ISRAEL FESTIVAL 2010 from ISRAEL FESTIVAL on Vimeo.

Video: Preview of the Israel Festival 2010

As mid-May turns into late May here in Israel, spring is in full bloom.  The sun is now everpresent, no longer occasionally blocked by clouds, and the days grow hotter.  Rain showers are replaced by trickles of tourist groups, portending the forthcoming wave of summer visitors.  And in Jerusalem, the Israel Festival opens, providing the season’s freshest programming in theater, music, and dance.

The Israel Festival traditionally mixes some of the top names from the international arts scene with local favorites, and this year is no exception.  The 2010 dance line-up promises a particularly diverse array of renowned artists hailing from around the world.  Tangokinesis, based in Buenos Aires, brings a tantalizing mix of Argentinean tango and modern dance to Nuevo Tango. Shen Wei Dance Arts will arrive in Jerusalem from its home in New York, but the Chinese-born Wei’s style is infused with elements of Chinese opera, and his work Re is colored by his travels in Tibet, Cambodia, and China. British choreographer Akram Khan is known for blending Indian kathak dance with more modern movement, and his Gnosis is inspired by the Hindu Mahabharata. And the masterful Bill T. Jones will take on American history in Serenade/The Proposition, which incorporates striking video art along with the choreographer’s signature contemporary vocabulary.

Video: Bill T. Jones’s Serenade/The Proposition

Joining these visiting troupes on the festival’s stage is a hometown favorite, Vertigo Dance Company, which maintains a studio in Jerusalem as well as an innovative Eco-Art Village on nearby Kibbutz Netiv HaLamed-Hey. Vertigo will kick off the festival with two free shows of Noa Wertheim’s landmark environmental work, Birth of the Phoenix, before performing Wertheim’s White Noise and her most recent dance, Mana.

Vertigo Dance Company in Noa Wertheim’s Mana. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

The 2010 Israel Festival runs from May 25 until June 11.

Related Articles on Dance in Israel

• Spring Festival Fever: The Israel Festival in Jerusalem (2009 Festival)
• Vertigo Dance Company: Art, Environment, Community
• Vertigo Dance Company in Noa Wertheim’s Mana
• Curtain Up 2: Vertigo Dance Company and Noa Wertheim Host Elad Shechter

Related Links

• Israel Festival website

Video: LINES Ballet in Alonzo King’s Rasa, which will be part of the Israel Festival.

Spring festival fever has hit Israel.  The Big Stage Festival is in full swing at Suzanne Dellal in Tel Aviv.  There’s many Shavuot festivals planned around the country, and several of them focus on dance and movement.  And from May 24th to June 11th, the Israel Festival will bring world-renowned performing artists in all disciplines to Jerusalem.

The Israel Festival has been a mainstay of the spring festival season since its founding in 1961, though its character has evolved over time.  From its roots as a music festival in Caesarea, the event expanded to include theater and dance.  The Israel Festival moved most of its performances to Jerusalem in 1982, and it remains there today.

Although it bears this country’s name, the Israel Festival is truly an international event showcasing high-quality art from both in and out of Israel.  A quick survey of this year’s dance offerings alone yields four different countries from three different continents (and that’s besides Israel!).

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(Video: Kolben Dance in Amir Kolben’s “Interface”)

What’s a visit to Israel without a journey to Jerusalem?  Today, attendees of the International Exposure Festival are making the one-hour trip from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Our visit will start with Kolben Dance Company’s performance of Amir Kolben’s Interface.  After a tour of the city, we’ll return to Tel Aviv for a farewell reception.  The festival closes with the Inbal Pinto Dance Company in Hydra by Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak.  Hydra packed the theater when I saw it at the 2008 Israel Festival.   I’m guessing that though we might be tired after 6 days of dance watching, we’ll flock to the Suzanne Dellal theater one more time for this performance!

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Click here to download this podcast (mp3) episode

Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak’s Shaker completes its U.S. tour at New York City’s Joyce Theater this week.  Photo by Eyal Landesman.

This is the first in a series of podcasted interviews with dance professionals in Israel.

You can listen via the player embedded in this post or subscribe to this podcast for free by visiting our podcast feed and using the iTunes software ((You can subscribe to the podcast feed by searching the iTunes directory for “Dance In Israel”)). This podcast was initially produced for Israel Seen, and the text below was written for The Winger.

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The very first work I saw at the Suzanne Dellal Center last year was Shaker, by Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak.  Despite my jet lag, I realized that Inbal and Avshalom’s visually stunning work was special – and when I later saw the Inbal Pinto Dance Company in Oyster (twice!) and Hydra, I knew that my initial assessment of these creators was correct.  Want more proof of this couple’s exceptional talent and ability to win over audiences with their artistry?  Several hundred performances after its premiere, Oyster still fills the house at Suzanne Dellal, and the Israel Festival had to add a third performance of Hydra this June because of the demand for tickets.

Avshalom Pollak and Inbal Pinto.  Photo by Asaf Ashkenazyn.

In between rehearsals for their new production and tours of their existing repertory, I caught up with Inbal and Avshalom in the spring of 2008 to learn how this imaginative couple concocts such unique creations.   You can learn more too if you tune in to our podcast!

For more pictures, videos, and links, read the rest of my post below:

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