Hello Wingers! I’ve had such amazing adventures over the past month, and more recently, I made my way to Monte-Carlo! I won’t write much now because it is late here, but here are some pictures from my first days in the South of France!
This is the view from the plane
The Casino, where we will perform on the terrace later this month - Beautiful!!
And last, but definitely not the least, and ad for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. This one happened to be in a garage full of skooters (which I loved), but they can be seen all over the city.
Bruchim Habaim LeKibbutz Ga’aton - Welcome to Kibbutz Ga’aton.
I almost didn’t make it to Kibbtuz Ga’aton today. After finishing my morning Gaga class in Tel Aviv, I found out that the train was not running from Hadera to Haifa, and I needed to get even further north. But as they say, when there’s a will, there’s a way! I caught a ride to the bus station in Tel Aviv, hopped a bus to Haifa, picked up the train from there to Nahariya, and then jumped in a cab to Kibbutz Ga’aton in the Western Galilee.
Why make the effort?
This wasn’t merely an outing to a beautiful part of Israel. Kibbutz Ga’aton is home to the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, one of Israel’s oldest and most renowned modern dance companies. When the taxi pulled up to the kibbutz and I saw this sign outside the company’s office, I exhaled and smiled. It took me several hours today - and more than nine months in total - but I finally made it here!
The kibbutz movement in Israel has undergone a lot of change in recent years. While the kibbutzim used to function in a socialist framework, with everyone working on the grounds and sharing income equally, many of these communities have abandoned the traditional model. On Kibbutz Ga’aton, which has changed with the times, the building which housed the old communal dining hall is being renovated - and new dance studios, such as this one, are being created. Company dancers rent housing on the kibbutz, and though in the early years they labored on the kibbutz like other residents, now they work full-time as professional dancers.
The Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company was founded in 1970 by Yehudit Arnon, who moved to Kibbutz Ga’aton in 1948 after surviving the Holocaust and studying dance in Europe. Under her direction, the group - known in Israel as the “Kibbutzit” - performed works by leading Israeli and foreign choreographers. The company toured all over the world and has the posters to prove it!
As I followed the strains of piano music past these posters and into another set of studios, Yehudit - who still serves as the company’s artistic adviser - poked her head out of her office and invited me to watch a bit of the company’s ballet class. It was a wonderful surprise to meet her and a great treat to see the dancers warming up. But for what, may you ask, were the dancers preparing? It was 4:15 p.m. when I spied them doing petit allegro!
At 5:00, the company was scheduled to do an open rehearsal of Rami Be’er’s newest work, 60 Hz, which will premiere next week at the opera house in Tel Aviv. Rami was born on Kibbutz Ga’aton and, as Yehudit proudly told me, he studied dance with her when was a young boy. A former dancer with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, he has been its artistic director and primary choreographer since 1996.
I went next door with Yehudit to a small, new theater for the open rehearsal. Residents of the kibbutz and company staff members filtered into the space, and many of them came over to Yehudit to exchange warm hellos and hugs. We settled into front row seats and readied ourselves for the run of the dance - which, as with the other works of Rami’s that I have seen, combined highly athletic choreography with visually stunning sets and beautifully designed lighting.
Intrigued? See for yourself!
This 11 minute video gives some background on the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company and the dance center at Kibbutz Ga’aton. There are clips of performances, rehearsals, and classes, as well as interviews with Rami Be’er, company dancers, and others.
And stay tuned, New Yorkers, because the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company is performing at Central Park SummerStage on July 26th! They’ll be doing Rami Be’er’s Kef Kefim, which I enjoyed at Suzanne Dellal in the fall. Here are some excerpts:
So save the date! I’m actually heading back to the U.S. for a bit on July 22nd, and I’m trying to figure out if I can make it to the SummerStage show myself; after 4 days out of the country, I may be feeling withdrawal from Israeli dance and this just might be the shot I need . . .
Link to Central Park SummerStage to learn more about the performance by the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, which will be on the same bill with PeepDance, an installation by Israeli choreographer Nimrod Freed.
(This photo doesn’t really have anything to do with the post, I just happen to like it.)
Quick question before getting down to business: does anyone remember the 1991 movie titled “Career Opportunities” starring Jennifer Connelly? Basically my childhood dream of getting stuck in Target overnight (minus the robbers) captured in an angst ridden teen movie. Anyone? Anyone?
On my list of most likely careers during my lifetime, “copy-editor” was near the bottom, somewhere between “lion tamer,” and “Wonder Woman”. My life as a professional dancer required me to communicate without speaking, and as much as there were right and wrong ways to execute steps, there was also flexibility to the form of expression. Let’s just say that copy-editing isn’t as kind.
I always kept a magazine or book in my dance bag (partly to keep up my reputation as an artistic connoisseur, partly out of genuine interest) but the complexities of the written word were never my primary focus when I was dancing full time. As I took writing jobs over the past year I started to pay more attention to smaller details like word choice, punctuation rules, and structure in an effort to refine my skills (and there’s a LONG way to go). What I didn’t realize was how quickly I would be thrown into the text vortex; a few months ago I took a job as the copy-editor for movmnt magazine (a delicious combination of dance, music, fashion and pop culture).
Unfortunately, my previous career had instilled the idea that there wasn’t one way to correctly punctuate a thought. Movement (which I now always want to spell as “movmnt,” since I typed it so much) is malleable, and in a sense so is the written word, but whereas a choreographer has the endless combinations of arms, legs, plies, contractions, extension, and more when creating a pause in movement, a writer has but a handful of tools: the comma, the semi-colon, the dash, and the period, among others.
What better way to become acquainted with my new friends in the punctuation world than to park myself at a teashop and devour equal parts Strawberry Green Tea and grammatical rules? If only I had been able to get the rules down as smoothly as the tea. By definition my task was to meticulously comb the text by checking its consistency and accuracy. I quickly learned that by practice it was as painstaking as combing through a child’s hair for lice.
I opened up document after document and went through a cycle of revisions for each piece hoping that immersion would breed confidence. First came an initial read through to check for overall consistency of voice, any glaring mistakes, and holes in the story. Then came the tidal wave of minor corrections that left many pieces looking as if they had been scribbled over with a kindergartener’s digital crayons. Like many, I was more capable of editing work that wasn’t my own, but I still struggled and tried to have faith in the process.
Despite my frustration that with punctuation there are correct and incorrect usages, each document I opened revealed the similarities between the structure of dance and the structure of writing. The process of copy-editing felt foreign, but I could rely more on my other career than I initially thought.
I started to notice that very little was said in some of the first drafts I got: thousands of words that painted a picture of the surface. It was then that I realized the abundance of empty sentences in both my own writing and the writing that I was editing. By buffing up a piece with five dollar words, a writer is doing the same things as a dancer who adds extra turns or beats to a combination in class when the technique is clearly missing; simplicity is an artist’s friend.
Also staring out at me like headlights on a dark road was the idea of transitions. There may be endless ways to string together steps, but a choreographer usually stumbles upon a way to transition from one to the other that feels most natural. The same goes with writing. Just as it is impossible for a dancer to go from one side of the stage to the other with a single jump, it is implausible to ask the reader to launch from one thought to another without giving the proper care to the space between.
My work as an editor gave me the chance to make sure that the pieces not only created scenery and lighting on the stage/page, but also moved the reader through them. I was amazed at how far the articles were able to come (with a little collaborating) from the first draft to the printed final — it was the same transformation as from the first rehearsal to the finished performance. And the fatigue editing caused was not dissimilar to the fatigue after completing a full-length ballet. Yet despite my weariness I felt closer to the written word than ever before.
Now everywhere I look there are opportunities for copy-editing. Wedding announcements, business cards (a friend of mine recently saw a doctor whose card read Doulgas Roberts), websites, this post — all chock full of errors I hope to notice with the ease that I used to spot improper lines in the corps de ballet. Unfortunately, one of the biggest comforts of live performance doesn’t translate to the printed word: the idea that mistakes are over once the curtain comes down. In publishing, my mistakes are printed for all to see. Here’s hoping I got it right.
Adi Sha’al and Noa Wertheim of Vertigo Dance Company. Photo by Eyal Landesman.
Noa Wertheim’s Vertigo and the Diamonds. Photo by Miri Yanai Shimonovich.
Noa Wertheim’s White Noise which premiered this year. Photo by Gadi Dagon.
As I have traveled through Israel’s dance circles, I have run into Noa Wertheim and Adi Sha’al many times: at Vertigo Dance Company’s concerts at the Suzanne Dellal Center, at contact jams, and at a performance of Noa’s work on students from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. With their company, their school in Jerusalem, and their growing artist village on Kibbutz Netiv HaLamed-Hey, this dynamic couple is a powerful force in the Israeli contemporary dance scene. They’re also revolutionary in their community-centered and environmentally-conscious approach to dance. Join us as Noa talks about raising a family while directing a company, building the Eco-Art Village, choreographing the site-specific environmental dance Birth of the Phoenix, and engaging in “tikkun olam” - healing the world - through her work.
Hear our conversation, see more pictures, and link to videos on Israel Seen.
(URL: http://israelseen.com/2008/06/30/deborah-friedes-interviews-noa-wertheim-and-adi-shaal-the-directors-of-vertigo-dance-company/
I just wanted to share some photos and the press release of a show I put up last week-and-a-few here in Montreal with Kyra Jean Green, my friend and collaborator who graduated with me from the Juilliard School in 2006. This was my first evening show… ever! The evening was composed of little dances that we both choreographed individually. We linked them all with interesting transitions and made it a cohesive program lasting less than an hour. We received lots of compliments and great comments. We plan to do the show again sometime soon because of the enthusiastic demand for the show to happen again. Both Kyra and I were very happy and thankful for all who made the show possible. The dancers, volunteers, and the audience. Merci!
We performed at a studio loft for the first night and ran into the problem of figuring out how to seat the audience. So Kyra decided that we should buy blow up mini-inner-tubes and have the audience use them as seat cushions. The audience loved it! They particularly loved the blown up dolphin and Dalmatian dog. It was a really fun evening!
PRESS RELEASE
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Kyra Jean Green and Bennyroyce Royon present MUSIC DANCE FUN WOW !, an exciting collaborative dance show between two talented choreographers. Both graduated from the Juilliard School and currently dance with Cas Public. The event will be presented on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 9PM at STUDIO SPACE and on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 9PM at THE POUND. They have enlisted a stunning group of Montréal-based dancers. The program, which is a little less than an hour, includes several new works by both choreographers. Musical selections include music by Dani Siciliano, Cocoa Rosie, Archive, Venetian Snares, Ellen Alien, Autechre, and Animal Collective. Ms. Green’s talents have been praised by The Washington Times stating that “CityDance Ensemble is impressive. [One of] its greatest strength[s] is new dancer Kyra Jean Green…” She has also been acclaimed by Lisa Traiger a member of the Dance Critics Association, Carmel Morgan of “Ballet Dance Magazine, and by DC dance blogger Amanda Abrams who expressed that “Kyra Jean Green was terrific… clean movements, beautiful and a compelling presence.” Likewise, Mr. Royon’s dance and choreographic talents have been applauded by the Boston Globe, the Berkshire Eagle, and by Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times who expressed that Mr. Royon’s “keenly focused, succinct way with movement” was a pleasure to watch. Kyra Jean Green was born in France and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida. She received her B.F.A. in dance from Juilliard in May 2006. Upon leaving Juilliard she danced and choreographed for City Dance Ensemble of Washington, D.C. Ms. Green was one of three winners selected from a pool of 114 applicants to participate in a one-week residency to create an original work for Hubbard Street II. She has also choreographed for Bosma Dance of Washington, D.C. and had an evening of her work presented at the Kennedy Center. In September, Ms. Green will be choreographing a new piece for the Michigan based company Eisenhower Dance Ensemble. Mr. Royon was born in the Philippines. He started professional dance training at age 16 with the Evergreen City Ballet Academy and received his BFA degree at the Juilliard School in 2006. Mr. Royon joined the Metropolitan Opera Ballet for its 2006/2007 season where he performed in the new production of Madama Butterfly, choreographed by Carolyn Choa and directed by Anthony Minghella. He also appeared in other MET Opera productions. In summer of 2007, he joined Rasta Thomas’ new all male company “Bad Boys of Dance” with a debut performance at Jacob’s Pillow as part of its 75th anniversary season. Mr. Royon’s choreographic works have been presented in Montréal, Maryland, Seattle, New York City, and at Jacob’s Pillow in Beckett, Massachussetts.
(Happy to tell friends about the successful evening!)
A crowd gathers for opening night festivities for TLV Fest at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.
Back in February, I served as the assistant to the director on a short film by November Wanderin, and it debuted last night at the opening of TLV Fest, the 3rd Israel International LGBT Film Festival. November’s film centered around a developing love affair between a dancer and choreographer and she needed extra dancers to be in the choreographer’s company, so I also got to be on camera, stretching on a Tel Aviv beach and improvising in a rehearsal scene. I’m in it for about 20 seconds, but hey, it’s still my big screen debut!
