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Thursday, November 5
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Performance: Miriam Engel-Angela Dance Company, Israeli Identity Inside Israel and Out (Berkeley, Nov 5, 2015)
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Tag Archives: Dance
New Book: Katz, Bringing Zion Home. Israel in American Jewish Culture
Katz, Emily Alice. Bringing Zion Home. Israel in American Jewish Culture, 1948-1967. Albany: SUNY Press, 2015.
Bringing Zion Home examines the role of culture in the establishment of the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel in the immediate postwar decades. Many American Jews first encountered Israel through their roles as tastemakers, consumers, and cultural impresarios—that is, by writing and reading about Israel; dancing Israeli folk dances; promoting and purchasing Israeli goods; and presenting Israeli art and music. It was precisely by means of these cultural practices, argues Emily Alice Katz, that American Jews insisted on Israel’s “natural” place in American culture, a phenomenon that continues to shape America’s relationship with Israel today.
Katz shows that American Jews’ promotion and consumption of Israel in the cultural realm was bound up with multiple agendas, including the quest for Jewish authenticity in a postimmigrant milieu and the desire of upwardly mobile Jews to polish their status in American society. And, crucially, as influential cultural and political elites positioned “culture” as both an engine of American dominance and as a purveyor of peace in the Cold War, many of Israel’s American Jewish impresarios proclaimed publicly that cultural patronage of and exchange with Israel advanced America’s interests in the Middle East and helped spread the “American way” in the postwar world. Bringing Zion Home is the first book to shine a light squarely upon the role and importance of Israel in the arts, popular culture, and material culture of postwar America.
Emily Alice Katz teaches history at the University of California, Irvine.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Postwar American Jewry Reconsidered
2. Before Exodus: Writing Israel for an American Audience
3. Hora Hootenannies and Yemenite Hoedowns: Israeli Folk Dance in America
4. A Consuming Passion: Israeli Goods in American Jewish Culture
5. Cultural Emissaries and the Culture Explosion: Introducing Israeli Art and Music
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Reviews: Spiegel, Embodying Hebrew Culture
Spiegel, Nina S. Embodying Hebrew Culture. Aesthetics, Athletics, and Dance in the Jewish Community of Mandate Palestine. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013.
Reviews:
Event: “Let’s Dance” – A Documentary Film, screening at UCLA, Oct 20, 2014
“Let’s Dance” – A Documentary Film
A panorama of Israeli modern dance and a unique window into Israeli society and history. With vivid performances from many of Israel’s most innovative contemporary choreographers.
Monday, October 20, 2014
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
James Bridges Theater
Los Angeles, CA 90095
This extraordinary documentary tells the story of Israel’s innovative dance history, exploring how the need to move, shift, and be in constant motion has produced generations of great dancers and choreographers. Through insightful interviews with leading choreographers, including Ohad Naharin, Rami Be’er, and Yasmeen Godder, spectacular performances, and rich archival material, the film traces Israeli dance back to its roots – from the hora circles of the kibbutz to the influences of Martha Graham and the avant-garde – to reveal how dance has become a vital form of expression in Israel today.
Directed by: Gabriel Bibliowicz, 2012 52 min.. In Hebrew with English subtitles
Post-screening discussion with art historian and professor of Israeli visual culture, Anat Gilboa, and Melissa Melpignano, Ph.D. student in Culture and Performance at the UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance, focusing on contemporary Israeli choreography.
RSVP in link.
We are very pleased to screen this film in conjunction with the Batsheva Dance Company’s 50th Anniversary performances at Royce Hall (Nov 1,2), presented by the UCLA Center for the Art of Performance and co-sponsored by the Y&S Nazarian Center. For further information, visit cap.ucla.edu.
Special Instructions
Public parking available in UCLA Parking Structure 3. Enter the campus at Hilgard and Wyton, and make an immediate right turn onto Charles E. Young Dr. East. Signs will direct you to Parking Structure 3, “pay-per-space” parking. For additional directions to campus, visit http://www.ucla.edu/map.
Cost : Event is free and open to the public. RSVP is required.
ToC: Journal of Israeli History 33.2 (2014)
Journal of Israeli History 33.2 (2014): Table of Contents
Articles
Communists and the 1948 War: PCP, Maki, and the National Liberation League
Ilana Kaufman
pages 115-144
Mapam in the War of Independence: From the war front to the opposition back benches
Aviva Halamish
pages 145-168
The Israeli left between culture and politics: Tzavta and Mapam, 1956–1973
Tal Elmaliach
pages 169-183
From Yekke to Zionist: Narrative strategies in life stories of Central European Jewish women immigrants to Mandate Palestine
Dorit Yosef
pages 185-208
“Operation Exodus”: Israeli government involvement in the production of Otto Preminger’s Film Exodus (1960)
Giora Goodman
pages 209-229
Book Reviews
1929: Shnat ha-efes ba-sikhsukh ha-yehudi-aravi [1929: Year zero of the Jewish-Arab conflict]
Motti Golani
pages 231-235
Menachem Begin: A Life
Colin Shindler
pages 235-238
Representing Israel in Modern Egypt: Ideas, Intellectuals and Foreign Policy from Nasser to Mubarak
Uriya Shavit
pages 238-241
Embodying Hebrew Culture: Aesthetics, Athletics, and Dance in the Jewish Community of Mandate Palestine
Shelly Zer-Zion
pages 241-244
Editorial Board
Editorial Board
page ebi
page ebi
Event: Performance/discussion with Israeli Choreographer Rachel Erdos
American University
Center for Israel Studies
AU Student Dance Performance and Discussion
Featuring Israeli choreographer
Rachel Erdos
Additional performance by the dancers of Company E
Thursday, September 11, 2014, 7:30pm
Abramson Family Recital Hall, Katzen Arts Center, American University
You may RSVP now for Thursday’s Katzen Arts Center dance performance at this link: http://www.american.edu/cas/israelstudies/rsvp/rsvp2.cfm
CFP: Israel Affairs special issue, Cultural Sociology of Dancing in Israel
[from: http://www.academia.edu/6251234/]
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Call for Papers
Special issue of Israel Affairs
A Dancing Nation – Cultural Sociology of Dancing in Israel
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In history, dance has contributed towards creating friendship and understanding. For example, in newly established communities of British settlers in Australia dancing helped newcomers to interact with locals and establish friendly relations (Clendinnen, 2005). Some form of dance exists in social life since early days. For example, ballet as a formalized form of dance exists since 15th century Italy, and from Italy it spread to France and then other countries. At first, ballet was intertwined with opera, but theatrical ballet quickly found its place as an independent form of art. On the other hand, wider population developed traditional folk dances, which today form part of national cultures. In Judaism, dance presents a social tradition since ancient times because Jews have always expressed joy through dancing. This practice continued after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 when Jews even danced on the day modern state of Israel was established, and Israeli state has a rich dancing culture: both folk and artistic. During 1940s, Jewish community was seeking its right to self-determination, and Jewish communities developed Hebrew culture as a national culture that will foster new national Jewish identity (Rottenberg 2013; Maoz 2000). Dance also had an important position in creating the state, and particularly the artistic dance performed mostly by European settlers. Jewish communities also developed folk and modern dance inspired by their countries of origin and the Zionist movement (Rottenberg, 2013). In 1950s, American dance groups came to Israel and this helped in spreading expressionism in dance techniques (Rottenberg, 2013). Various dance companies were established during the 1960s, and while folk dances were created from all distinctive traditions in the land of Israel and from Jews who came to Israel after the creation of the modern state of Israel (Roginsky 2007; Eshel 2011), modern and artistic dance are flourishing in Israel. However, dance has not been without divisions in Israeli society and; thus, there is a conflict between Eastern and Western Jewish dances and the position of these two dancing tradition is not the same (Yellin, 2011).
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This volume seeks contributions that tackle socio-cultural aspects of dance, the role of dance in contemporary Israeli society and everyday lives of Israelis. Papers are invited for the following topics: Judaism and dance Jewish dance culture in Israel Zionist dances and culture Impact of dance on everyday lives of Israelis and understanding between Jews of various backgrounds Americanization of dance in Israel Globalization of dance in Israel Influence of the immigration (Russian, Ethiopian, etc.) Dancing and its representation in Israeli Media Dancing and the discourse of ‘prestige’ vs. ‘mass’ culture This special volume is supposed to contribute to increasing of the knowledge about Israel and Jewish studies, as well as to contribute to better understanding of cultural studies and the role of dance in creating and preserving cultural identities. All articles will be a subject to editorial screening and independent peer review, and have to be prepared according to Israel Affairs standards:
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Abstracts are due June1st, 2014, and should be sent to:
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Decisions will be sent by July 1st, 2014. Full papers are due December 1st, 2014. Acceptance of abstract does not automatically guarantee the final paper will be accepted since papers will be subjects to two independent peer-reviews.
Cite: Spiegel, Constructing the City of Tel Aviv
Spiegel, Nina S. “Constructing the City of Tel Aviv: Urban Space, Physical Culture and the Natural and Built Environment.” Rethinking History 16.4 (2012): 497-516.
URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642529.2012.697279
Abstract
This article investigates the intersection of space, culture and the moving body in Tel Aviv during the British Mandate of Palestine. Established in 1909 as a garden suburb of Jaffa, by the 1920s Tel Aviv had become the dynamic cultural and economic center of the Jewish community in Palestine. The culture of Tel Aviv was highly influenced by its natural setting but, as the ‘first Hebrew city’, it was also impacted by the processes of urbanization. Through analysis of a variety of developments in the physical culture arena, this article uncovers how the burgeoning metropolis both drew from and shaped the physical environment.
Cite: St John, Vibe Tribes, Sampledelic Outlaws and Israeli Psytrance
St John, Graham. “Freak Media: Vibe Tribes, Sampledelic Outlaws and Israeli Psytrance.” Continuum 26.3 (2012): 437-447.
URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10304312.2012.665839
Abstract
As an electronic dance music movement, for over 20 years, psytrance (psychedelic trance) has been a context by which sonic, visual, pharmacological and virtual media have facilitated the expression of interwoven narratives, experimental modes of performance, and the experience of intense sociality in scenes the world-over. A key theme adopted within this movement is the ‘tribe’, the discourse around which is multivalent, though here I focus on the transgressive dimensions of psytrance to which one is attached as a member of a tribe apart. The article provides detailed examination of the outlaw figure and sensibility in psytrance, illustrating how cultural producers – e.g. DJ-producers, label owners, scene writers, event management – facilitate the party vibe, and a distinct ‘psychedelic. or ‘freak’ identity via this trope. Among the chief icons of performance, prestige and tribalism sampled within psytrance music and culture, the outlaw is adapted from popular cultural sources (especially cinema) and redeployed as a means of dissolving and performing difference. The exploration of the outlaw conceit in what I call nano-media amplified by the producers of psytrance music illustrates how a psychedelic fiction is generated. Specific, although not exclusive, attention is given to Israeli producers, which offers comment on psytrance in Israel where this music is considered popular.
Cite: Rossen, Contemporary American Dances about Israel and the Mideast Crisis
Rossen, Rebcca. “Uneasy Duets: Contemporary American Dances about Israel and the Mideast Crisis,” The Drama Review 55.3 (2011): 40-49
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_drama_review/summary/v055/55.3.rossen.html
Abstract
Jewish choreographers have consistently created dances that embody the shifting role of Israel in American Jewish life. Countering the Zionism of mid-century dances about Israel, contemporary Jewish American choreographers such as Liz Lerman and Kristen Smiarowski actively question the ideology of unconditional support, deftly grapple with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and situate performance as an opportunity for activism, inquiry, and debate.
Cite: Rowe, Appropriation of Dabkeh by Zionism, Pan-Arabism, Palestinian Nationalism
Rowe, Nicholas. “Dance and Political Credibility: The Appropriation of Dabkeh by Zionism, Pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism.” Middle East Journal 65.3 (2011): 363-380.
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mei/mei/2011/00000065/00000003/art00002
Abstract
This article examines how the rural folkdance dabkeh has, in the last century, been appropriated and reinvented as a tradition in order to construct the imagined communities of Zionism, pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism within Palestine/Israel. This appropriation has led to extensive debates and suppositions on the source, meanings, and cultural ownership of dabkeh. The following historical narratives, emerging from interviews with dance practitioners and dance advocates in the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon, and from literature in libraries and archives in the West Bank, Israel, and Great Britain, draw attention to the salient links between dance and politics and the multiple ways in which collective identities can be constructed and deconstructed. These histories further raise questions about how local cultural autonomy and sustainability within the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been affected by the process of political appropriation.
New Publication: Ingber, Israeli and Jewish Dance
Ingber, Judith Brin, ed. Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance. Detroit, Mich.: 2011.
URL: http://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/899/Seeing-Israeli-and-Jewish-Dance
In Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance, choreographer, dancer, and dance scholar Judith Brin Ingber collects wide-ranging essays and many remarkable photographs to explore the evolution of Jewish dance through two thousand years of Diaspora, in communities of amazing variety and amid changing traditions. Ingber and other eminent scholars consider dancers individually and in community, defining Jewish dance broadly to encompass religious ritual, community folk dance, and choreographed performance. Taken together, this wide range of expression illustrates the vitality, necessity, and continuity of dance in Judaism.
This volume combines dancers’ own views of their art with scholarly examinations of Jewish dance conducted in Europe, Israel, other Middle East areas, Africa, and the Americas. In seven parts, Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance considers Jewish dance artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; the dance of different Jewish communities, including Hasidic, Yemenite, Kurdish, Ethiopian, and European Jews in many epochs; historical and current Israeli folk dance; and the contrast between Israeli and American modern and post-modern theater dance. Along the way, contributors see dance in ancient texts like the Song of Songs, the Talmud, and Renaissance-era illuminated manuscripts, and plumb oral histories, Holocaust sources, and their own unique views of the subject. A selection of 182 illustrations, including photos, paintings, and film stills, round out this lively volume. Many of the illustrations come from private collections and have never before been published, and they represent such varied sources as a program booklet from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and archival photos from the Israel Government Press Office.
Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance threads together unique source material and scholarly examinations by authors from Europe, Israel, and America trained in sociology, anthropology, history, cultural studies, Jewish studies, dance studies, as well as art, theater, and dance criticism. Enthusiasts of dance and performance art and a wide range of university students will enjoy this significant volume.
Contributors: Gaby Aldor, Felix Fibich, Zvi Friedhaber, Jill Gellerman, Ayalah Goren-Kadman, Yehuda Hyman, Judith Brin Ingber, Naomi M. Jackson, Elke Kaschl, Sara Levi-Tanai, Dawn Lille, Giora Manor, Josh Perelman, Dina Roginsky, Janice Ross, Barbara Sparti, Nina S. Spiegel, Shalom Staub
Online Israel Studies Bulletin Board 