Dance Voices - קולות המחול

The magazine Dance Today, published twice a year reflects the work and achievements of the rich and prosperous dance scene in Israel. It serves as a platform for qualitative writing on dance in Israel with relationships to the international dance scene.

Dance Today is supported by Israel's Ministry of Culture, its publisher is Tmuna Theatre, and the editors are Dr. Henia Rottenberg and Dr. Ruth Eshel.

Issue 16 (December 2009) deals with various aspects and meanings of tension that stretch out between centre and periphery. The English translated article is "Fringe's at the Center: Tetris by Noa Dar" by Henia Rottenberg.

To purchase a copy please contact Tmuna Theatre, Tel: 03-5629462

Israel is a society of Jewish immigrants who have returned to their ancient biblical homeland. It is also a complex society made up of people of varied cultures and ideologies, enduring changing economic and political situations. For the past eighty years, Israeli dancers have reflected and helped to shape the internal dialogues of Israeli life and contributed to a global exchange of dance ideas, especially with modern dancers from Europe and America.

Since artistic dance began in Israel, classical ballet has been at the margins of artistic activity and creation. There are several established dance companies in Israel, but only one of classical ballet – The Israel Ballet. Unlike modern dance, where fringe activities thrive, Israeli classical ballet has no fringe activities whatsoever. The Israeli Ballet is a good dance company, appearing in full halls despite the difficult conditions in which it works – one rehearsal hall and no accompanying school. There are some masterpieces by George Balanchine in the company’s repertoire, but most of its works are by Berta Yampolsky. Unlike Rami Be’er or Ohad Naharin, who are likewise the nearly sole creators in their companies, Yampolsky’s works are not appreciated internationally to the same extent. The main problem, however, is that the company did not succeed in raising a new generation of Israeli creators. The only Israeli creator in The Israel Ballet is the company’s Director, Berta Yampolsky.

The flourishing of Israeli dance in the last decade, among Israeli creators and performers, is not self-evident. Decades have passed until a combination of creativity and technical ability came to fruition. In this article I will focus on one chapter in the history of dance in Israel. The period in question, beginning in 1964 (the year Batsheva Dance Company was founded), was characterized on one hand by lack of belief in the creative abilities of Israeli choreographers, and on the other hand by an immense improvement in the dancers’ abilities and in the professionalism of performances.

Today, after the giants in the Israeli dance world whom we worshipped in the 1960s and 1970s fell and others arose and also fell away, it seems that the artistic concept of the pageant is not obsolete, but is even ahead of its time. How are the holidays of ancient Israeli history celebrated in modern Israel? This question occupied the best of artistic and popular dance professionals in pre-State Israel of the 1930s and 1940s. Thus was born the pageant—a combination of Hebrew text declaimed and sung and of holiday dances performed under the open sky.