Dance
Dance in Israel has developed in two directions: expansion of the Jewish folk dance genre; and the establishment of art dance, leading to stage productions created by professional choreographers and performed by trained dancers. Dance as an art form was introduced in the country in the 1920s by newly arrived teachers and devotees of dance from the cultural centres of Europe. After the establishment of the state, it was developed to a high professional level by a number of ensembles; each founded on the basis of a different orientation and style, influenced by Israel’s diverse and varied social, religious and cultural backgrounds. Today more than a dozen major professional dance companies, most of them based in Tel Aviv, perform a varied repertoire throughout the country and abroad.
The Israel Festival
The Israel Festival is a multidisciplinary arts festival held for a few weeks every spring in Israel. Its current center is Jerusalem. The festival was founded in 1961 by Aaron Zvi Propes as a summer music festival taking place in the ancient Roman theatre in Caesarea. The programme was later extended to include many performing arts – classical music, ballet, jazz, theater, visual arts and lectures, and the location was enlarged to include venues all over the country. Since 1982, the country’s capital decided to adopt the Festival as its own. Throughout the festival, audiences are able to enjoy performances by artists from all over the world, as well as premieres of Israeli works and tributes to leading Israeli artists. The public can also attend a large selection of free performances, including street theatre, children’s shows and a nightly jazz club.
Visit The Israel Festival’s website
Suzanne Dellal Centre
The Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, previously known as the Neve Tzedek Theatre, is a major dance and theatre venue. The building of the centre – in the middle of a historical yet neglected neighborhood, on the ruins of the Aliance school and in the Yechieli school building – has paved the way for the much anticipated breakthrough of Israeli dance, which has been thriving ever since. Each year, the Suzanne Dellal Center features over 600 performances and welcomes approximately 500,000 visitors. Since its establishment in 1989, the center has presented over 1,200 premieres. Suzanne Dellal Center was awarded the Israel Prize in 2010, one of this country’s highest honors.
Visit Suzanne Dellal Centre’s website
The Israel Ballet
The Israel Ballet is the only company in Israel that performs an international repertoire of the great classical and neo-classical ballets. The company was founded in 1967 by Berta Yampolsky and Hillel Markman who have continued to be its Artistic Directors until the present day. The Israel Ballet has a rich and varied repertoire. In addition to famous neo classical works by George Balanchine the company’s repertoire includes neo classical and contemporary ballets by Berta Yampolsky and other leading international choreographers. The company also performs the great classical and modern full length ballets such as “Giselle”, “The Sleeping Beauty”, “Don Quixote”, “The Nutcracker”, “Onegin”, “Romeo and Juliet” and “Cinderella”.
Visit The Israel Ballet’s website
Mayumana
Mayumana is a multicultural troupe, established in 1996 in Tel Aviv. Its work combines skills, rhythm and visual effects into a unique humoristic language. Throughout 15 years of creation, the Mayumana group performed in over 90 major cities around the world, for more than 7 million spectators. Momentum is Mayumana’s latest show where time is the driving force and inspiration behind the show. This would be the first show that is based on one theme and incorporates rhythm, video art, singing and acting.
Batsheva Dance Company
Batsheva Dance Company has been critically acclaimed and popularly embraced as one of the most exciting contemporary dance companies in the world. Together with its junior Batsheva Ensemble, the organization boasts a roster of 40 dancers drawn from Israel and abroad. 2010 marked the 20th anniversary of Ohad Naharin’s arrival as its Artistic Director. Touring extensively throughout the country and internationally, the two companies present 250 performances annually. The Batsheva home is situated in the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre, Tel Aviv.
Jasmin Vardimon Company
Posted by Deborah Friedes Galili: Jasmin Vardimon started her promising dance career right here in Israel, performing with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company while venturing into choreography. In 1995, she won the “On the Way to London” competition for young choreographers, which was sponsored by the Suzanne Dellal Center and the British Council – and shortly afterwards, she found herself headed to Europe and, indeed, on the way to London. There, in 1997, she burst onto the British dance scene with her company, originally titled Zbang and now known as the Jasmin Vardimon Company (JVC).
Read more in Dance In Israel
Visit the Jasmin Vardimon Company’s website
Avshalom Pollak & Inbal pinto Dance Company
Pinto and Pollak founded the company in 1992. Together, they have been involved in a variety of artistic endeavors – mainly the creation, direction, choreography and design of unique and award winning, dance performances for their Company. Their productions have been presented and acclaimed in Israel as well as many other countries. The Company consists of 12 dancer/actors working together and motivated by the collective wish to make connections among various artistic disciplines to convey new stage creations informed by memories, longings, ideas and imagination. One of the company’s fascinating work – Trout, is collaboration with the Kitchen Orchestra and was described as “Absurd magic on water”.
The Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company
KCDC was founded in 1970 by Yehudit Arnon, who directed it through 1996, as an extension of the Ga’aton Repertoire Dance group. Today the company’s work is widely identified with the compositions of its Artistic Director—Rami Be’er, who also runs KCDC 2, the young company. The company is part of the International Dance Village – a unique program, initiated by Rami Be’er in 2008 on Kibbutz Ga’aton, where dance students from around the world congregate to create.
Yasmeen Godder
Yasmeen Godder was born and raised in Jerusalem, and moved to New York with her family at age eleven. She graduated from the High School of the Performing Arts in New York City, and received her BA from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Since 1999, she has been living in Tel Aviv. Her works have regularly been presented at the Suzanne Dellal Dance Center in Tel Aviv, and extensively throughout the world: Lincoln Center Festival in New York, Hebbel Am Ufer in Berlin, the Place Theatre in London, Montpellier Dance Festival in France, and many more. To date Yasmeen has created six full evening-length works, and several short works, including “Green Fields” for the Batsheva Ensemble and “UNDER2″ a matanicola production in Berlin. The company has just won the Ministry of Culture’s Prize for Small Ensemble for the performance of Singular Sensation.
Visit Yasmeen Godder’s website
Vertigo
The contemporary dance company Vertigo was founded in 1992 by Noa Wertheim and Adi Sha’al, Partners in life and in dance. All Vertigo’s works, in particular the two latest – Mana and White Noise, have achieved worldwide recognition and success, and signify the company’s well justified appreciation.
International Exposure
An initiative of The Suzanne Dellal Centre, this scheme introduces local work to guests from abroad who are invited by the centre to choose works for future festivals and dance events around the world. Taking place yearly at the end of November and beginning of December, this scheme has already brought many Israeli dance pieces to some of the world’s most famous stages. (Photo: Gadi Dagon)
More information about International Exposure
Barak Marshall
Since his accidental entrance into dance in 1995, Barak Marshall fast established himself as one of the Israeli dance scene’s most innovative and unique voices. Barak’s first work Aunt Leah won first prize in Suzanne Dellal’s 1995 Shades of Dance Choreography Competition. Shortly after, Barak began touring abroad, appearing in the prestigious Roma Europa and Arci Milano festivals to rave reviews. In that same year he premiered his second work, The Land of Sad Oranges, based on a short story by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. Barak’s third work, Emma Goldman’s Wedding, represented Israel in the 1998 Bagnolet International Competition where it won the first prize, as well as the Prix d’Auteur Award, the Bonnie Byrd Award for New Choreography and the National ADAMI Award. Barak has also created several works for the Batsheva Ensemble, the Philadanco Dance Company, MDT Dance Company and Austria’s ABCD Dance Company. His latest work – Rooster, was created for the 2009 Tel Aviv Dance Festival, after the great success of his former piece — Monger — featured at the 2008 Tel Aviv Dance Festival. This dance-theatre piece is based on I.L. Peretz’s Bontsha the Silent, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and on stories from the Bible and Yemenite folklore.
Visit barak Marshall’s website
Liat Dror Nir Ben Gal – The Company
Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal are a duo of dancers\choreographers. They first burst onto the stage with Two Room Apartment in 1987, and they continued to create a stir with their choreography throughout the 1990s. In the year 2000, realizing that dance, as a way of life, cannot coexist with the reality surrounding them, the couple moved with the company to Mitzpe-Ramon in the heart of the desert, believing that this change would create the union of dance and therapy. In Mitzpe-Ramon they established Adama, a dance and movement centre which serves as the company home base as well. “We wanted to live a life without separation, so dance would be a part of our daily life and not a detached art that demands a competitive and hectic life. We wanted to return to dance from a place of dedication, discipline and love”. “Air Field”, an acrobatic and music dance show that deals with relationships and love, is their latest unique production.
Tel Aviv International Dance Festival
Established in 2006 as a joint initiative of the Suzanne Dellal Centre and the Israeli Opera with the Tel Aviv Municipality, the Tel Aviv International Dance Festival showcases both Israeli and international talent in Tel Aviv. Dance professionals present their work among their international peers at the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and the Israel Opera. Photo by Patrick Fabre
Sheketak Group
Sheketak Group was founded in 1997 by Zahi Patish and Danny Rachom. The group consisted of 5 guys that created a show combining live music and dance. Today Sheketak Production is a company of 20 artists in different areas and the shows created by Sheketak are performed in over 25 countries around the world. Sheketak resides in Tel aviv where the group has a dance studio, offices and a recording / editing facility.
Noa Dar Dance Group
Noa Dar Dance Group was founded in Tel Aviv in 1993, By Noa Dar and 8 dancers, partners to the creation process and to the development of a unique movement and visual language. The company is performing intensively throughout the year in Israel and abroad at International festivals. In addition to performing, they are conducting regular classes at The Noa Dar Studio, workshops and lecture demonstration for dance students and the public.
Noa Dar’s Youtube channel
Visit Noa Dar Dance Group’s website
Intimadance Festival
This very unique festival emerged from the need to provide artists with the literal and figurative space to take risks, experiment with new forms and ideas, and have fun. From the very beginning, in 2000, ideas and process were privileged over a polished final product, creating a zone where questions are more important than results. Intimadance Festival is been held annually at Tmuna Theatre. In recent years, a theme was chosen each season, design to focus and stimulate the choreographers. (Photo by Gadi Dagon)
Visit Intimadance Festival’s website
Emanuel Gat Dance
Emanuel Gat Dance was founded at the Suzanne Dellal center in Tel-Aviv on January 2004. Since its establishment, the company gained international recognition for its high artistic standards and original voice within the contemporary dance scene. In 2005 Emanuel Gat received Israel’s Minister of Culture Award for outstanding dance performance. In 2006 he received the Bessie award at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York. The company is invited regularly to perform at high profile venues and festivals such as the Lincoln Center festival in New York, Le Festival d’Automne Paris, Sadler’s Wells London, Holland Dance festival, and Tokyo Biennale to name but a few. Since 2007 The company is based in France, hosted for a three years residency by the SAN Ouest Provence.
Visit Emanuel Gat Dance’s website
Fresco Dance group
Fresco Dance group was established in 2002 by Yoram Karmi, and has two ensembles that perform in front of adults as well as children and youth. The group’s style varies and is made up of different dance techniques. There is a strong emphasis on technique as well as individual style and character. Since founded the group performed in all major dance festivals and programs in Israel. Since 2006 the group is being supported by Holon Municipality and is working and creating from there.
Visit Fresco Dance group’s website
Ido Tadmor: The Company
‘Ido Tadmor: The Company’ was created in 1995 to present Ido Tadmor’s choreographies. The company was formed of the most professional dancers of Israel. Over a short period of time the company has become one of the most popular companies in Israel due to its diverse repertoire, and it has traveled all over the world as an ambassador of Israeli dance. (image by Inbal Marmari)
Arkadi Zaides
Arkadi Zaides is an independent choreographer, dancer and teacher. He was born in the Soviet Union in 1979, and immigrated to Israel in 1990. Today he lives and works in Tel Aviv. Since 2004 Arkadi has been working as a free-lance choreographer. His works have been shown in numerous international festivals in all over the world. Zaides’s choreography Solo Colores was awarded with the prestigious Kurt Jooss Award in 2010. This award is one of many his works have accomplished over the years. Embedded in Arkadi’s work is a belief that the role of art is to challenge and inspire viewers, while simultaneously it has a larger universal role to reach out and bring together different communities and different sectors of society. Arkadi is increasingly working in diverse communities, focusing primarily on the Arab sector in Israel. Arkadi also teaches a group of orthodox Jewish males as part of the ‘Other Move Project’, Jerusalem.
Arkadi Zaides’s Youtube channel
Visit Arkadi Zaides’s website
Dana Ruttenberg
Israeli born dancer and choreographer, Dana Ruttenberg graduated from The Bat-Dor School of Dance and the Thelma Yelin High-school for Performing Arts. She holds a B.A. in Dance from Columbia University, Magna Cum Laude. After a few years as the artistic director of her NY based dance troupe, Dana returned to Israel in 2003, and since she has been teaching, giving workshops and choreographing for the Batsheva Dance Ensemble, OtherDance Festival, IntimaDance Festival, and Dance Arena festival, to name a few. Ruttenberg was recently chosen as one of “The Future Generation” women by The Marker W Magazine.
Visit Dana Ruttenberg’s website
Compas – The Israeli Flamenco Dance Company
“Compas” was founded in 1995 by the flamenco dancer and choreographer Michal Natan. The uniqueness of “Compas” is the combination of different creators from different fields: music, theatre, fine arts, contemporary & classical dances and more. All these connections create different experiences of art.
Clipa Theatre
The Clipa Theatre was founded in Tel-Aviv in 1995 by Idit Herman, dancer and choreographer, and Dmitry Tyulpanov, actor and musician. Together they created a unique stage language combining the worlds of theatre and dance. In the following years the Group has created original stage works characterized by total design of the various performance elements – stage and set, costumes and music, all of which are handmade by Clipa, and which contribute to the highly visual impact of the Dance-Theatre performances.
Clipa Aduma Festival
The Clipa Aduma festival creates a platform for artist and audiences to share and express thoughts, experiences, motion and creation in the innovative and multi-faceted fields of performance art and visual theatre. Established in 2007, each year the festival invites leading groups and artists from around the world to present their work and to conduct workshops and master-classes on their methods of work.
Kamea Dance Company
Kamea was established in 2002 in affiliation with the prestigious Larry and Lillian Goodman Bat-Dor Beer-Sheva Municipal Dance Center. Founded and co-directed by Daniella Schapira and Tamir Ginz, Kamea performs works by Ginz as well as by guest choreographers. Kamea was founded in Beer Sheva, the southern metropolis of the Israel, to fill the void of a repertory modern dance company in Israel and to create a platform for choreographers and dancers wishing to advance the art of dance in the Negev.
Kamea has a large repertoire of shows for different audiences and age groups, and with around 80 performances a year. In addition, the company has performed worldwide, and was invited to China in June 2008 to present “Carmina Burana” for The Olympic Games. in 2011 Kamea held tours both in Germany and Italy.
Nadine Animato Dance Company
Nadine Animato Dance Company was founded in 1995 by Choreographer Mrs. Nadine Bommer. Nadine has developed the Kinetic Dance Technique using the Energy in space felt and expressed by the dancer. The company is well appreciated both in Israel and abroad, and produces a new choreography every year.
Shades In Dance
Shades in Dance is a bi-annual mentorship program that pairs young choreographers with a professional artistic director to create a fully produced premiere that serves as these artists’ debut into the Israeli dance scene. Many of today’s top Israeli choreographers began their professional careers as part of this project, including Barak Marshall, Inbal Pinto, Emanuel Gat, Liat Dror & Nir Ben-Gal, Vertigo Dance Company, and many more. (photo: Eyal Landsman)
Summer Dance
Summer Dance (Maholohet in Hebrew) is the annual encore showcase of the best of Israeli contemporary dance that premiered or was presented throughout the year, giving audiences the opportunity to revisit their favorite works from the previous twelve months. The two-month festival, which concludes the season of performances at Suzanne Dellal, also welcomes renowned international companies and choreographers to the Centre. (Photo by Gadi Dagon)
Curtain Up Festival (Ha-ra-mat Ma-sach)
Curtain Up Festival is a unique project initiated and managed by the Israel Ministry of Culture and Sport, which enable young and independent creators to present their works for the first time without the logistical and economical considerations needed for productions. In addition, the artists get 70% share of the festival’s revenue. (Photo by Gadi Dagon)
More information about the Festival
Inbal Dance Theatre
Nestled in the picturesque Suzanne Dellal Centre, Inbal Dance Theatre, founded sixty years ago by Israel Prize Laureate Sara Levi-Tanai, is a mirror of Israel. Inbal’s unique style uses modern dance to depict the clash between modernity and tradition. Many of the themes in the past were based on Biblical themes, such as the Song of Songs, The Story of Ruth or Winged Letters. Some dances, such as Sajarra, Aunt Lea, and Nofim (Views) depict conflict between Israeli tradition and the post-modern world, whereas others illustrate the beauty of the many ethnic cultures as well as Jewish tradition in Israel, such as Me-Arba Kanfot. Over the past several years, Inbal has worked with internationally renowned choreographers, including Japan’s Kei Takei and South Africa’s Vincent Mantesoe, and toured extensively in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Karmiel Dance Festival
About 5,000 dancers from Israel and abroad are taking part in 120 events and performances. Activities, a bazaar and more than 250,000 visitors and guests each year paint the green capitol of the Gallile with a rainbow of colors, rhythm and dance. (Photo by Mati Elmaliach)
Visit the Karmiel Festival’s website