"Co variance" by Niv Scheinfeld
צילום: אייל לנדסמן
Jerusalem to host dance festival
Third consecutive year for "Whole Dance" events in capital; organizers say they are trying to break Tel Aviv hegemony
The third "Whole Dance" festival at the Gerard Behar Center in Jerusalem will give artists and the general public in the capital an overall picture of current trends in modern Israeli dance.
Each evening five works will be presented including a solo from Sharon Eyal's "Love," to be performed by Talia Paz; a trio from the work of Sahar Azimi "When Herzl Said"; Tzfira Stern in a segment from "Colostrums"; a duet from "Stolen Moments" by Mimi Ratz Visenberg; a solo from Neder Rossano from "Longings"; a quartet from a work by Benana Raz "Ghosts"; a duet from "Co-Variance" by Niv Scheinfeld and a duet from "Say There Is" by Robby Edelman.
In events to take place on Wednesday and Thursday, December 7-8, independent artists and dance groups will take part in presenting excerpts of works that have been staged in various frameworks throughout the country, including "Raising a Screen", "Inflamed Dance" and "Intimedance"
רננה רז (צילום: אוריון זידל ויוסי גמזו לטובה)
Segments from "Vertigo and the Diamonds" that Noah Wertheim created for the Vertigo troupe and "Hair" that Amir Kolban created for the "Combine" troupe will also be presented.
Responding to basic needs in Jerusalem
Dancer and choreographer Robby Edelman, one of the festival organizers (together with dancers and choreographers Ofra Izel-Lipshitz and Tzfira Stern-Asel), says that the idea behind "Whole Dance" is to respond to the basic needs that the public and artists in the capital lack.
Edelman, who studied in the dance workshop in kibbutz Ga'aton and continued in dance academy in Rotterdam, has worked for years as an independent artist, and his works have been presented in Israel and abroad.
"There are more than a few artists in the field of dance who started their paths in Jerusalem, left the city, and couldn't find their rightful place when they returned ", says Edelman." The center of Israeli dance is in Tel Aviv, and at the moment you decide in spite of this to work on the periphery, you encounter an absence of infrastructure.
"Instead of occupying yourself creating, you become an administrator. Our wish is to build a Jerusalem infrastructure that eventually will be able to host a (large-scale) festival of dance in Jerusalem. At the moment we are presenting tiny drops of contemporary work that have proven themselves. In the final analysis the intention is to form a creative infrastructure in Jerusalem, and this means work spaces accessible to artists who choose to work in Jerusalem"
Tel Aviv also has a shortage of rehearsal halls, but this is more pronounced in Jerusalem.
"(These are) basic needs for our work. Dancers in Jerusalem don't even know what a dance floor looks like. We must bridge the gaps in Jerusalem between the simple dancer and the stage troupe, from raising an isolated project through artistic accompaniment that will enable proper exposure for works," Edelman said.
"We want to enable people at various stages of creative development to have a work base here in Jerusalem," he said.
