Compagnie Heddy Maalem in Rite of Spring.  Photo by Patrick Fabre.

Tel Aviv used to host a popular festival called Dance Europa, attracting cutting-edge companies from across Europe.  Three years ago, the festival expanded to include offerings from around the globe, and now the annual Tel Aviv Dance festival is a highlight of the city’s cultural season.  Tel Aviv Dance 2009 runs from October 16 until November 13, with shows at the Suzanne Dellal Center and the Tel Aviv Opera House.  To find out more details about performances, please visit the Dance In Israel Calendars.

A version of this article, titled “Hot Dance for Cold Evenings,” was published in the Jerusalem Post.

Hot Dance for Cold Evenings

“Everyone wants to come to Tel Aviv. Everyone wants to perform here,” says Yair Vardi, director of the Suzanne Dellal Center.  Judging by the roster of world-renowned dance productions about to descend on the city, Vardi’s boast is not an exaggeration.  In the last few years, the annual Tel Aviv Dance festival has become a destination for both rising stars and well-established names on the international circuit.  Now, Tel Aviv Dance 2009 will mount fourteen programs at the Suzanne Dellal Center and the Tel Aviv Opera House. A special initiative will bring three of these concerts to Haifa as well.

This year’s schedule of performers is particularly diverse, both in geographic origin and in aesthetic.  Here’s the lineup:

Australia

Video: Tania Liedtke’s Construct.

From far-off Australia comes Tania Liedtke’s Construct, which pairs power tools and physical prowess to comedic effect.

North America

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in Nacho Duato’s Gnawa. Photo: public relations.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago offers a taste of American contemporary dance with repertory by Jim Vincent and Alejandro Cerruda.  This popular troupe adds a bit of foreign spice with Gnawa, a dance by Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato set to intoxicating North African rhythms.

Europe

Other productions have a similar international mix, including two which involve European countries.

Video: Heddy Maalem’s Rite of Spring.

Although Compagnie Heddy Maalem hails from France, the fourteen dancers in its rousing Rite of Spring are from Mali, Benin, Nigeria, Senegal, and Guadeloupe.

Video: Andalucia Lejana is choreographed by Victoria Eugenia, Manolo Marin, Silvia Duran, and Yoko Komatsubara

Meanwhile, the flamenco flavored Andalucia Lejana is a collaboration by four choreographers with dancers from Spain, Japan, and Israel.

Ballet Nacional de España.  Photo: public relations

Flamenco assumes center stage again in Ballet Nacional de España’s program, featuring fifty dancers and musicians.  The troupe is performing Jose Antonio’s La Leyenda and Aires de Villa y Corte.

Video: Yoshua Cienfuegos’s Cisnes Negros.

Also from Spain is Cienfuegos Danza, whose director Yoshua Cienfuegos takes a dark look at our animal instincts in his contemporary Cisnes Negros.

Michael Schumacher and Jiri Kylian’s Last Touch First.  Photo by Robert Benschop.

Europe’s strong presence in this festival is rounded out by Last Touch First, a production from the Netherlands. On a stage strewn with sheets, six dancers move in slow motion through Michael Schumacher and Jiri Kylian’s spellbinding choreography.

Asia

Several choreographers and companies from Asia are also making an appearance at this year’s Tel Aviv Dance.

Wang Honghai’s My Dream showcases the riches of Chinese dance and music, but with a twist: the work is performed by nearly 100 members of the China Disabled People’s Performing Arts Troupe.

Beijing Modern Dance Company.  Photo by Wang Zhe.

The Beijing Modern Dance Company, China’s premiere modern dance company, displays a more adventurous style in Gao Yanjinzi’s Oath and Hu Lei’s Unfettered Journey.

Video: Shang Chi-Sun & Dancers

Taiwanese choreographer Shang Chi-Sun offers two more contemporary works, Nuwa and Dialogue II.

Video: A mixed bill by three Korean choreographers

Three Korean choreographers who won the 2008 Choreographic Festival at Seoul are sharing a mixed bill.  Ryu Seouk Hun presents Uncomfortable, Huh Kyung Mi offers Evolution, and Lee In Soo shows Modern Feeling.

Israel

Amidst this select global spread of top-notch choreography, it is a testament to Israeli dance that three programs in the festival are wholly devoted to work made locally. Batsheva Dance Company, which arguably has the greatest international reputation of any Israeli group, presents two contrasting concerts by artistic director Ohad Naharin.

Video: Ohad Naharin’s Hora.

Hora, Naharin’s most recent work, is danced to Isao Tomita’s synthesized versions of familiar melodies and performed against a vivid green set.  Naharin’s Mamootot offers an altogether different viewing experience as audience members surround the dancers in the studio.

Video: Barak Marshall’s Rooster.

Barak Marshall’s Monger was a hit in last year’s festival, and now he is returning with a new production, Rooster.  Twelve powerhouse dancers, one opera singer, and Margalit Oved – the legendary Inbal Dance Theater star and Marshall’s mother – trace a narrative inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Y.L. Peretz’s “Bontsha the Silent.”  This mix of talent, combined with Marshall’s masterful storytelling and marvelously multi-layered movement, sets Rooster on a pathway to success – and premiering in Tel Aviv Dance doesn’t hurt either.  Reflecting on his second Tel Aviv Dance experience, Marshall muses gratefully, “This is a twice in a lifetime opportunity I’ve been given!”

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Israeli Dance: What’s Happening in October
• Mamootot: Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide
• Batsheva Dance Company Premieres Ohad Naharin’s Hora
• Tel Aviv Dance 2008

Related Links

• Tel Aviv Dance English Program
• Suzanne Dellal Center
• Tel Aviv Opera House
• Ballet Nacional de España
• Barak Marshall
• Batsheva Dance Company
• Beijing Modern Dance Company
• Cienfuegos Danza
• Compagnie Heddy Maalem
• Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
• Silvia Duran

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!).

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal.  Photo by Robert Etcheverry.

While the dance artists represented in the 2009 Israel Festival are scattered around the globe, their work at times intersects stylistically.  Take Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, which will be performing Stijn Celis’s Noces and Mauro Bigonzetti’s Cantata.  This troupe comes from a classical background but has a decidedly contemporary twist; indeed, they count Ohad Naharin’s Minus 1 among their repertory.

Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet.  Photo by Marty Sohl.

Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, based in San Francisco, could be described similarly – but it has an unmistakeably unique aesthetic shaped by artistic director and choreographer King.  LINES will show King’s Irregular Pearl and Rasa, set to Zakir Hussain’s virtuoso tabla music.

Compañía Nacional de Danza.  Photo by Fernando Makrom.

Another branch on the family tree of contemporary dance is Spain’s Compañía Nacional de Danza.  Though the dancers again have superb ballet skills, artistic director Nacho Duato moves even further from the classical vocabulary in his celebrated choreography.  Compañía Nacional de Danza will display Duato’s talents in Castrati, Gnawa, and Por Vos Muero.

Alarmél Valli.  Photo by S. Anwar.

Although some variation on contemporary dance characterizes these three companies, other scheduled performances are from a wholly different part of the stylistic spectrum.  Alarmél Valli will bring her own expressive abilities to classical Indian Bharatanatyam dance in The Forgotten Seed.  Meanwhile, the Israeli troupe Mayumana blurs artistic disciplines, and their high-energy shows are always packed with a cross-genre blend of movement.

Mayumana.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Mayumana isn’t the only Israeli offering which incorporates dance.  Clipa Theatre’s K, based on short stories by Franz Kafka, is classified under the festival’s theater programming.  Yet the cast has several dancers as well as puppeteers and circus performers, ensuring that this will verge into the realm of physical theater.  Also listed in the Israel Festival’s theater schedule is Man, Woman, Reflections; this production is directed and choreographed by Yoram Karmi, the artistic director of Holon’s Fresco Dance Group.

Visit the Israel Festival’s website for a complete listing of its programming.

Related Links

• Israel Festival
• Alarmel Valli (India)
• Clipa Theatre (Israel)
• Compañía Nacional de Danza (Spain)
• Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal (Canada)
  
• LINES Ballet (U.S.)
• Mayumana (Israel)
• Yoram Karmi/Fresco Dance Group (Israel)

Photo of the Big Stage by Ariel Besor.

Something big is about to happen.  It’s the biggest cultural draw in town from May 14 until June 6th.  And fittingly, it’s titled Habama Hagdola: The Big Stage.

This isn’t the first time that the plaza of the Suzanne Dellal Center has been turned into a massive, open air theater.  The pictures in this post show a previous transformation from a few years ago.  But this time around, the construction of the Big Stage is marking something truly huge: the 100th anniversary of Tel Aviv and the 20th anniversary of the Suzanne Dellal Center, Israel’s premiere center for dance.

To celebrate both of these occasions, the Big Stage (sometimes translated as the Great Stage) will present some of Israel’s top dance companies and musical groups as well as world-renowned troupes from abroad.  The opening night combines both art forms in a special performance by Balkan Beat Box, with excerpts from Barak Marshall’s “Monger” that are set to music by the popular Israeli band.  As part of the festivities, Yair Vardi, Suzanne Dellal’s director, will receive an award from the Foreign Ministry for his contribution to the field of Israeli dance.

Photo of the Big Stage by Ariel Besor.

In a land whose recorded history stretches back thousands of years, it’s a bit mind-boggling to realize that Tel Aviv is a mere century old.  Consider for a moment the ages of some other major cultural centers in the West: Paris.  Rome.  London.  New York City.  Tel Aviv is but an infant next to these metropolises, but despite its relative youth, the city has developed a world renowned arts scene.

There was certainly concert dance in Tel Aviv prior to the founding of the Suzanne Dellal Center.  Even before the country of Israel was formed, the city absorbed immigrants who had trained in the German expressionist style and laid the foundation for Israel’s modern dance scene.   In 1964, the Batsheva Dance Company opened in town, and the Bat-Dor Dance Company debuted a few years later.  Over the next two decades, Israeli choreographers started to strike out on their own, and they centered their activity in Tel Aviv.

But what really put Tel Aviv on the international map of dance was the Suzanne Dellal Center.  Finally, the city – and indeed, the country – had a complex of world-class theaters and studios devoted almost entirely to dance.  The center became a home for the quickly expanding field of contemporary dance, and its multiple stages and festivals spurred more and more choreographers to create work.  It’s hard to imagine that Israeli contemporary dance would have grown so much and risen to such prominence over the last twenty years without the support of the Suzanne Dellal Center.

With its key place in the city’s cultural arena – and its role in revitalizing Neve Tzedek, the first Jewish neighborhood built outside of Jaffa – it seems fitting that Suzanne Dellal will play a central part in Tel Aviv’s 100th anniversary celebrations.  With the Big Stage up and ready to go, let the party start!

The Big Stage Schedule

• May 14, 9 p.m. – Balkan Beat Box and excerpts from Barak Marshall’s Monger (Music and Dance)
• May 16, 9 p.m. – Vertigo Dance Company and Tararam (Dance)
• May 18, 9 p.m. – Ido Tadmor and Friends, with Rina Schenfeld and Talia Paz (Dance)
• May 19, 9 p.m. – Chava Alberstein (Music)
• May 21, 9 p.m. – Batsheva Dance Company (Dance)
• May 22, 9 p.m. – Mosh Ben Ari (Music)
• May 23, 9 p.m. – Rita with special guest Shlomi Shaban (Music)
• May 26-May 27, 9 p.m. – Compania Nacional de Danza (from Spain) (Dance)
• May 28, 4:30 p.m. – Orna Porat Children and Youth Theater (Theater)
• June 1-2, 9 p.m. – Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal (from Canada) (Dance)
• June 3, 8:30 p.m. – Idan Raichel Project (Music)
• June 4, 8:30 p.m. – Ehud Banai (Music)
• June 5, 4:30 – The Apples (Music)
• June 6, 9 p.m. – Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (Dance)

For more details in English on the dance performances, please check the Events page of Dance In Israel.  Tickets can be bought at Suzanne Dellal’s box office, 03-5105656.

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• “Interview with Yair Vardi: A View of Israeli Concert Dance from the Top” (Podcast)

Related Links

• Suzanne Dellal’s page about the Big Stage (in Hebrew)
• Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Home Page