Sisters by Michal Hersonski and Shira Ben Zeev.  Photo by Günter Krämmer.

Ballet is verboten at the No Ballet competition in Ludwigshafen, Germany, and applicants are encouraged to present innovative, adventurous choreography that speaks to the future rather than to traditional aesthetic sensibilities.  So it’s no wonder that Israel, with its growing field of contemporary dance, contributed a record six participants to this year’s select pool of competitors: Dafi Altbeb, Tami & Ronen Yitzhaki, Nadar Rosano, Reut Shemesh, Nadine Bommer, and Michal Hersonski & Shira Ben Zeev.

Michal Hersonski and Shira Ben Zeev. Photo courtesy of the choreographers.

It is a tribute to the strength of Israeli contemporary dance that two of these entries walked away with awards from this prestigious festival in October.  Michal Hersonski and Shira Ben Zeev were marked as exciting emerging choreographers when their duet, Sisters, debuted as part of Israel’s biennial Gvanim (Shades of Dance) Festival in 2007.  Now, though, the pair has clearly arrived: Sisters took third place on the international stage at No Ballet.  “We were thrilled to get the third prize because there were many countries, and there were good groups with very interesting and intelligent works,” Michal reflects.  “It was a very nice surprise for us.”

Manimation by Nadine Bommer. Photo by Günter Krämmer.

Meanwhile, Nadine Bommer’s clevely comedic Manimation captured the hearts of No Ballet’s audience, who honored the work with the crowd favorite prize.

Related Links

• No Ballet
• Nadine Bommer

Video: Then: Ronit Ziv’s Rose Can’t Wait, from the 1999 Shades of Dance Festival

On my way home from “Then and Now,” a special opening program of the Shades of Dance (Gvanim) festival, J.S. Bach’s Air on the G String played on my iPod.  Immediately, images from a black-and-white film of choreographer Doris Humphrey’s Air for the G String flashed through my mind. Humphrey’s dance has not only been immortalized on film but stayed alive in reconstructions from Labanotation score; it’s a powerful reminder that choreography doesn’t need to be shelved a few years or even many decades after its premiere.

This was an appropriate vision after a concert which not only celebrated the new but paid tribute to the old.  Opening a festival devoted to emerging choreographers, “Then and Now” featured excerpts of four dances which, in the days when the festival doubled as a competition, won the coveted first prize.  Selections from Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror’s Two-Room Apartment (1987), Noa Wertheim and Adi Sha’al’s Vertigo (1992), Barak Marshall’s Aunt Leah (1995), and Ronit Ziv’s Rose Can’t Wait (1999) shared the stage with excerpts from the choreographers’ latest dances.

These works were met with an extremely warm reception, and I’m sure that the choreographers’ own performances contributed to the excitement.  The prolonged unison and matter-of-fact manners of Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror, the high-speed actions and reactions of Noa Wertheim and Adi Sha’al, and the daring physicality of Ronit Ziv and fellow dancer Noa Rosenthal were riveting to watch – especially because, in the case of Nir & Liat and Noa & Adi, these choreographers no longer perform on a regular basis. (( Barak Marshall, who is now based part-time in L.A., was not in Israel for this performance. ))

Yet part of the thrill was the return of these older works to the stage. Other than Aunt Leah, which was restaged at the Inbal Dance Theater in autumn 2008, these dances are not in active repertory.  Some devoted, longtime dance-goers may have remembered these works, but for many audience members, this was the first chance to see the highly original and even audacious dances which propelled these choreographers into the upper echelon of Israeli contemporary dance.  The showing was also an extraordinary opportunity for me to reflect on the trademark styles and artistic development of these choreographers, to better understand their more recent works which have graced the stage in the last two seasons.

There simply aren’t enough occasions to see older works here in Israel.  A few of the larger groups like the Batsheva Dance Company and the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company have happily shown some repertory from decades past (albeit sometimes in excerpt form, as when Ohad Naharin recombines parts of various pieces in Deca Dance).  Yet most choreographers who work outside of these institutions are primarily putting their most recent works onstage, perhaps because of more limited resources and a series of festivals which spur the creation of new works.  If the choreographers themselves don’t mount their earlier dances, no one else will.  The country does not have an established repertory company whose mission is to celebrate Israeli-made choreography both past and present.  Nor is there a network of university dance departments which might reconstruct earlier dances or invite choreographers to set their older repertory on students, as there is in the U.S.  (( There are many fine high school dance departments in Israel and they do often bring in independent choreographers, but these departments are rarely if ever staging older works from the 1980s and 1990s. ))

If this system continues unchanged, the early – and in some cases significant – works by Israel’s contemporary choreographers may be lost.  But I believe this is avoidable.  While modern dance’s roots in this region stretch as far back as the 1920s, the real blossoming of Israeli contemporary dance is not that distant.  It is far easier to unearth a dance made twenty years ago than one created eighty years ago.  Indeed, the Israeli artists who, during the 1980s and 1990s, triumphed in establishing a thriving independent dance scene are still active in the field and capable of setting their early choreography given the opportunity.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m certainly in favor of celebrating the new.  The constant push for creation advances the art form forward; to only perform older work would lead to stagnation.  Yet I believe that the field could benefit from the revival and repeated performance of earlier works, which can educate and inspire audiences and dance professionals alike.

I hope that Shades of Dance will make this opening performance of old and new works a tradition so that we can witness the power of choreographic breakthroughs firsthand.   Twenty years from now, perhaps audiences will be treated to another viewing of Shaked Dagan’s We Are Going Back, Michael Miler’s The Speed of Light, or Ronen and Tami Yitzhaki’s This Time, which premiered in this year’s festival and caught my eye.   And I wish that more support – be it through festivals, dance departments, or other funding mechanisms – will enable choreographers to restage their acclaimed earlier repertory sooner rather than later.   Dances which merit a place in history also deserve to live in the bodies of dancers and the eyes of viewers.

Video: Now: Ronit Ziv’s La Femme A, La Femme B

Related articles on Dance In Israel:

• Behind the Scenes at Gvanim: Shades of Dance Festival
• Vertigo Dance Company: Art, Environment, Community
• Tel Aviv Dance 2008 (about Barak Marshall’s Monger)

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.

Related links:

• Dance In Israel’s Events page (with concert information)
• Information on the festival from Suzanne Dellal (in Hebrew)
• Ayelet Dekel’s preview of Shades of Dance in the Jerusalem Post