Panim- Faces of Art and Culture in Israel- March-April 1998

Let the 50th Begin

The first candle lit on Hanukkah was celebrated far beyond the bounds of the Jewish world. The presidents of 21 countries joined scores of community and cultural leaders who participated in the ceremony, which heralded the inauguration of Israels 50th anniversary festivities. Extravagant cultural events and series will bring Israeli artists and their productions abroad for a year-long jubilee, with Foreign Ministry participation (See Panim, July/August 1997).

The "Israel Season" in France features Achinoam Nini (March), the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the Esta fusion-jazz group; dancers ranging from the Bat Sheva Dance Company, Bat Sheva Ensemble, and Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal; and a joint art project between Ein Harod and the Art School of Lyons. Architecture and photography exhibits will be mounted, Israeli films will show throughout France, and Israeli authors will participate in a literature week. Gesher Theater travels to Paris in September, for special performances of Isaac Babels "Odessa Stories."

Germany is not to be outdone by France. In March, Cologne will host a week of Israeli theater; Hanover will see performances by Gesher Theater, the Bat Sheva Dance Ensemble, and the Choir of the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem.There will be a special Israeli presence at the Berlin Film Festival beginning in late February. The fall lineup includes "Zik," the Itim Ensemble, Zehava Ben, Vertigo Dance Ensemble, Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal, and the Diwan Group in Hamburg and Munich; the Kibbutz Dance Company is planning performances in Munich in October.

Washington, D.C.s Kennedy Center will be a central hub of activity around the time of Independence Day. Dance performances include the Kibbutz Dance Companys "Aide Memoire," Bat Shevas "Anaphase," and "Simas Pot," by Ido Tadmor; an Israeli film festival is planned, and a literature and poetry festival brings writers A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, Yehuda Amichai to participate. The Itim Ensemble, the Jerusalem Quartet and the Huberman Quartet also feature in March.

In New York, the Kibbutz Dance Company performed for one week at the Joyce Theater in early March to rave reviews, while Ido Tadmor presents "Simas Pot" at the 92nd Street Y (all prior to the Kennedy Center); Daniel Gortler will give a piano recital, and an exhibition of the photographs of Margalit Mannor will be shown throughout the three weeks of events at the Sadie Bronfman Center. Also in March, the Jerusalem Trio will play at Avery Fischer Hall, and in April the 92nd Street Y hosts the Israel Camerata, for a concert with the winning soloist of this years Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition (see p. 6). Achinoam Nini will be singing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Central Park Summer Stage will feature other Israeli performers; all before the Lincoln Center events in the summer and fall.

Local initiatives have also played a role: Jewish residents of Vienna have orchestrated a series of Israeli cultural activities that began in November 1997 and will continue until June. Jewish youth in Luxembourg have organized a film festival for the first time, from the end of February to early March. Greece will host a performance of the Israel Chamber Orchestra in September during the Athens Festival (during its 1998 world tour), and an Israeli film week will take place in Athens. Tel Aviv Museums current exhibit entitled "Three Generations in Israeli Art" will also travel to Greece in coming months.

In Italy, the "Israel Journey" begins in mid-March. This gala production involves concerts by Gil Shohat and Orit Gavriel, an Israeli photography exhibit, presentations by mime Hanoch Rosen, and a celebration of an often-overlooked aspect of Israeli culture food with chefs Israel Aharoni and Shalom Kadosh. A literature festival and a music festival with Habreira Hativit, David Daor and Eti Ankri are on the agenda. For five weeks, Israeli films will be shown in cities throughout Italy. Habimah Theater is planning performances in Italy in June, and Chava Alberstein will perform in July.

Singapores International Film Festival in April will feature Israeli films; Adelaide is mounting an Israeli Film Festival in May, and in June New Zealand will hold an Israeli film week, planned in coordination with its Jewish community.

Foreign Ministry photography exhibits will travel throughout Latin America during March and April: "Vibrant Israel," "Horizons," and "100 Years of Zionism" are going to Sao Paulo, Peru and Santo Domingo, respectively; "Ancient Maps" will be shown in Brazil. Music abounds in the Latin American celebrations, with Bustan Avraham and Atraf performing; Israeli dance visits the region as well, as the Kibbutz Dance Company brings "Aide Memoire" on a Latin American tour during the end of April.

"Panim" will celebrate in its own fashion: given the high volume of information, the small sampling offered here will be supplemented by a special column in each issue on the "Events" page, for the rest of the jubilee year. Readers, be advised: Israeli culture is coming your way!

The Jerusalem Quartet

Theyre young, winsome and talented. And they play classical music. (What more could a mother want?) Its not only that Amichai Gross (18), Alexander Pavlovsky (20), Sergei Bressler (19) and Kyril Zlotnikov (19) are award-winning musicians in their own right, but together they make up the Jerusalem Quartet, the countrys only professional string quartet. Its hard not to like them and even harder not to like their music.

Music aficionados and critics would agree. In 1995, they were awarded a special prize as guests of the Forum Musical de Normandie, won first prize in the Jerusalem Academy Music Competition in 1996 and in 1997 came in first their real coup, so far at the Franz Schubert and the Music of the 20th Century Competition in Graz, Austria. They have toured all over Europe (they are booked up a year in advance), including London, Oslo, Vienna and Rome. They have performed in South Africa, Amman and New York and will premier at the Kennedy Center later this year. Their most prestigious concert so far will take place this summer at the new Baden-Baden Festival in Germany. The Jerusalem Quartet has just released its first disc (produced by the Jerusalem Music Center) and has had master classes with the likes of Isaac Stern, Gyorgy Kurtag and members of the Amadeus Quartet. The musicians have even been the subject of a local television documentary.

Sitting around in T-shirts and jeans, they appear so easy-going and carefree, its hard to imagine they have all been playing since they were in kindergarten, submitting willingly to the intense rigors their art demands. While their friends were playing soccer, they were taking music lessons; while others were going off to parties, they were heading for rehearsals. As childhood passed them by, have they given up something they cannot retrieve? For these four, the consensus is that theyve gained more than theyve lost. "I never thought about being without music," says Kyril, the groups cellist. "And I hope Ill never have to," adds Alexander, who plays first violin.

At an age when many of their peers are just beginning to "find" themselves, these four have a very focused agenda. "We want to be the best in the world," says violist Amichai, with quiet aplomb. "We want to be S-U-P-E-R-S-T-A-R-S," adds Kyril, using a very exaggerated American inflection. Practicing together often three to four hours a day, they also take private lessons, each honing up their skills as soloist musicians. Free time for discos, MTV, soccer and books plays second fiddle to their music.

Amichai is the only native-born Israeli in the group. Alexander, Sergei and Kyril immigrated from Russia in 1991. They formed the Quartet in 1993 under the auspices of the Jerusalem Music Center and while they all consider themselves Israeli with a name like the Jerusalem Quartet its hard not to they frequently lapse into Russian during rehearsals. Amichai seems to have become rather fluent in Russian profanities, his mentors proudly assert.

If one minute theyre in T-shirts and the next in ties and jackets, these days they can just as frequently be seen in army fatigues. Last year they were inducted into the IDF and after a month of basic training Sergei (second violin) says his only fear then was that something would happen to his hands the quartet now serves as Distinguished Musicians, performing for troops three times a week. The recitals are laced with explanations. Not intending to produce subscribers to the Philharmonic, Amichai says they simply want their fellow troops to appreciate classical music.

They obviously like each other. But how does their one-for-all-and-all-for-four camaraderie translate professionally? Do they ever argue? Are they ever at loggerheads? "Frequently," they readily concur. "Imagine an artists temperament multiplied four times," Kyril playfully suggests. No one personality dominates, Amichai insists: "each musician has his own style and personality to contribute. When they clash on questions of interpretation (they only practice with their coach, violinist Avi Abramovich, once a week), they try out all variations. In the end after a bit of blood, sweat and tears they always reach a compromise. For the sake of producing good music, personal opinions have to be shelved, they say. For these talented youngsters, its not only a professional consideration, its a maturing process as well.

SHALOM-SALAAM

Students at the Camera Obscura Film School in Tel Aviv presented year-end projects in a six-hour screening at the Tel Aviv Cinemathèque in January. Among the dramas, romances and documentaries was Yitzhak Shors "Abu Jamus," an honest search for history both public and personal in a town near the producers home. The Arab village of Abu Jamus was inhabited by Jewish settlers and immigrants during the War of Independence, and the film voices the images of those who have lived there over the decades. Arab villagers tell their story, as the documentary project bring them together with Jewish families and farmers, who in turn relate their experiences both to the audience, and to each other.

More than 500 Palestinian and Israeli youth over the coming year will participate in "Project Pen Pal," which brings individual youngsters (ages 12-20) together while encouraging them to develop two creative skills: writing and photography. Participants are outfitted with disposable cameras and given the task of photographing their surroundings over a period of two weeks. The pictures are then made into postcards ten for each to be written to pen pals, counterparts from the opposite community. The letters thus become vehicles of communication, combined with intimate visual glimpses into each photographers life.

"The notion behind the project is that the kids get to form a personal relationship with single individuals, in order to break down the abstract idea of a nation, into the details and ingredients that go into it," says Eytan Shouker, the 34-year old artist who initiated the program. "We want them to establish communication by means of a creative process, to spur curiosity and expectations." Pen pals, therefore, are carefully matched based on a questionnaire to determine their hobbies and interests.

Eytan Shouker is a graduate and now a photography teacher at Jerusalems Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. He has held exhibits at the Israel Museum, Bezalel, Dizengoff Center and other venues in Israel. Shouker started the "Pen Pal" project after he realized that he had didnt know a single Palestinian his age. "It will be very difficult to make peace with a group of people when most of us dont have personal contact with even a single peer. The unfamiliarity causes such deep fear and suspicion." He teamed up with Mohammad Jouda, a member of the Palestinian peace movement, who coordinates the recruitment of Palestinian youth.

The "Pen Pal" initiative has crossed barriers where politicians have failed: the 500 youth involved include religious, secular, traditional and non-traditional kids, from towns, settlements, cities and suburbs. The organizers include "People to People," and the leaders of the Palestinian peace movement, who have made efforts to recruit diverse participants. A grand vision lies at the end of one year of photographing and corresponding: all the postcards/photographs will be organized into an exhibition, to display the artistic fruits of laborers for peace.

Portraying ones own surroundings can be difficult; portraying the lives of others, especially a politically alien other, is even harder. In a photography project organized by the International Center for Peace in the Middle East, Palestinian and Israeli youth received instruction in documentary photography in order to learn the skill of depicting the opposing community. In a workshop led by Hally Pancer, a documentary photographer living in Israel, the youth were taken into Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugee camps, for an inside perspective of one anothers lives.

Religious, secular, Moslem, Jewish and Christian, members of the workshop photographed aspects of the communities that intrigued them. As an exhibit was prepared, the youth began writing to express their thoughts, and the result is a display of 50 photographic works, accompanied by lengthy written material from the youth themselves. The narratives are alternately descriptive and poetic, and in many cases emotional, conveying what, for many, was the first view ever of the "enemys" world. The project "was not about conversion from one political forum to another, but about learning to listen, respect and accept that each person has a point of view and that each point of view is legitimate."

The exhibit opened at the Shawa Center in Gaza, then at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, in January. It will be travelling outside the Middle East through 1998, beginning with the United States.

In late December, the United Kibbutz Movement sent 500 high school youth on a massive bicycle tour to Jordan. Called the "Bicycle Journey for Peace," the group was joined by Israeli Arabs, Jordanians, and students from abroad, and received King Husseins blessing for the initiative.

The "Virgin of Ludmir" Shakes Foundations

The Jews of Ludmir had a single, favorite source for intellectual and spiritual fulfillment: the texts of Jewish tradition, and the long-entrenched activities of midrash and prayer. Such elements formed the binding glue of Hasidic communities in 18th-century Eastern Europe at least for the male sectors of the population. Women had a wholly different, and strictly defined role, one for which not every female was suited, and which definitely excluded the study of Torah. "The Virgin of Ludmir," a new production by the Khan Theater, dramatizes the legend of an individual woman who was driven to learn Torah despite the prevailing community sensibilities, and her quest to follow her intellectual and spiritual longings.

According to the play, it was even possible that such a women might have gained favor in the communitys eyes, and special status as a righteous figure. Through steadfast demonstrations of her devotion, heroine Hanna-Rachel (Gili Ben Azulai) wins such acceptance, to the point that the most respected figures of the village approach her for advice and aid based on her powerful command of Halachic sources. Eventually, Hanna-Rachel is even permitted to conduct Torah study sessions with other women. However, the sheer non-conformity of her role ineluctably conflicts with the traditional position of women in the old world community; ultimately creating irreconcilable tensions.

The world premier of "Tremolo, Tremolo" offers jumping, rolling, and twisting movements, describes group relations among friends, and even manages to fit a dancer into a suitcase. The co-production between Ensemble Bat Sheva and the Holland Dance Festival is a humorous production in which dancers worked in couples, trios and as a group. They leap, play, frolic and sing, all while interacting with various props.. including pots of flour, and the occasional toilet plunger. Director Joaquim Sabaté explains the intention of buoyant characteristic of the dance as "Voice looking for joyful theater, theater escaping from sound, sound lapping the unpredictable move."

Audiences sang along with the actors during the hit numbers, and mouthed words quietly to solos in a revival of the cherished musical "The Spanish Garden," written by former President Yitzhak Navon, and produced by Habimah Theater. Heavily nostalgic, the musical lovingly recalls the narrators neighborhood in Jerusalem. The central character (played by Yakov Cohen) is of traditional Sephardic background, as is the intimate society around him, where houses are close and gossip is thick, and the courtyard is the center of his world. Neighbors behave like relatives, and each member of the tight-knit group represents a unique personality or character type, for which ultimately, the whole community is responsible.

The musical follows the relationship between several families, preserving the mannerisms of the community, and its folkloric mode of storytelling. Ladino mingles freely with the dialogue and the music (orchestrated by Yehudit Ravitz), as the characters sing songs borrowed from both Jewish liturgy and traditional melodies, and other original songs in Hebrew. The young narrator watches as his elders wrangle with social and religious values, which are constantly challenged by the changing relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, siblings, and lovers.

Israels fifth president, Yitzhak Navon was born into a similar world, to a Jerusalemite family who settled in Israel over 300 years ago. His memories are shared through the epic qualities of this production, directed by Tzadi Tzarfati, which conveys a bygone era in Israeli history while celebrating Israels cultural heritage from Spanish Jewry.

New Production House Reaches Out to the World

The new Production House for Television and Cinema Films for Export, established by actor/director Arnon Zadok and producer Doron Eran, was created in order to bolster Israeli filmmaking on the world scene. With Israeli and foreign investors and a budget of $1.5 million, they hope to accomplish this through encouragement of co-productions and foreign language films, involving international casts and crews. Zadok and Eran see their projects as a means to establish links with foreign media companies, while building international communities of actors, directors, cinematographers, and other cinema professionals.

The companys first feature film planned exemplifies its mission: Laisse Moi Taimer - Dmaot Shel Malachim ("Tears of Angels") is a French-Israeli co-production, which is scheduled to begin filming in April 1998. It tells the story of Mike Brandt, a tragic figure of the Israeli-European pop music scene, in a screenplay written by Pini Eden. A documentary film is also underway, being filmed in New York, and two more features are in the works for 1998.

How does one spend the last 92 minutes of life? How does a 51-year old sunglasses salesman react when he is confronted by a hyper-pragmatic, and very busy doctor with the news that his life will end in 92 minutes? The two-time Israeli Academy Award-winning film "Mr. Baum" follows its anti-hero Mikki Baum (Assi Dayan) through cellular phone calls to his business partners, family reconciliations with his two self-absorbed late-teenaged children, and musings on his frustrated, never-to-be-fulfilled sexual fantasies. Baums emotional and physical journey (most of the film takes place in his car) doubles as a metaphor for his life, as he recalls his past, present and, absurdly, his post-mortem future. Simultaneously, the plot manages to weave a humorous portrayal of the archetypal characters found in any given Israeli family.

"Mr. Baum" is the third film in Dayans "Philosophy" trilogy, which began with "Life According to Agfa," and "The Electric Blanket and Sama Moshe." "The trilogy is called Philosophy because it is a vision of the accidental nature of human reality, which combines the coincidental, the ordinary, the extraordinary and fundamentals of life," says Dayan. "Mr. Baum" opens at a special celebratory evening at the Berlin Film Festival in Germany in late February, which Dayan attended.

Chinese television broadcast its most elaborate international culture event to date in honor of the Chinese new year, and Ido Tadmor was there to represent Israeli modern dance with his most recent production, "Uranus" (see Panim, Jan/Feb 1998). Tadmor joined several other Israeli artists, including "Esta," who participated with cultural figures from 20 countries around the world in the three-day program, which was broadcast in Europe and Asia. Tadmor performed with Noa Oz, in his piece that premiered at the last "Curtains Up: International Exposure" Dance Festival.

In March, Tadmor will also be participating in an international dance festival in Bogota, Colombia with his earlier work, "Cell," before heading to New York for 50th anniversary performances (see page 1).

India, the Middle East, Europe and North Africa are the ingredients that make up "Silan" the second album released by Yair Dalal and the Al Ol Ensemble. The wide range of musical styles from around the world is represented by a variety of instruments appearing on the album ranging from the oud to the sitar, to several different percussion implements and in the melodies themselves. Klezmer and Iraqi music are harmonized to backgrounds of traditional Israeli songs, chants and instrumental pieces. The band is made up of four musicians besides Dalal, who each play more than one instrument. The work contributes to the rapidly expanding realm of "ethnic" music in Israel, and for the members of the Ensemble, symbolizes peace and harmony among cultures. Dalal and Al Ol will perform at Washingtons Kennedy Center events (see p. 1), and will appear in San Francisco in April.

Pop singer Meir Banai established a Dutch fan club after performing in Amsterdam in December. Banai played old works, as well as songs from his latest album at a concert initiated by Amsterdams Jewish community. Known in Israel for melodic ballads and soulful, moody lyrics, Banai sees his songs as music that "reaches out to human feelings and deals with intense personal emotions, on a universal level, not just for Israeli audiences."

Ethnic music is redefining the concept of "traditional" Israeli music. Single influences are out, fusion is in; this is clear in the selection of musical offerings that appear in new centers for ethnic arts. Along with new venues such as the Inbal Ethnic Arts Center (see Panim, July/Aug 1996), the Zionist Confederation House in Jerusalem has inaugurated two projects this year to promote ethnic and new music. The "Music of the World" series presents the sounds of particular regions, and examines certain categories based on subject matter (worship, mourning, celebration, vocal, instrumental, etc.). The "Andralamusica" series nurtures new music that fuses instruments and ethnic styles, to create avant-garde, completely original productions. The Confederation House has also established two house musical groups, Ensemble Dem and Ensemble Samarkand.

"We wanted to give voice to various communities, through folklore, religious music, and so on, in order to express the continuity and depth of the many geographic communities within Israeli society," explains Director General Efi Banaya. The result of this goal will include not only musical series, but literary events featuring writers such as Liora Rivlin, an evening dedicated to the life of the Hebrew poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, and a similar event devoted to the poetry of Yonah Wallach. Their musical offerings will include diverse groups such as Bustan Avraham, Esfahan Ensemble, and the Little Big Band. One of the most successful events so far was a concert by "Eves Women," new on the Israeli ethnic music scene...

"Eves Women," is a favorite new group within the world of cultural fusion, and a frequent feature at this years event. The band, however, often has trouble choosing one definition of itself: Klezmer/rock would be a start, but the jazz component is crucial, and then one must note the Indian and Arabic influences; before even considering the rap background in renditions of favorite songs such as "If I Were a Rich Man." This young, all-women group draws from the wealth of styles represented by its performers: Daphna Sadeh, the bassist, has a classical and jazz training and was formerly a member of the East-West Ensemble, led by Israel Borochov; Orit Orbach moonlights as first clarinetist for the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and has played with the Jerusalem Symphony, along with various orchestras in the US and Europe; Michal Eizen spans a musical range as wide as the keyboards she plays, and Yael Cohen, with jazz training, is most recently known as the drummer in the alternative rock band "The Witches."

With its "special feminine touch," in the bands own words, Eves Women has charmed Israeli and foreign audiences in just over a year of existence. Their style constantly develops throughout their performances at various festivals, but might be characterized broadly as "Jewish soul music," revived and refreshed by the broad geographical, cultural and original aspects that are found even within a single song.

The foursome has played in Europes Roskilde Festival in Denmark and was invited in November 1997 to celebrate the opening of the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade; the group was selected from among ten other candidates. Eves Women will be traveling to Germany to perform at the Berlin celebrations of Israels 50th in March, and features at both the Confederation House and the Inbal Ethnic Music Center. They hope to release their first CD this summer.

The first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition took place on the 25 anniversary of the State of Israel. This year, the Competition celebrates its own 25th birthday at Israels 50th, and the double occasion has warranted special additions: not only will all concerts be recorded and broadcast on Israel Radio, but finalists will play two concerti each with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (one Classical, one Romantic). 52 pianists selected from 21 countries will present their virtuosi, including Armenia, Korea, Uzbekistan, Sweden and Croatia, as well as Western Europe and North America; this years Israeli contestants are Shay Cohen, Uri Shihor, and Miri Yampolsky. Arie Vardi, pianist, music professor, and conductor, sits on the judging panel; he described his hope that participants might "rise to new heights and draw on the best of their talent and artistry...and that we will be able to surrender ourselves to deep experiences the participants will grant us."

Israels entry for the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest is "Diva," by Dana International. A favored, if mildly controversial singer, Dana has made headlines in recent years as a pop star with a wry twist: he began his career as a man singing in drag shows, and now she continues as a women (following a trip to London), producing original material. The contest will be held on May 9, 1998, in Birmingham, Britain.

New Dance/Theater Company Explores Womens Lives

Women and men dance, act, perform and in short, relate to one another, in an original work designed to express womens relationships in the modern world. The new dance/theater troupe "Isham," whose first performance ("Hagigit") premiered in December at the Zionist Organization of America House, Tel Aviv, has a firm feminist bent. Six dancers and actors make up a decidedly multi-disciplinary performance group, whose mission, according to choreographer and founder Yael Cramsky, is to create new languages within performance art by combining theater, dance, music and text. Cramsky founded the group based on a four-month workshop, from which she chose two seasoned dancers with international careers (Ora Mirsky and Margalit Shaltiel), two youngsters, and one male dancer. She hopes that the groups new techniques, as well as their focus on women, will diversify the "fringe" element in Israeli performing arts.

Dani Karavans artwork opened in Israel for the first time in 15 years, with two exhibits one at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and a second at the Ramat Gan Museum. Tel Aviv mayor Roni Milo, and Leah Rabin participated in welcoming Karavans "Homage to Walter Benjamin," a sculpture/design located on the border between Spain and France at the spot where Walter Benjamin committed suicide in 1940, pursued by the Nazis. An Israeli master of public space design, Karavan sculpted a channel into cliffs leading to the sea, and designed a public memorial spot, replete with carvings of Benjamins writings. The exhibit portrays his work through video, photos, scale models, pieces of earth and railroad tracks, all framed by the writings of Walter Benjamin.

For seven years, the Raanana Symphonette has been on a mission to promote new Israeli music, and has sought to expand musical opportunities for new immigrant- and young Israeli musicians. It also encourages new Israeli composition, preserving and performing Jewish music, and educates youth about classical music. In honor of the 50th, the Symphonette will bring its homage to Israeli/Jewish music to Europe and the US, beginning on March 21 in Paris and ending on April 5 in New Jersey, after a coast-to-coast US tour. Conductor Yuval Zaliouk will present the works of Jacques-Francois-Fromental Elie Halévy, Zoltán Kodaly, Mendelssohn, and a selection of Israeli folk songs; the concerts will be accompanied by violinist Nitai Tzeri and counter-tenor David Daor.