Dance In Israel » Renana Raz

Curtain Up 2010: Video Preview

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 07:13:38 +0000

Dana Ruttenberg’s Private I’s premieres in Curtain 3. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

In its 21-year history, Curtain Up – Israel’s primary platform for premieres by independent Israeli choreographers – has cycled through a series of artistic directors and experimented with different formats. To celebrate two decades of the festival’s existence in 2009, six alumni of Curtain Up created new works and selected up-and-coming choreographers to share their evenings. Now, in a development of last year’s innovative programming, this year’s artistic directors are four artists who have previously shown their work in Curtain Up: Tamar Borer, Ronit Ziv, Renana Raz, and Sahar Azimi. Each veteran choreographer is overseeing an evening-long program of new works by emerging choreographers, providing a valuable outside eye for the creators on his or her bill. With this setup, Curtain Up has added a layer of artistic support to the financial assistance that has long been a major benefit of participation in the festival.

Iris Erez’s Homesick is featured in Curtain 1. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

This year’s line-up of choreographers includes some faces familiar to Curtain Up audiences. Iris Erez was featured last year on Yasmeen Godder’s curtain, Elad Schechter shared the stage in 2009 with Vertigo Dance Company, and Maya Brinner showed her work on Noa Dar’s 2009 program; meanwhile, Michael Getman presented his work in previous seasons of Curtain Up. Other artists in this year’s festival have shown their recent works in Tmuna Theater’s annual Intimadance and in Shades of Dance, a biennial platform for new choreographers that often serves as a stepping stone to Curtain Up.

Shlomi Frige’s Rashomon premieres in Curtain 4. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Besides the four programs, this year’s Curtain Up includes an array of events that encourage interaction between the artists and the wider public. Conversations with the artistic directors and choreographers will precede some of the performances, and a series of workshops will be held in conjunction with the Amuta (the Choreographer’s Society). The culminating event of Curtain Up 2010 is a landmark symposium geared to spark conversation about dance and the body. Organized by Yael Nativ, this symposium will be held on Friday, December 3 in Jaffa at the Teiva, 19 Sderot Yerushalayim, from 9:00 until 1:30 in the afternoon. The first session will contain more academic discussions of selected topics, and the second session will feature four dialogues between dance scholars and each of the artistic directors of this year’s Curtain Up festival. Admission is free to the public.

Rotem Tashach’s Monuments is featured in Curtain 2. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Dance lovers in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem can catch the four curtains in late November and early December at bargain prices – tickets are a mere 60 NIS. The Curtain Up programs will tour later this season to other areas around Israel, including Kfar Blum and potentially Dimona. And if you’re not in Israel – or if you just want a sneak peek at what you’ll see onstage soon – check out the video preview of each curtain below!

Curtain 1

Directed by Tamar Borer, Curtain 1 features works by Iris Erez and Michael Getman.

Performance schedule:
Suzanne Dellal: November 25 and December 3
Jerusalem Theatre: December 2

Video: Iris Erez’s Homesick

Video: Michael Getman’s Father and Feather

Curtain 2

Ronit Ziv served as the artistic director for Curtain 2, which includes works by Tammy and Ronen Itzhaki, Rotem Tashach, and Ofra Idel.

Performance schedule:
Suzanne Dellal: November 24 and December 2
Jerusalem Theatre: December 1

Video: Ofra Idel’s Horse Tail

Video: Tammy and Ronen Itzhaki’s Have You Done

Video: Rotem Tashach’s Monuments

Curtain 3

Under the artistic direction of Renana Raz, Curtain 3 features the work of three female choreographers: Gili Navot-Friedman, Maya Brinner, and Dana Ruttenberg.

Performance schedule:
Suzanne Dellal: November 27 and December 1
Jerusalem Theatre: November 29

Video: Maya Brinner’s The Show

Video: Dana Ruttenberg’s Private I’s

Video: Gili Navot-Friedman’s Check-in

Curtain 4

Three male choreographers – Ariel Cohen, Elad Schechter, and Shlomi Frige – will show their work in Curtain 4, under the artistic direction of Sahar Azimi.

Performance schedule:
Suzanne Dellal: November 26 and December 4
Jerusalem Theatre: November 30

Video: Elad Schechter’s Funis

Video: Ariel Cohen’s The Battle for the 21st Century’s Love

Video: Shlomi Frige’s Rashomon

Intimadance 2009: Ugly Dance at Tmuna Theater

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:52:03 +0000

Photo: Ariel Cohen’s Venus de Meatloaf. Photo by Nir Arieli.

I grew up in the ballet world, where “dance” and “beauty” went hand in hand. Ugliness was a foreign concept, perhaps invoked only in the portrayal of a story ballet’s villain.

So it was a challenge for me to wrap my mind around the theme of this year’s Intimadance festival: ugliness. How would dances that explore ugliness look?

With this question in mind, I spent part of this weekend in Tel Aviv’s Tmuna Theater. The works were diverse, but I couldn’t help noticing that a few of the dances invoked a ballet vocabulary and aesthetic at times, perhaps as a reference to conventional standards of beauty within this art form.

To learn more about Intimadance and the choreographers’ investigation of ugliness, check out my preview below, “Ugly Dance,” which was first published in the Jerusalem Post. The festival continues tonight with two performances.

* * *

Ugly Dance

Chances are, when you think about dance, the word “ugly” doesn’t come to mind. But for the Intimadance festival at Tel Aviv’s Tmuna Theater, choreographers were specifically asked to explore the concept of ugliness.

“This year the choice was to ask the question [about ugliness] in a discipline that is based on beauty – beauty of the body, beauty of the movement,” says Nava Zuckeman, co-artistic director of the festival.

Examining ugliness in an art form typically concerned with beauty may be an intimidating challenge, but Intimadance provides a safe platform for choreographers to tackle this task without pressure to succeed or meet a particular ideal. Ariel Efraim-Ashbel, who has co-directed the festival since last year, explains that the agenda is to try and search rather than to win. “We’re in a theater, not a war – we’re not trying to conquer anything,” he notes.

Photo: Einat Ganz and Ben Buchenbacher’s Yesh Po Oneg. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Intimadance started in 2000 after Zuckerman observed that Israeli choreographers were rushing between festivals at home and abroad without time to more closely investigate their artistic process. She recounts, “I wanted to give [the choreographers] permission to stop and see where they are on a line of creation.”

From the festival’s beginning, ideas and process were privileged over a polished final product. Zuckerman stresses, “The question is more important than the result. Afterwards they go to other places to give the show. But [in Intimadance] I allow them to question.”

After the first few years, Zuckerman began assigning a theme to each Intimadance season. These themes are designed not only to focus the choreographers but to stimulate them. With their feelers spread throughout the dance world, Zuckerman and Efraim-Ashbel have developed a keen sense for selecting choreographers who are open to probing specific topics.

This year, Ariel Cohen was one dance-maker ripe for the challenge. “In my life, all the time I walk the thin line between ugliness and beauty,” he says. “I always dwell in that, so I was lucky to have a place to deal with that onstage.” In Cohen’s Venus de Meatloaf, the female soloist’s movement shifts from balletically graceful to grotesque as her character’s obsessions emerge.

Like Venus de Meatloaf, the other eight works in Intimadance are thought-provoking and often disturbing. Clad only in shoes, a jacket, a shirt and a helmet, Andreas Mark stumbles throughout the space to an unsettling text about religion and sex in Butt, it’s OK!

A rectangular glass pane freakishly magnifies Ben Buchenbacher’s face in Yesh Po Oneg, co-created with Einat Ganz. The sound of helicopters lends an atmosphere of disquiet as two women frantically circle their arms in Shelly Permon’s Im Himmel. And Rotem Taschach breaks preconceived notions of dance in Israelika, which relies more on absorbing, sometimes sharply witty text than on movement.

Intimadance’s two engrossing programs are rounded out with works by Renana Raz, Tal Porat, Avi Dangur, and Merav Svirsky. This year, the festival has added a special guest performance with choreography by Ronit Ziv, Berlin-based duo Anat Eisenberg and Saga Siguroardóttir, and the England-based Yair Vardi (not to be confused with the director of the Suzanne Dellal Center).

Like the dances themselves, the festival deviates from a strict focus on movement. Tmuna’s gallery will feature a video installation by London-based artists Naama Yuria and Jihoi Lee, while before each concert, choreographers will deejay YouTube videos at the theater’s bar. The sights and sounds at Intimadance may not be pretty, but they’re guaranteed to spark curiosity, insights, and – as befits the festival’s agenda – intriguing questions.

Behind the Scenes at Gvanim: Shades of Dance Festival

Deborah Friedes Galili — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:18:05 +0000

Michael Miler’s The Speed of Light will be performed in program 1 of Shades of Dance. Photograph by Eyal Landesman.

Last Saturday night was chilly and wet, but despite the discouraging weather conditions, I bundled up and trekked down to the Suzanne Dellal Center. Choreographer Micheal Miler of Haifa’s Sigma Ensemble had invited me to a rehearsal for the Shades of Dance festival (called Gvanim in Hebrew). Shades of Dance is mounted biennially, and since last year was an off year, I had effectively been waiting to attend the festival for over a year and a half. A little rain wasn’t about to stop me from this special sneak peak.

Since its inception in 1984, Shades of Dance has showcased artists who are relatively fresh to the field of choreography. It has helped launch the careers of some of Israel’s best-known choreographers including Yasmeen Godder, Inbal Pinto, Emanuel Gat, Ronit Ziv, Barak Marshall, Renana Raz, Shlomi Bitton, Anat Danieli, Itzhik Galili, Sally-Anne Friedland, Yossi Yungman, Tamar Borer, Liat Dror and Nir Ben-Gal of Adama, Noa Wertheim and Adi Sha’al of Vertigo Dance Company, and Yoram Karmi of Fresco Dance Group.

Perhaps this is why my anticipation of this festival feels different: I can’t help but wonder what new choreographic voices will be revealed this year. A mind-boggling 80 dances were submitted to the festival’s selection committee, composed of artistic director Hanoch Ben Dror with Ya’ara Dolev, Sally-Anne Friedland, Renana Raz, and Niv Sheinfeld. I’m looking forward to seeing what sets the 10 chosen works apart from their competition when the 15th Shades of Dance festival opens this week.

Left to right: Shaked Dagan’s We are going back is in program 3; Anat Va’adiya’s Ashetish is in program 1. Photographs by Eyal Landesman.

If the rehearsal I saw was any indication, this year’s festival has a batch of promising choreographers with very diverse aesthetics. Michael Miler’s The Speed of Light is one of the most abstract works I have seen since moving to Israel, and it is thoroughly absorbing. Clad in dark skinny jeans and colorful athletic jackets, Miler and seven other talented dancers maneuver skillfully through a sophisticated movement vocabulary. As they swiftly skate across the floor and slide to the ground, they appear to be constantly gauging the changing formations of their fellow performers.

The relationship between dancers Adam Ben Zvi and Idan Porges in Shaked Dagan’s We are going back is equally engaging. At times the well-matched men create a stop-frame effect with their cleverly-timed partnering; at other times they move hypnotically in slow motion.

The other two pieces I saw at Saturday’s rehearsal were worlds apart from each other in their tone. While choreographer/dancer Anat Va’adiya established an unsettling mood for her solo, Dafi Altebab used text and motions from a flight safety presentation to humorous effect in her trio’s quirky scenario.

Dafi Altebab’s new work is in program 3. Photo by Eyal Landesman.

While I wish I could have stayed for the remainder of the rehearsal, I left early to attend another performance at the Home Port festival. I suppose that after waiting a year and half to attend Shades of Dance, another few days is bearable! The festival opens on Wednesday, March 18 with with excerpts of old and recent works by former Shades of Dance participants Nir Ben Gal & Liat Dror, Noa Wertheim & Adi Sha’al, Ronit Ziv, and Barak Marshall. Then three programs shown back-to-back on Thursday night and Friday afternoon will present the new works from this year’s harvest.

Here are a few more sneak peaks of what will be onstage in the three programs of Shades of Dance 2009:

Anat Meirav’s is in program 2. Photographs by Eyal Landesman.

From left: Galit Hazor’s Blind Spot is in program 3; Tami and Ron Yitzhaki’s work is in program 2. Photograph by Eyal Landesman.

Shir Medvetsky’s solo is in program 3. Photograph by Eyal Landesman.

From left: Ron Amit and Mor Shani’s Lu Carmela; Or Marin’s vanishing point. Photographs by Eyal Landesman.

Home Port Festival: History in the Making for the Choreographers Association

Deborah Friedes Galili — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:27:46 +0000

Choreographers celebrating before the opening of the Home Port festival. Photo by Dorit Talpaz.

This may sound a bit extravagant, but I don’t think I am exaggerating. Last night I witnessed dance history – and I hope that the opening night of the Home Port Festival (and the festival itself) will go down in the books not as an isolated moment in time but as the recognized beginning of a new stage, figuratively and literally, for Israel’s independent choreographers.

The excitement was palpable when I arrived at the festival last night, and the energy only grew as more people streamed into the enormous hangar. While Oy Division played a rousing klezmer set, I mingled with choreographers, dancers, administrators, government officials, dance writers, and dance fans. Everyone seemed to recognize that this collective celebration of individual creation was a momentous occasion. The dream for a permanent home for the Amuta‘s artists, though still not fully realized, no longer seemed like an impossibility; indeed, the possibilities of what the dance scene would gain in the next weeks at Home Port emboldened the choreographers to dream anew.

After the enthusiastic crowd overflowed the risers, a one-of-a-kind dance marathon commenced. 39 choreographers from the Amuta presented a total of 33 solos and 3 duets, and 38 of the choreographers themselves delivered electrifying performances.

My intention was simply to watch and enjoy, but as each piece sparked snippets of ideas, I started scribbling furiously. What follows is my ode to the Amuta, a series of one-line impressions from each selection. Please read on . . .

* * *

Group 1

Talia Paz‘s superbly articulate body

Sahar Azimi‘s commanding and sometimes comedic presence

Idan Cohen tearing across the stage to Tchaikovsky

Tamar Borer‘s fingers walking like a spider’s legs

strength and passion merging in Neta Shizef‘s body and beats

Dafi Altebab, super smooth and subtle in her Superman shirt

Aviv Eveguy as Superman, soaring through the air with tour jetés and a cape

Yasmeen Godder, emanating fierceness and thoroughly transfixing

Nimrod Freed, totally transformed with wig, mask, and finely-tuned motions

* * *

Group 2

Ran Ben Dror‘s liquid legs and hypnotic undulations in Mimi Ratz Wiesenberg‘s work

Anat Katz‘s intriguing angles and invigorating energy

Robby Edelman meandering mysteriously through the space

Ya’ara Dolev and Amit Goldenberg‘s marvelously measured, jointed movement

Noa Dar‘s swaying hips and supremely expressive face

Dina Telem‘s clever costuming and childlike exuberance

Ronit Ziv‘s pitch-perfect speech and fabulously full-bodied dance

Tomer Sharabi getting down with a loose-limbed groove

Renana Raz showing national spirit with extraordinary verve

Arkadi Zaides‘s body propelled through space as if possessed

* * *

Group 3

each body part a surprise in Anat Shamgar‘s solo

Shlomit Fundaminsky‘s characteristic quirkiness mixed with a dash of cool

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor offering a lens into their collaborative choreographic process

Ofra Idel riding guitar riffs with sultry swirls of movement

Dana Ruttenberg‘s legs transcending their flesh and bone

Sally-Anne Friedland, queenly in her lettuce headdress

Sigal Ziv‘s mesmerizing isolations and layered rhythms

Abigail Rubin, blindfolded but still bold

Nadar Rosano‘s quiet power while beating his breast and collecting himself

* * *

Group 4

Ilanit Tadmor‘s body singing with the live vocalist

Alice Dor-Cohen, speaking with both her voice and her body

Odelia Kuperberg sneaking surreptitious glances and springing from the floor

Gilat Amotz keeping the beat in the most amazing ways

Maya Levy curving into the deepest of contractions

Michal Herman‘s sinuous long limbs and prolonged arch

Sharona Florsheim‘s subdued stances to the sounds of a mellow saxophone

Yossi Berg and Oded Graf slow dancing bare-chested before becoming fast-moving sculptures

* * *

Kol hakavod and mazal tov to all of the choreographers and to Sigalit Gelfand, head of the Amuta.

Home Port Festival: 54 Choreographers in 33 Concerts at the Jaffa Port

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:48:38 +0000

The choreographers of the Amuta in Jaffa for the Home Port Festival. Photo by Dorit Talpaz.

The first hint that something big was happening in Israel’s concert dance scene was an e-mail from Yossi Berg and Oded Graf about their upcoming performance schedule. One listing mysteriously said that the duo was presenting Heroes at the Jaffa port for a choreographers festival. Choreographers festival? In Jaffa? Many dance festivals here are annual ones, and I didn’t remember anything like that from last year.

Next I started to see some Facebook events popping up, with choreographers including Hillel Kogan, Noa Dar, Shlomit Fundaminsky, and Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor inviting friends to attend performances at the port during March. My curiosity grew as the number of choreographers involved increased.

Finally, Yasmeen Godder pulled me over before class one day and told me I should look into a very exciting, unprecedented event: the Home Port festival. As I talked more with her and followed a few leads, I found out that this was, indeed, something big.

The Home Port festival was initiated by the Amuta (which translates as the Choreographers Association or the Choreographers Society), an umbrella organization for fifty-four independent choreographers who draw from styles as varied as contemporary dance, flamenco, and belly dance. Working outside of the country’s larger companies, these established choreographers are responsible for much of Israel’s flourishing concert dance scene – and all of them will present their creations in thirty-three different concerts over the next four weeks in a hangar at Jaffa’s port.

The Home Port festival kicks off on Thursday, March 12 with what promises to be one of the most unique performances since I’ve arrived in Israel. The organization’s choreographers have assembled a special marathon of forty-four solos to celebrate the opening of their festival, and the evening will also include a reception and two lively musical performances.

In fact, nearly every concert in this series will also feature a musical act. The association invited Levontin 7, a well-known music venue, to participate in the festival, and many of the bands or artists that perform at the club will also appear down in Jaffa.

I’ll be attending many of the performances at the Home Port festival, and I look forward to writing more about the events here on Dance In Israel. If you’re in Israel during the next month, I hope you will have a chance to check out the festival yourself!

Schedule of Home Port Festival in Jaffa

Most of the information online about the Home Port Festival is in Hebrew, so I have roughly translated the choreographers’ names and some titles of works along with the performance times below. Please note that I have only included the choreographers and not the rotating roster of (wonderful, diverse, talented) musicians who will perform at the concerts.

Thursday 3/12 @ 7:00 pm – Opening Night Celebration – Marathon of 44 Solos
Friday 3/13 @ 9:30 pm – Oded Graf & Yossi Berg’s Heroes; Noa Shadur’s Hunting Rabbits in the North
Saturday 3/14 @ 9:00 pm – Aviv Eveguy’s Animus and Dimona
Tuesday 3/17 @ 9:00 pm – Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation
Thursday 3/19 @ 8:00 pm – works by Ilanit Tadmor, Abigail Rubin, and Noa Rosenthal
Thursday 3/19 @ 9:15 pm – works by Mimi Ratz Wiesenberg, Silvia Duran, and Tomer Sharabi
Friday 3/20 @ 9:30 pm – Noa Dar’s The Sweetest Embrace and Arnica
Saturday 3/21 @ 11:00 am – family-friendly performance by choreographer Dina Telem
Saturday 3/21 @ 8:00 pm – Tel Aviv Dance Company in Tokyo Oranges
Saturday 3/21 @ 9:15 pm – works by Yoram Karmi/Fresco Dance Company, Neta Shizef, and Tami & Ronen Yitzhaki
(Cancelled due to rain) Monday 3/23 @ 8:00 pm – Idan Cohen’s Joy Ride, My Sweet Fur, and The Year of the Fish
(Cancelled due to rain) Monday 3/23 @ 9:15 pm – Nadine Bommer’s Manimation
Tuesday 3/24 @ 8:00 pm – Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Post-Martha
Tuesday 3/24 @ 9:15 pm – works by Sharona Florsheim and Nadar Rosano
Wednesday 3/25 @ 8:00 pm – Arkadi Zaides’s Meeting Brian Wash
Wednesday 3/25 @ 9:15 pm – works by Hillel Kogan, Talia Paz, and Anat Shamgar
Thursday 3/26 @ 7:30 pm – work by Smadar Emor
Thursday 3/26 @ 9:15 pm – works by Michal Herman, Anat Katz, and Oren Nachum & Or Narin
Friday 3/27 @ 12:00 pm – work by Sally-Ann Friedland & Galit Lis
Friday 3/27 @ 9:30 pm – Nimrod Freed’s Flies in Peepdance
Saturday 3/28 @ 10:30 am – family-friendly performance by choreographer Nima Yacoby (Voyage Box)
Saturday 3/28 @ 12:30 pm – family-friendly performance by choreographer Nima Yacoby (Cinderella’s Dance)
Saturday 3/28 @ 8:00 pm – Elina Pechersky
Saturday 3/28 @ 9:15 pm – Ronit Ziv’s La Femme 1, La Femme 2
**NEW DATE** Sunday 3/29 @ 8:00 pm – Idan Cohen’s Joy Ride, My Sweet Fur, and The Year of the Fish
**NEW DATE** Sunday 3/29 @ 9:15 pm – Nadine Bommer’s Manimation
Monday 3/30 @ 9:00 pm – Shlomit Fundaminsky & Itay Yatuv’s TICKING/Improformance
Tuesday 3/31 @ 9:00 pm – work by Ofra Idel & Robby Edelman
Wednesday 4/1 @ 8:00 pm – Renana Raz’s Motel
Wednesday 4/1 @ 9:15 pm – works by Maya Levy, Odelia Kuperberg, and Sally-Ann Friedland
Thursday 4/2 @ 8:00 pm – Rikudnetto Dance Group’s Conversations
Friday 4/3 @ 9:30 pm – Alice Dor-Cohen’s A Little After the Middle
Saturday 4/4 @ 11:00 am – family-friendly performance by choreographer Anat Danieli (The Four Seasons)
Saturday 4/4 @ 8:00 pm – works by Ilanit Tadmor, Gilat Amotz, and Dafi Altebab
Saturday 4/4 @ 9:15 pm – works by Maya Stern, Dana Ruttenberg, and Tamar Borer & Tamara Arda

Visit the Dance In Israel Events page for listings of each concert along with a Google map of the location at the Jaffa port (Nemal Yafo 2, Tel Aviv-Yafo). To get to the hangar, descend from HaMigdalor Street to the port. There is parking in the area, and several buses have stops on Yefet Street, relatively near the site. You’re advised to wear layers since the hangar can be a bit chilly. Want a little something to drink? The hangar is outfitted with a bar and cafe. Enjoy!

Dance In Israel Articles about Members of the Amuta

Many members of the Amuta are mentioned in my articles about the Curtain Up and International Exposure festivals. I will also be publishing more articles about members of this organization in the future, so please keep following the website!

Viewing an Israeli Vision with Diasporic Eyes: A Look at Renana Raz’s “We Have Been Called to Go”

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:39:23 +0000

Renana Raz in We Have Been Called to Go. Photo by Eyal Landesman.

After months of avid concert-going, Renana Raz’s evening of work titled Avodah Ivrit (Hebrew Labor) proved to be more than just another enjoyable evening at the Suzanne Dellal Center. The experience of viewing this concert was so significant that I immediately poured my musings into an essay.

Avodah Ivrit contained two dances, and it was the second – We Have Been Called to Go – which stirred my excitement and sparked my writing. Out of the many dances I had viewed up until this point in March 2008, We Have Been Called to Go contained the most overt onstage treatment of Israeli society. As the work employed and played with cultural symbols, and as the audience reacted audibly, I became aware that I was watching this not as an Israeli but as a transplanted Diaspora Jew. I was fascinated not only by the subject matter but also by the perceptions of viewers from different backgrounds.

Nearly a year later, my understanding of Israeli culture has deepened as I have integrated further into this society as an olah hadasha, a new immigrant. By now I have discovered other works which tackle the issues of Israeli identity and cultural codes. Yet We Have Been Called to Go remains one of the most compelling dances to shed light on Israeli society – and to illuminate my own evolving knowledge and spectatorship of Israeli culture.

Below is my initial reflection on Renana Raz’s We Have Been Called to Go. I first published “Viewing an Israeli Vision with Diasporic Eyes” on March 17, 2008 in my own blog.

* * *

It’s after midnight, and I just opened my Israeli folk dance mix on iTunes to listen to track number 5, the hora that opened Renana Raz’s We Have Been Called to Go. My body is nearly jumping out of my desk chair, searching for the right pattern of mayims as the familiar drums quicken, while my mind is picturing the smaller motions of the four performers in tonight’s concert.

The bodily sensation I am having right now is the same bodily sensation I experienced in the darkened theater. Here’s the amazing thing, though: because Israelis were brought up on folk dance, nearly everyone in that theater had access to the same kinesthetic response.

We dancers and dance scholars talk a lot about kinesthetic response, the physical reaction that audience members may have while watching a dance. But rarely (if ever) have I been at a formal concert where the majority of audience members may be having the same, relatively concrete kinesthetic response – where the majority of audience members have done the same steps to the same music in previous contexts, can recollect those experiences, and perhaps even feel the urge to get up and do the dance.

For me, the power of this first moment in We Have Been Called to Go is sustained throughout the entire work, and I imagine that if I was an Israeli, it might have been an even more powerful viewing experience. As a Diaspora Jew born and raised in the United States, my knowledge of Israeli cultural symbols is still elementary. I know enough about the sabra – the prickly cactus-like plant which with its spiny exterior and sweet interior is supposed to represent the Israeli character – to understand why one performer holds the plant throughout the evening. I know that in the springtime, a siren will bring the entire nation to a halt as Israelis remember those who have sacrificed their lives for the country, and so I understand why a piercing alarm mid-dance arrests the action onstage. I know that “Hatikva” is the national anthem, and so I recognize the Hebrew lyrics on the projection screen before the curtain falls at the end of the work. Because my identities as a dancer and a Jew merged for a time through Israeli folk dance, I know both this first folk dance as well as another one, “Eretz Yisrael Yafa.”

Even with this knowledge, though, I was acutely aware throughout this concert of my identity as a Diaspora Jew. I laughed along with the audience at the outdated instructional folk dance video, but my giggles were not chuckles of nostalgic recognition. I couldn’t tell you why other moments elicited more sounds of amusement or exactly why the performers were wearing certain costumes.

A few discussions immediately after the performance shed more light on the different viewing experiences of Diaspora Jews and Israelis. My friend Ben, a fellow American spending the year in Israel, felt less connected to the work because he was not familiar with all the cultural symbols. Ben recognized several references, including the seeds which one performer (Raz’s father) noshed midway through the performance, but he did not have the benefit of the folk dance connection which made this work so compelling for me and, I suspect, for the members of the audience who grew up with that tradition.

Meanwhile, Hila, an Israeli who takes contemporary dance classes and ushered at the performance, gushed with insights about parts of the choreography that, while intriguing to me, had gone over my head because I was not raised with the same cultural markers. For instance, Hila explained that when one dancer earnestly proclaimed her name and parentage at the start of an otherwise gibberish-filled announcement, she was mimicking the speeches that Israeli students make several times a year at school ceremonies.

Out of the many concerts that I have seen in Israel, only a handful have contained references besides Israeli music or spoken Hebrew that are legible to me as Israeli. How many cultural cues have I missed? I readily admit that I may have overlooked the treatment of Israeli culture in some choreographic works because I am not fluent in either Israeli symbols or the Hebrew language. But I’m also quite aware that for the most part, Israeli choreographers are not explicitly tackling material that is either specifically Israeli or particularly Jewish. This concert gave me the opportunity to test my vision as a Diaspora Jew studying Israeli culture, to see what I have learned and recognize my blind spots as I continue in my research – and to realize just how rare such an open exploration of Israeli society is in this country’s contemporary dance.

Todah rabah to Ben and Hila for allowing me to cite their reactions to this work.

Renana Raz: Choreographing Israeli Culture and Beyond (Podcast)

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:29:06 +0000

Renana Raz in We Have Been Called to Go. Photo by Eyal Landesman.

(This podcast was initially produced for Israel Seen in 2008, and the text is amended from my writing on The Winger. You can subscribe to this podcast using the iTunes software by clicking this link to the podcast feed. You can also subscribe for free at the iTunes store.)

Renana Raz is a relatively young choreographer, but she has already developed a unique artistic voice and an impressive body of work. Prior to interviewing her, I viewed a DVD of her repertory and attended a high-energy performance of Kazuaria, which was inspired by and incorporated elements from the Druze debka dance. After our conversation, I couldn’t wait to see We Have Been Called to Go, which like Kazuaria weaves folk dance – in this case, Israeli folk dance – into a decidedly contemporary concert dance framework. When I finally saw this work, I stayed up much of the night writing in my blog about it. For now I’ll keep you in suspense, but I’ll republish this post soon on Dance In Israel.

Before arriving in Israel, I wondered if choreographers were dealing with specifically Israeli subject matter in their work. The short answer (and there is a long one!) is that the vast majority of Israeli contemporary dance presented over the last season has not featured explicitly Israeli characters, situations, or symbols. Renana’s We Have Been Called to Go and Kazuaria are some of the only works I have viewed which place the Israeli context center stage.

I’m happy to say that these works captured my attention not only because of this distinction but also because of their fine craft and compelling performance. Renana’s repertory stretches beyond the Israeli context even when she is expressly exploring it, and we talk about this in our conversation. But – just as I gained some insight into Israeli society by watching Kazuaria and We Have Been Called to Go – you’ll get to learn a bit about Israeli culture by listening to her talk about these dances.

To see excerpts of Kazuaria and more photos, check out the rest of the post below.

Renana Raz and Ilaya Shalit in Phantoms; Renana Raz in Motel. Photos by Yossi Gamzo Letova & Orion Szydel.

(Video: The joined debka – modern dancers and Druze dancers perform together in the third part of Renana Raz’s Kazuaria.)

(Video: Renana Raz’s company in Kazuaria.)

Related Articles on Dance In Israel:

Viewing an Israeli Vision with Diasporic Eyes: A Look at Renana Raz’s We Have Been Called to Go
International Exposure 2008: Day 2 – Includes a video of Ov, a collaboration by Renana Raz and Ofer Amram

Other Podcasts on Dance In Israel:

International Exposure Sends Israeli Dance Around the World

Deborah Friedes Galili — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:10:30 +0000

(Photo: Barak Marshall’s Monger has been invited to tour abroad. Photo by Gadi Dagon.)

Ynet, the website for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, announced this week that International Exposure has already yielded invitations for several Israeli choreographers to travel abroad. I’ve gleaned the following information from Ynet’s Hebrew article.

Barak Marshall’s production, Monger, proved to be a big hit among the visitors to International Exposure. It will tour to Spain, Switzerland, Croatia, and Romania this spring. The dance will later be shown at the Joyce Theater in New York and at the 2010 Dance Umbrella Festival in London.

Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak’s Hydra also attracted the attention of several International Exposure attendees. The Inbal Pinto Dance Company will tour this work to England (Dance Umbrella Festival), the United States (American Dance Festival), and Canada (Montreal’s dance festival).

Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, which already is scheduled to tour part of Europe this spring, has been invited to the Sibiu International Festival this May in Romania. The company will also present its production of Peter and the Wolf at a children’s festival in Seoul, Korea, and they will create a new project in conjunction with the International Dance Festival Bytom in Poland.

Several independent choreographers also received offers to perform abroad. See below for videos and details:

Video: Nadine Bommer’s Manimation was a crowd-pleaser at International Exposure. Bommer’s company will join the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company at Romania’s Sibiu International Festival.

Video: Sahar Azimi’s Come Feel. Sahar Azimi has been invited to a festival in San Vincenti, Croatia; he will also create a new work for the Zagreb Dance Company.

Video: Idan Cohen’s A Year in a Fish Life was presented at International Exposure. Cohen will choreograph on the Silesian Dance Theatre in Poland.

Video: Adamdam by Arkadi Zaides. Portugal’s Duplacena Festival will showcase two of Arkadi Zaides’s works.

Video: Ov, by Renana Raz and Ofer Amram. This work will be performed at the Duplacena Festival in Portugal.

Links to Choreographers and Companies

Sahar Azimi
Nadine Bommer
Idan Cohen
Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (Rami Be’er)
Inbal Pinto Dance Company
Renana Raz
Arkadi Zaides

Snapshots from International Exposure 2008

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:51:04 +0000

Hydra by Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak closed International Exposure. Photo by Seto Hidemi.

Most visitors to this year’s International Exposure were festival directors, arts presenters, diplomats, or critics. I, however, came as a researcher. With this festival – as with my other research activities – I sought to discover, to interpret, to understand. I searched for old connections and new pathways.

Featuring over 40 works, International Exposure was exactly the right place to look for the threads which tie together this country’s concert dance scene. The festival is a like a yearbook for Israeli dance. The offerings by each choreographer serve as the album’s individual portraits. Mixed bills drawn from some of the country’s other festivals (Curtain Up; Machol Acher/Other Dance Project) hint at the structure of the dance community, just as club pictures reveal a school’s cliques and groups. And with the 20+ concerts clustered together in a mere six days, it’s possible to see the trends which characterized much this year’s artistic output. (( It should be noted, though, that some choreographers were missing from this year’s International Exposure. Some well-established artists including Nimrod Freed, Anat Danieli, and Adama’s Nir Ben-Gal and Liat Dror did not present work at the festival. Meanwhile, younger independent choreographers are far greater in number than those represented onstage. ))

Indeed, International Exposure brought the dance scene into focus for me, clarifying and sharpening some observations I had started to form since my research began in 2007. Israel is a small country, the size where everyone in the dance community knows each other, and this shows – not only during the mingling at receptions. For instance, it’s worth noting just how many collaborations there are within the dance scene. Several pairs presented work: Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak, Yossi Berg & Oded Graf, Ya’ara Dolev & Amit Goldenberg, Renana Raz & Ofer Amram, and Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor (with the participation of choreographer Ronit Ziv, who performed). (( Ronit Ziv wasn’t the only choreographer who performed in another artist’s work. Ya’ara Dolev danced in Michael Getman’s duet, while Getman in turn appeared in the work Dolev co-choreographed. Lazaro Godoy popped up in dances by Sahar Azimi, Maya Levi, and Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak. Although neither Nadar Rosano nor Iris Erez showed work this year, both choreographers danced in the festival (Rosano in Ronit Ziv’s choreography and Erez in Arkadi Zaides’s offering). ))

The fact that most choreographers are clustered in Tel Aviv probably facilitates this partnership, and it may also foster the cross-pollination of ideas in the work itself. At International Exposure, pure, abstract dance was trumped by theatricality and props (ranging from squeezy toys to green slime, with numerous pairs of shoes and other items in between). There was very little movement for movement’s sake, something I have noticed throughout my time here.

As for the movement itself, many of the dances were influenced by release technique. Assertive fast-paced partnering also dominated, especially in the trios and quartets which filled the four Curtain Up programs. The prevalence of contact improvisation in Israel also seems to have made its mark on how partnering is built.

Yet even as many of the works bore a similar aesthetic imprint, there were glimpses of what lies beyond the borders of contemporary dance in Israel. Elina Pechersky put belly dance on the concert stage, Tamar Borer mined the Japanese butoh tradition, and the Israel Ballet brought another flavor to the festival.

International Exposure may be over, but my research continues! I’m looking forward to talking with many of the choreographers I met at the festival in the months to come – and as my understanding of Israel’s concert dance scene develops, I’ll share more snapshots with you.

Snapshots from International Exposure 2008:

Top row: Barak Marshall’s Monger (photo by Gadi Dagon); Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s Bloody Disco (photo by Gadi Dagon)
Middle row: Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation (photo by Tamar Lamm); Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Post-Martha (photo by Ascaf)
Bottom row: Noa Wertheim’s White Noise (photo by Gadi Dagon); Noa Dar’s Tetris (photo by Tamar Lamm)

Useful Links

International Exposure 2008: Day 2

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:50:51 +0000

(Video: Ov by Renana Raz and Ofer Amram)

The opening night of International Exposure whetted my appetite for a festival full of Israeli contemporary dance, and now I’m ready for the first whole day of programming. And it will indeed be a whole day – events are running from 11:00 a.m. until about 10:oo p.m.!

I saw Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation when it premiered in June, and I’m eager to view this intense work again when it starts our morning. Next on the program is dance scholar Gaby Aldor, who will present a lecture on dance in Israel. I often found myself reading her articles as I began my research on the subject, so I’m quite excited to hear her speak.

Today will also feature two mixed bills from the annual Curtain Up Festival, which is one of the main platforms for premieres in Israel. In this year’s Curtain Up 3, we’ll see two collaborations: Bloody Disco by Yossi Berg & Oded Graf, and Reversi by Odelya Kuperberg & Sahar Azimi. Tonight we’ll also view Curtain Up 2, with It Rains Inside (Rachel Erdos), Post-Martha (Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor with the participation of Ronit Ziv), and La femme 1, La femme 2 (Ronit Ziv).

In between the two selections from the Curtain Up Festival, we’ll be treated to a showing of Ov by Renana Raz & Ofer Amram. Inspired by S. Ansky’s play The Dybbuk, Ov premiered at the Israel Festival in June. I attended its first performance in Jerusalem and am looking forward to seeing it here in Tel Aviv at the Inbal Hall!

See below for more video and links.

(Video: Post-Martha, by Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor with the participation of Ronit Ziv)

Dance In Israel » Renana Raz

Curtain Up 2010: Video Preview

Curtain 1

Curtain 2

Curtain 3

Curtain 4

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Intimadance 2009: Ugly Dance at Tmuna Theater

Ugly Dance

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Behind the Scenes at Gvanim: Shades of Dance Festival

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Home Port Festival: History in the Making for the Choreographers Association

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

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Home Port Festival: 54 Choreographers in 33 Concerts at the Jaffa Port

Schedule of Home Port Festival in Jaffa

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Dance In Israel Articles about Members of the Amuta

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Viewing an Israeli Vision with Diasporic Eyes: A Look at Renana Raz’s “We Have Been Called to Go”

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*This post was made possible thanks to a Fulbright student grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

Renana Raz: Choreographing Israeli Culture and Beyond (Podcast)

Related Links:

*This post was made possible thanks to a Fulbright student grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

International Exposure Sends Israeli Dance Around the World

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

Links to Choreographers and Companies

Other Useful Links

Snapshots from International Exposure 2008

Useful Links

International Exposure 2008: Day 2

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

Links to Companies and Choreographers

Other Useful Links