behind the Scenes at Gvanim: Shades of Dance Festival (about Michael Miler)
• Noa Dar Discusses Her Dance Career (Podcast)
• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor: An Interview with Dramatic Dancemakers (Podcast)
• Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak: An Interview on Imagination (Podcast)
• Mamootot: Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide
• Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed
• MAX: Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography
• Gaga in Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)

Related Links

• Nimrod Freed
• Vertigo Dance Company
• Yasmeen Godder
• Michael Miler
• Noa Dar
• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor
• Inbal Pinto Dance Company
• Batsheva Dance Company
• Peridance
• United Jewish Communities General Assembly (the GA)

(You can subscribe to this podcast using the iTunes software by clicking this link to the podcast feed.)

Usually I meet choreographers before I interview them, or at least I have seen a concert or two of theirs.  But having heard plenty of positive buzz and watched some captivating clips on YouTube, I was sufficiently intrigued about Andrea Miller to set up a Skype conversation with the New York-based choreographer this summer.

Unlike most of the artists I’ve interviewed in the last two years, Andrea isn’t Israeli.  However, she’s no stranger to the Israeli contemporary dance scene.  Prior to taking Manhattan by storm with her three-year-old company, Gallim Dance, Andrea lit up the stage as a member of the Batsheva Ensemble.  I couldn’t help but wonder if and how her fresh aesthetic had been affected by her time here in Israel.

Gallim Dance in Andrea Miller’s Blush. Photo by Karli Cadel.

Andrea and I spoke shortly after Gallim Dance made an appearance at Jacob’s Pillow, one of the most prestigious summer dance festivals in the United States.  Besides discussing Blush, which Gallim Dance presented at the Pillow, we talked about Andrea’s path from training in Humphrey-Weidman technique to Juilliard to Batsheva.  Join us as Andrea reflects on her experience in Israel, Gaga, her artistic influences, and Gallim Dance.

If you too are intrigued by Andrea, you can hear more from her when she participates in a special panel, Contemporary Israeli Dance and the Reinvention of the Jewish Body, at the JCC Manhattan on October 22 during Jewish Body Week.  Want to see some of her choreography?  The Northwest Professional Dance Project is premiering a dance by her this week in Portland, Oregon, and in the next few months alone, Andrea’s work will be presented by Utah’s Repertory Dance Theatre, Ballet Hispanico, and the Juilliard School.  2010 will take Andrea to Holland, Canada, and Switzerland before Gallim Dance’s summer engagement at the Joyce Theater in New York City.  And for now, you can get a taste of her work by watching the clips below.

Video: Gallim Dance trailer, with excerpts from several of Andrea Miller’s works

Gallim Dance in Andrea Miller’s Blush. Photo by Franziska Strauss.

Video: Excerpts from Andrea Miller’s Blush

Related Posts on Dance In Israel

• Gallim Dance at Jacob’s Pillow: Waves of Israeli Influence
• Israeli Dance: What’s Happening in October

Other Podcasts on Dance In Israel

• Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak: An Interview on Imagination
• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor: An Interview with Dramatic Dancemakers
• Interview with Yair Vardi: A View from the Top
• Renana Raz: Choreographing Israeli Culture and Beyond
• Sahar Azimi Speaks about Choreography and Contemporary Dance
• Shlomit Fundaminsky: An Interview on Improvisation and Israeli Life
• Noa Dar Discusses Her Dance Career

Related Links

• Gallim Dance
• Jewish Body Week (with information about the panel Contemporary Israeli Dance and the Reinvention of the Jewish Body)

As usual, there are lots of dance performances happening in Israel’s dance scene this month – but as I looked at the calendar, I realized that October is packed with several extra-special events.  Below are some teasers for premieres, festivals, foreign tours, online contests, and more.  For additional information about the following events and other performances, please visit the Dance In Israel Calendars.

Israeli Dance at Home

The members of Maria Kong.  Photo by ASCAF.

Four former Batsheva dancers – Anderson Braz, Leo Lerus, Ya’ara Moses, and Talia Landa – make up Maria Kong, a new company which debuted fling last month to sold-out crowds.  Now in its second run at the Nachmani Theater in Tel Aviv until October 10 and with a third set of shows planned for November 9-15, fling is clearly here to stay.  3-D projections, stunning costumes, and a striking score of both live and recorded music set an otherworldly mood for the work, but it’s the group’s supremely dynamic movement and supercharged stage presence which gives fling a lasting impact.

Shlomit Fundaminsky in La Divina. Photo by Aviv Zemer.

In honor of Tmuna Theater’s 29th anniversary, this month’s performances at the Tel Aviv institution are priced at a mere 29 shekels (that’s roughly $8!).  Participating choreographers and dance groups include Shlomit Fundaminsky, Hagit Yakira, Ensemble Maya and Tomer, Acco Dance Center, Anat Shamgar, Efrat Reuven, Benyamin Yagendorf, Elad Ben-Sasson, Inbal Shachar, Tzachi Cohen, Shai Faran, Aviv Eveguy, and Maya Brenner.  Hear about Shlomit’s work in Shlomit Fundaminsky: An Interview about Improvisation and Israeli Life.

Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s 4 Men, Alice, Bach and the Deer.  Photo by Matyas Krotziger.

Yossi Berg and Oded Graf are presenting their new 4 Men, Alice, Bach and the Deer at the Lab in Jerusalem on October 14-15 and at the Inbal Theater in Tel Aviv’s Suzanne Dellal Center on October 16-17.  This often humorous exploration of the idealized man won rave reviews when it premiered this summer in Germany and Poland, and now the choreographers have revamped their work with a cast of standout Israeli dancers: Hillel Kogan, Irad Matzliach, and Yossi Berg and Oded Graf themselves.

Barak Marshall’s Rooster premieres in Tel Aviv Dance 2009.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

October means it’s time for the Tel Aviv Dance festival!  This festival brings some of the hottest names in dance from around the world to the Suzanne Dellal Center and the Tel Aviv Opera House.  Stay tuned to Dance In Israel for more on Tel Aviv Dance 2009, which runs from October 16 through November 13 – and if you’re nostalgic, you can reread my preview of Tel Aviv Dance 2008.  Last year Barak Marshall’s Monger was a big hit when it opened Tel Aviv Dance, and this year, his new work Rooster will close the festival.

In partnership with the Israeli hotel chain Isrotel, the Batsheva Dance Company is presenting the 6th Phaza Morgana Festival in Timna National Park, Eilat from October 22-24.  This year’s festival includes Take Two, a program featuring choreography by Ohad Naharin and Sharon Eyal; Anaphaza, one of Ohad Naharin’s iconic works; and a special appearance by the Idan Raichel Project.  Check out my most recent article on Batsheva, Batsheva Dance Company: From Graham to Gaga, for background on the company and a list of other related articles about the group.

Israeli Dance Abroad

Whether you’re in Europe, the United States, or Asia, there’s something coming your way this month . . . .

Barak Marshall’s Monger. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Barak Marshall’s production of Monger kicked off this month with a trip to Seoul and Daego, South Korea; the final performance of this tour is October 7th.

Video: Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s Heroes.

Besides presenting their 4 Men, Alice, Bach and the Deer in Israel, Yossi Berg and Oded Graf are taking Heroes to the N.O.W. Festival in Saarbrucken, Germany on October 10.  The pair returns to Staatsheater Kassel, Germany for an October 25 showing of a new creation, Fairy Tales, which has its official world premiere in December.

Iris Erez in Arkadi Zaides’s Solo Colores.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

From October 11 until the 25, Arkadi Zaides is touring with Solo Colores and Solo Siento in Asia.  After showing Solo Colores at the Shanghai Dance Festival in Shanghai, both works will be performed in Taipei at the Kuan Du Arts Festival and then in Tokyo.  For more about these works, check out my article Arkadi Zaides: Community Connections and Stunning Solos.

Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation.  Photo by Tamar Lamm.

Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation will be performed in Prague on October 11-12 as part of 4+4 Days in Motion, and on the 28th-29th, the work will be part of TANZ IN BERN in Bern, Switzerland.  Read more about Yasmeen’s work in Close Encounters Series: Yasmeen Godder.

Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak’s Hydra.  Photo by Seto Hidemi.

The Inbal Pinto Dance Company takes Hydra to the Dance Umbrella Festival in London on October 18-19.  The creators talked about the development of Hydra in my podcast Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak: An Interview on Imagination.

Gilat Amotz’s Empty Room.  Photo by Lucky Trimmer, Berlin.

Gilat Amotz’s solo Empty Room will be performed in Masdanza, the  International Contemporary Dance Festival of the Canary Islands.  Empty Room is one of only 10 solos which were selected for this competition, which runs from October 17-24.  Gilat’s choreography was also chosen to be included in the Masdanza Tenerife Festival at the Teatro Victoria in Santa Cruz in Tenerife from October 25-26.

As part of Nextbook’s Jewish Body Week, the Foundation for Jewish Culture is presenting an evening titled Contemporary Israeli Dance and the Reinvention of the Jewish Body at the JCC in Manhattan on October 22.  Choreographers Deganit Shemy, Andrea Miller of Gallim Dance, and Saar Harari of LeeSaar: The Company will show excerpts of their work and participate in a panel discussion moderated by dance writer Elizabeth Zimmer.  Read a bit about Deganit Shemy’s premiere of Arena at DTW last spring in From Writing to Talking about Dance, and find out about Andrea Miller’s connection to Israeli contemporary dance in Gallim Dance at Jacobs Pillow: Waves of Influence.

Rachel Erdos’s Alma. Photo from Gvanim Be’machol 2007.

Rachel Erdos is headed to the United States to set Alma on the Washington D.C.-based troupe CityDance Ensemble.  Her work will be performed at the Kennedy Center as part of CityDance’s “Latitude” program on October 29-30.  CityDance toured the Middle East last spring, and I caught up with them in east Jerusalem; read about their visit in CityDance in Jerusalem: Exploring the Gaps Between American and Israeli Dance.

Israeli Dance Online

Video: Michael Miler’s Speed of Light

Michael Miler’s Speed of Light is one of 10 finalists in the Sadler’s Wells Global Dance Contest 2009.  The winning entry will be performed at Sadler’s Wells in London in January 2010 as part of the program Sadler’s Wells Program.  Like Speed of Light?  Vote for it! Speed of Light caught my eye when it premiered at the Shades of Dance Festival last March; read my impressions in Behind the Scenes at Gvanim: Shades of Dance Festival.

* * *

For a calendar including these events and other performances, please visit the Dance In Israel Calendars.  Know of some other exciting event relating to Israeli dance in Israel or abroad?  Leave a comment below with the details!

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Batsheva Dance Company: From Graham to Gaga
• Shlomit Fundaminsky: An Interview about Improvisation and Israeli Life (Podcast)
• Close Encounters Series: Yasmeen Godder
• Arkadi Zaides: Community Connections and Stunning Solos
• Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak: An Interview on Imagination (Podcast)
• From Writing to Talking about Dance
• Gallim Dance at Jacobs Pillow: Waves of Influence
• CityDance in Jerusalem: Exploring the Gaps Between American and Israeli Dance
• Tel Aviv Dance 2008
• Behind the Scenes at Gvanim: Shades of Dance Festival

Related Links

• Maria Kong
• Tmuna Theater
• Yossi Berg and Oded Graf
• Tel Aviv Dance 2009 English Program
• Batsheva Dance Company
• Barak Marshall
• Arkadi Zaides
• Yasmeen Godder
• Inbal Pinto Dance Company
• Gilat Amotz
• Gallim Dance
• LeeSaar The Company
• Deganit Shemy
• Jewish Body Week
• Foundation for Jewish Culture
• Michael Miler

Yasmeen Godder’s I’m Mean I Am. Photo by Tamar Lamm.

Suzanne Dellal’s next show boasts quite an impressive roster of choreographers and performers.  It’s not every day that you find these names on the same bill: Ohad Naharin, Sharon Eyal, Rami Be’er, Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak, Ido Tadmor, Yasmeen Godder, Nir Ben Gal & Liat Dror, Emanuel Gat, Noa Wertheim, Rina Schenfeld, Renana Raz, Sahar Azimi, Arkadi Zaides, Idan Cohen, Tamar Borer, Talia Paz, Michael Gatman, Michael Miler, Sally-Anne Friedland, Dana Ruttenberg, Amit Goldenberg & Ya’ara Dolev, Saar Harari, Iris Erez, Silvia Duran, Elina Pechersky, Doron Raz, Luc Jacobs, Ron Amit & Mor Shani, Shani Garfinkel, and Mami Shimizaki.

But while audiences are used to watching these choreographers’ creations onstage, this show transports their dances to a new territory: the walls.  The show is Photodance, an exhibit of photography celebrating the many productions presented during the Suzanne Dellal Center’s twenty-year history.

Luc Jacobs’ Oole Boole.  Photo by Ascaf.

For Photodance, curator Hadas Maor has assembled an array of striking photographs capturing moments in performance, in rehearsal, and in staged photo shoots.  Contributing photographers include Gadi Dagon, Michal Hayman, Li Yanor, Vardi Cahana, Tamar Lamm, Eyal Landsman, Pnina Even-Tal, Emmanuel Ogdan, Ascaf, Amit Berlovich, Kfir Bolotin, Ran Biran, Adi Mazan, Itay Marom, Avi Nathan, Daniel Chechik, and Ron Kedmi.

Silvia Duran.  Photo by Deddy Lifshitz.

As part of Suzanne Dellal’s 20th anniversary celebrations, Photodance fittingly displays the variety and wealth of Israeli dance which has been nurtured at the center.  Contemporary dance – the hallmark of Israel’s growing dance scene – is highlighted, but other forms including flamenco and Middle Eastern dance are also represented in the photographs.  Large, established companies like the Batsheva Dance Company and the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company are showcased alongside budding independent choreographers such as Michael Miler, Iris Erez, and Dana Ruttenberg.  And notably, some of the dances featured in Photodance were created for the Suzanne Dellal Center’s beloved festivals, including Curtain Up and Shades of Dance.

Ron Amit and Mor Shani’s Lu Carmela. Photo by Kfir Bolotin.

Choreography by Sahar Azimi.  Photo by Eyal Landesman.

Choreography by Amit Goldenberg and Ya’ara Dolev.  Photo by Adi Mazan.

Information about the Exhibit

Photodance opens to the public on Thursday, September 3rd at 6:00 p.m. and will remain open for several hours each day through September 7th.  For the exhibit’s exact hours, please check the Events calendar.  On September 8th, Simon de Pury of the Phillips de Pury & Company auction house will conduct an auction of the photographs; all proceeds will support Israeli dance.

Renana Raz in Amit Goldenberg and Ya’ara Dolev’s Dede Dance Company.  Photo by Adi Mazan.

Addendum (September 3rd)

This morning I attended a preview of the exhibit which was open for journalists, and happily, I was able to bring along my parents and cousins who are visiting Israel.  As we walked through the two dance studios which have been artfully transformed into gallery spaces, I had the pleasure of seeing Photodance through two distinctly different lenses: my own and that of my family.

For me, having spent so much time researching the development of Israeli contemporary dance, it was incredible to see a collection of photographs which documented several landmark works and captured the central players in the field.  While looking at photographs from the late 1980s and early 1990s, I marveled at the younger images of choreographers whom I have interviewed – such as Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal – and I caught glimpses of how their aesthetic has transformed.

For my family, who is new to the scene, the exhibit was like a magical kaleidescope revealing the many colors of Israeli concert dance in one quick turn of the studios.  It was fascinating to see which photographs caught their eye, and it was fun to see them make connections between very different photographs of the same artists.

This retrospective represents just a small slice of all the activity at Suzanne Dellal over the last 20 years.  It’s incredible to think how the field of dance has blossomed since the opening of the center – and I can’t help but wonder what will come in the next 20 years.

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Tel Aviv’s 100th + Suzanne Dellal’s 20th = The Big Stage
• Remembering Big Performances at Suzanne Dellal’s Big Stage

Related Links

• Suzanne Dellal Center

DTW’s artistic director, Carla Peterson, talks about Deganit Shemy’s work

Now that the jetlag is wearing off and I’m more or less settled back in to Tel Aviv, I’m ready to tell the tales of a dance blogger on vacation in the U.S.

What does a dance blogger do on vacation?

Well, besides seeing family and friends, this blogger did a bit of work and went from writing about dance to talking about dance.

Lecturing on Dance in Israel

I started my trip with two lectures about dance in Israel.  Many thanks to all of my readers who sent me suggestions and voiced their interest when I posted my “Call for Help,” and a special thanks to Kathy Hassinger at Emerson College and Jodi Falk at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School for inviting me to talk to their classes.

After months of staring at my computer screen while typing posts – and then desperately hoping to get some feedback, no matter how delayed, in the form of comments or e-mails – the immediate responses of the Emerson and PVPA students was a welcome change.  When I talked about the history of concert dance in Israel and the flowering of Israeli contemporary dance, curious students peppered me with questions; when I showed video excerpts of choreography, the rooms buzzed with students’ excited murmurs.  I loved sharing my insights and hearing their reactions – and I hope that I will have many more chances in the future to talk about dance in Israel.

Seeing Deganit Shemy’s Arena and Meeting Dance Bloggers

With my lectures in Massachusetts over, I turned my attention to the New York leg of my trip.   As I perused the performance listings, I saw that Deganit Shemy, a New York-based choreographer from Israel, was scheduled for a performance at Dance Theater Workshop (DTW) on April 16th.  Adding to the lure was a pre-performance talk moderated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, who runs the Infinite Body blog and Body and Soul podcast.  I decided to make a day of it and scheduled a meet-up at DTW for dance bloggers before the event.

Since entering the blogging world last year, I’ve discovered that there are many other people writing about dance online.  I’ve followed many of them on their blogs and on Twitter, and now I finally got to meet several of them in person.  Tonya Plank (Swan Lake Samba Girl), Marc Kirschner (TenduTV), Taylor Gordon (a fellow Winger and writer of Off Center), Doug Fox (Great Dance), and DJ McDonald (City of Glass) met up with my partner Tal and I for some lively discussion about dancing, blogging, and life in general.  We still had several threads of conversation open by the time the pre-performance talk started, and hopefully these will continue online.

Nearly all of us stayed for “Coffee and Conversation” with Eva and Deganit, and the discussion proved enlightening.  Although she started dancing late, Deganit Shemy won accolades here in Israel with her early work, even garnering the Gvanim Bemachol (Shades of Dance) prize in 2003.  We heard of her training in visual art and in Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation, which Deganit studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.  This background was evident later that evening in the premiere of the choreographer’s latest work, Arena.  Deganit’s repeated use of prolonged, posed stillness lent the dance a sculptural quality, and when the dancers burst into action, they did so with great precision.

Before the conversation concluded, Deganit also talked about her choice to use female dancers, the connection of memory to her work, and Arena’s theme of competition.  The discussion enriched my viewing of Arena, and I was pleased to learn even more about the dance in a post-show talk which included the dancers and the sound designer.

Reflections on Talking about Dance

After spending so much time talking about dance, I started thinking more about how, when, and where we have dialogue about this non-verbal art form.  In some theaters, studios, and universities, there are conversations about dance – but not enough.  I discussed this problem with many New Yorkers during my vacation there, and back here in Tel Aviv, I feel the lack of discourse even more sorely.  While the plethora of college dance departments in the U.S. cultivates some conversation, there is no similar framework of dance in higher education in Israel.  Furthermore, the occasional pre- or post-performance talks with choreographers or other knowledgeable dance professionals which occasionally take place in the United States are nearly nonexistent here.

I would love to see – and participate in – more discussions about dance, and I’m curious to know what you think about this issue.  How can we increase the number of conversations about dance and make this dialogue more accessible and inviting?

Related Links

• Deganit Shemy
• “Interview with Deganit Shemy” from the DTW blog
• “Shemy’s Arena” – review by Eva Yaa Asantewaa on Infinite Body
• “The Deganit Shemy Supernova” – review by Adrienne Jean Fisher on iDanz
• “Blogger Meetup and Rioult Review” – from Taylor Gordon on Off Center
• Dance Theater Workshop

(Video: Excerpt from Tomer Heymann’s Out of Focus)

More and more video cameras are making their way into dance studios as choreographers seek to document their work.  Usually the footage remains in personal or company archives, unseen by outsiders.  But the film Out of Focus offers the public a peek inside the process of Ohad Naharin, artistic director of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company.

In 2007, filmmaker Tomer Heymann focused his lens on Naharin as the choreographer coached New York’s Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in Deca Dance.  Besides close up views of the choreography, Heymann’s Out of Focus includes interview clips with Naharin.  With bits of conversation set against the sometimes bustling backdrop of the studio, the discussion feels particularly fresh, open, and honest.

While the Batsheva Dance Company recently displayed Naharin’s repertory on tour in the U.S., Heyman’s behind-the-scenes documentary has been seen primarily  in Israel.  Now, though, Out of Focus is coming to New York.  92YTribeca’s screening on April 30th will include a special appearance by Heymann himself.

Related articles about Ohad Naharin’s choreography on Dance In Israel

• “Americans in Israel: Cedar Lake in Tel Aviv Dance 2008″
• “MAX – Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography”
• “Getting to Know the Batsheva Ensemble”
• “Mamootot – Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide”
• “Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed”
• “Ohad Naharin to Receive 2009 Scripps/ADF Award”

Related Articles about Gaga on Dance In Israel

• “Going Gaga: My Introduction to Gaga Dance Classes”
• “Gaga: Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language, in His Own Words”
• “Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language”
• “Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)”
• “A Glimpse into the Gaga Workshop”

Related Links

• Batsheva Dance Company
• Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
• 92Y Tribeca
• Tomer Heymann

Ohad Naharin.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Since 1981, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award has been bestowed annually on luminaries of the dance world.  From Martha Graham (the first recipient) to Laura Dean (the 2008 recipient), selected choreographers have won this prize with their lifelong devotion to building and shaping their art form.  The honorees have pioneered new techniques and ventured into unfamiliar compositional territory.  Out of their experiments emerged choreography that was not only groundbreaking but masterful.

With the exceptions of Pina Bausch and Maguy Marin, the Scripps recipients have been American or based in the United States.  This year, though, a third choreographer from abroad will receive the award: Ohad Naharin.  The award presentation will take place on June 25th at ADF in Durham, North Carolina.

Naharin, the artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company, has left an indelible impact not only on the troupe he leads but on the larger Israeli dance scene.  Yet as his selection for the Scripps award suggests, Naharin’s influence is also felt beyond Israel’s borders.

Indeed, Naharin’s work has spread worldwide.  Major companies including the Nederlans Dans Theater and the New York-based Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet have performed his critically acclaimed and captivating choreography.  Juilliard students have learned several of Naharin’s works over the years, while young dancers in Sweden recently presented Kamuyot. And of course, the Batsheva Dance Company itself has toured around the globe with a tempting menu of Naharin’s visual delights.

Naharin’s consistently well-crafted composition and clever challenges to choreographic convention would be enough to launch him into the stratosphere of contemporary dancemakers worthy of the Scripps award.  But this artist also made his mark on dance training.  The inventive movement which characterizes Naharin’s work stems from Gaga, which the choreographer created and instituted as the Batsheva Dance Company’s primary method of training.  Daily Gaga classes in Israel and workshops around the world have introduced dancers – and non-dancers – to Naharin’s movement language.

Naharin’s choreography and innovative technique has caused ripples throughout the dance world, and his effect on a new generation of dancemakers is already visible.  Many of Israel’s independent choreographers danced for Naharin at Batsheva; though they have developed their own voices, their processes and products have at times been flavored by those of their former director.  Meanwhile, in New York, Gallim Dance – founded by Batsheva Ensemble alumna Andrea Miller – is making waves.  If the histories of previous Scripps honorees are any indication, Ohad Naharin’s already far-reaching impact on the field of dance will be long lasting as well.

List of Scripps Award Recipients

(From the ADF Awards & Dedications Page)

1981 Martha Graham
1982 Merce Cunningham
1983 Paul Taylor
1984 Hanya Holm
1985 Alwin Nikolais
1986 Katherine Dunham
1987 Alvin Ailey
1988 Erick Hawkins
1989 In memory of Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and Jose Limón
1990 Twyla Tharp
1991 Anna Sokolow
1992 Donald McKayle
1993 Talley Beatty
1994 Trisha Brown
1995 In memory of of Pearl Primus and Helen Tamiris
1996 Meredith Monk
1997 Anna Halprin
1998 Fayard and Harold Nicholas
1999 Pina Bausch
2000 Pilobolus Dance Theatre
2001 Garth Fagan
2002 no recipient
2003 Maguy Marin
2004 Eiko and Koma
2005 Bill T. Jones
2006 Murray Louis
2007 Mark Morris
2008 Laura Dean
2009 Ohad Naharin

Related articles about Ohad Naharin’s choreography on Dance In Israel

• “MAX – Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography”
• “Getting to Know the Batsheva Ensemble”
• “Mamootot – Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide”
• “Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed”
• “Batsheva Dance Company Premieres Ohad Naharin’s Hora“

Related Articles about Gaga on Dance In Israel

• “Going Gaga: My Introduction to Gaga Dance Classes”
• “Gaga: Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language, in His Own Words”
• “Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language”
• “Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)”
• “A Glimpse into the Gaga Workshop”

Related Links

• American Dance Festival
• Batsheva Dance Company
• “Israeli choreographer wins prestigious prize” (Ynet article)