Panim- Faces of Art and Culture in Israel- August-September 1999

Glass Extravaganza at the Tower of David

The world-famous glass artist, Dale Chihuly has found a new setting for his creations - the ancient stone walls of the Tower of David, just inside Jerusalem's Old City walls. Here his glittering glass installations are juxtaposed with Herodian stonework, Crusader artifacts, archeological remains and the soaring minaret, bringing light and fantasy and beauty to the austere surroundings of this famed tourist spot.

Chihuly thinks big - and relishes the logistic and artistic challenges involved in setting up the 42 tons of glass he had shipped to Israel in 12 containers. Over 10,000 pieces of glass were assembled on specially-made metal frames, for the 15 installations now to be seen in the Citadel courtyard. The result is an awesome explosion of color: a mountain of 1,500 rose-colored crystals, nearly ten meters high; "Moon," a three meter diameter blue globe, visible above the walls of the Old City; the soaring "Blue Tower" of translucent, sinuous, writhing glass ropes, balanced by a "White Tower" composed of milky, opaque glass shapes. Artfully strewn on the ground, inside the foundation walls of the 2,000 year-old building are the pieces, each one individually blown.

Jerusalem is the latest of the American-born Chihuly's flamboyant outdoor displays. It follows his site-specific installations in France, Ireland, Norway, Mexico, chandeliers over smaller canals of Venice, and fishing floats on the Japanese island of Niijima. Chihuly is fascinated by the techniques of glass blowing, ancient and modem, and has popularized glass as an art form and expanded its frontiers. His installations have been placed in rivers and fields, and merged into the fabric of old buildings. His sculpture works command high prices, and are to be found in prestigious private collections, including those of Queen Elizabeth and the White House. "Glass," says Chihuly "is the world's most plentiful material ... it is only sand ... it is the most enchanting of materials. Glass reflects light in its own special way and can break at any moment".

So much for the hype. While art critics have dismissed Chihuly's work as merely decorative, or farmed-out craftsmanship (he's a hands-off artist, relying on a team of skilled glass workers to transform his sketches into reality), the Israeli public is voting with its feet. Long queues have lined up at the Tower of David, and opening hours have been extended. There is no need to look for meaning or message, simply an enjoyment of form and color and light. The effect varies according to the time of day, and at night specially installed lighting transforms the courtyard into a magical theatrical experience.

The exhibition runs through the year 2000.
Summer opening hours: every day from 9 am, closing at 5 pm (4 pm Fridays, 7 pm Mondays and Saturdays, and 10 pm on Wednesdays).

SPOTLIGHT

Gronich: Playing House and Music

Shlomo Gronich tried getting out of a face-to-face interview. "I'm just so busy, you know how it is, the kids, the house and all that." Is this Israel's consummate all-purpose musician talking domestic jargon?

One look at his home (in the end he does relent), located on a quiet street in a former agricultural settlement - suburbia in other words - and this home-is-where-the-heart-is impression is reconfirmed. Inflatable pool, toys and beach balls litter the garden; two matching high chairs dominate the dining area of this quasi-rustic quasi-Mediterranean style home. A small stack of CD's sits humbly in an unobtrusive comer. Where is the piano, the drums, the scores - any indication that this is the abode of one of Israel's top music men?

The truth is music is playing second fiddle to fatherhood. At 50, Gronich is the father of 20-month-old twin girls and since their birth, life has not been the same. "Our lives" - the other half of the "our" being his harmonicaplaying wife, Michal - "are totally centered around Shachar and Yam," says Gronich.

He admits he did not experience the creative outburst he was sure would accompany parenthood, "Oh, there were outbursts, but they weren't creative ones," he laughs instead, he became enmeshed in the daily routine of diapers and bottles and still relishes every second of it.

Not that he's not a tad frustrated. Music has always been his life and he's not about to jump ship. (There is a music studio tucked away on the premises.) Composer, conductor, piano-player (and shofar sounder), singer, Gronich has 15 albums to his credit and a host of music awards; he has created scores for theater, cinema and dance troupes, including the Inbal and Bat Sheva dance companies and has composed works for orchestras and individual performers. He appears frequently on television and radio and his live performances are always sold out.

High up on his performance schedule is the Sheba Choir of Ethiopian youngsters, which he established in 1991. Not afraid of sounding trite, Gronich refers to Sheba as "a great Zionist act," an attempt to redress much of the humiliation endured by Ethiopian immigrants at the hands of "cynical Israelis who still have a lot to learn about welcoming newcomers." Blending Ethiopian motifs ("their music tends to be monotone") with his own Hasidic, Beatles and Frank Zappa-inspired style, Sheba's success came as a surprise to Gronich. Their 1993 album went gold within two years of its release and they continue to perform to worldwide acclaim.

Gronich admits that establishing the choir was a sort of compensation for not having children - he used to refer to the Ethiopian youngsters as "my children" - and since the twins were born he has been able to distance himself emotionally - though not musically from Sheba. "I no longer get insulted if they don't greet me nicely," laughs Gronich at his own vulnerable spots.

Well beyond musical pigeonholing, Gronich's many talents are both a blessing and a source of constant frustration. "To tell the truth, I've been spending my whole life trying to get my musical priorities straight," admits this multi-talented musician. "For example, when I'm with Sheba, I know it's at the expense of my own recordings." Right now, aside from dadhood Gronich says he's working on material for a new album of his own (the first in a decade), as well as a new Sheba release.

But that's not enough. Gronich is thinking of forming a new children's choir, an outlet "to express the music that's inside me that's not appropriate for Sheba." Something more classical, he says. He wants to work with children who have a fairly sophisticated musical background - "so I can compose far more complicated pieces," says Gronich, who continues to write classical works, including recently a concerto for flute for Noam Buchman, a piece in memory of Yitzhak Rabin for percussionist Chen Zimbalista (currently performing it on tour in Germany), as well as a concerto for his wife "and her rather strange instrument."

His personal bent towards classical or what he calls "serious" music goes back to his childhood when his father, himself a musician, packed him off to piano lessons at the age of six. And if he didn't become the classical pianist that his father desired, his admiration of the great masters persisted. At home, in his free time that doesn't seem to exist, he listens to Bach, Mahler and Stravinsky. Mozart's "A Little Night Music," is his twins' favorite.

He also listens to Pakistani, Rumanian and black soul music. "I want to connect to all cultures, to erase borders," says Gronich. A rather ironic statement coming from someone who sets Jewish prayers to music, sings in a self-described "cantorial" voice, someone who refers to his own music as a spiritual, mystical "totally Jewish experience. Secular to the core, Gronich, who in another life might have been a Safed mystic - with his long flowing gray hair he looks the part - is sure his music has the power "to open heavenly gates no less than someone who prays three times a day."

Completely at home with his Jewish identity, Gronich views his spiritually-inspired tunes as an act of rebellion against the religious establishment. "No one has a monopoly on holiness." As a rebel, Gronich used to also appear frequently at peace rallies. "Protest provides great fuel for creative expression," he says. But there is a price attached. "To fight the world upsets inner peace - it is anti-home, anti-domestic." And that is not something Gronich is interested in disturbing right now.

Shelley Kleiman

Chamber Music Festival in Jerusalem

One year is sufficient for establishing a tradition. The runaway success of the 1998 Jerusalem International Festival of Chamber Music put the event on the cultural calendar of the capital, and last year's successful formula will be repeated September 2-10, in the romantic ambience of the Khan Theater.

Festival founder and artistic director is pianist Elena Bashkirova, wife of Israeli conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim. She has assembled a roster of instrumentalists from Israel and overseas, string, wind and brass players, whom she will "mix and match" in a variety of ensembles. Outstanding among the Israeli performers are flautist Sharon Bezaly, Yevgenia Pikovsky, a new immigrant violinist from the former Soviet Union, now concert master of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and the phenomenal Jerusalem String Quartet, who have already launched an international career both in Israel and abroad, while at the same time completing their military service in the Israel Defence Forces.

Deliberately Bashkirova gives no advance details on which performers will be playing any given work. It will be interesting to see if the Jerusalem Quartet youngsters play together or join with their elders. Among the overseas musicians who have won a following among Israeli audiences are German cellist Boris Pergamenshikov, and violinists Julian Rachlin from Austria and Nikolaj Znaider from Denmark.

Bashkirova says she is proud and happy that the festival of chamber music has become a Jerusalem tradition for both performers and audience. While she and her husband keep their professional lives strictly separate, their decision last year to acquire a home in the capital for themselves and their children was warmly applauded by Jerusalemites.

DANCE

Hot Dance

There's a sizzling selection of summer dance on offer at the Suzanne Dellal Center, Tel Aviv. For the five week festival (July 8 - August 14), "Blazing Dance" (Mahol Lohet) is sending temperatures soaring with some of Israel's most exciting dance groups. The emphasis is on the flamenco and oriental traditions. In one intriguing presentation, the two styles merge and interact and enter into a dialogue with one another, with Elina Pechersky's sinuous belly dance balanced by the fiery high-stepping Spanish stamp and swirl of Neta Shezaf. Sylvia Duran, pioneer of flamenco in Israel, has trained her young dancers to a high level of proficiency. Her group presents three pieces based on Bizet's story of Carmen. Another evening is dedicated to a celebration of oriental dance, with contrasting styles demonstrated by the men and women dancers.

And the "Hot Dance" season ends with "Persona", premiered at the Israel Festival, where a series of solo dancers take center stage, presenting his or her own choreography and performance to the audience, each one alone with the music and the spotlight.

On the Edge

EVENTS

Jerusalem International Book Fair

The Jerusalem Prize for an author writing on the freedom of the individual in society, which has been presented during the Book Fair since 1963, was awarded this year to Don DeLillo. The panel selected the American novelist for his commitment to combating violence in contemporary Western society, and to drawing public attention to the individual's attempt to preserve his identity.

But it was the vast array of books, displayed in hundreds of colorful stalls that drew the crowds who happily browsed and bought for the six days of the Book Fair. Books published in Israel during the past 50 years were showcased in an exhibition called "Literature Written Here." Books written in Arabic and Yiddish were included, as were translations into Hebrew from every imaginable tongue, and of course the mainstream outpouring of Hebrew literature written since the establishment of the state.

The exhibition presented Israeli literature as a series of processes and conflicts, and as a means of building a national identity. The Israeli landscape is a site of confrontation - between Jew and Arab, between secular and religious, between men and women, between Ashkenazi and Sephardi, between Hebrew and the languages of the Diaspora. The exhibition, organized along these trajectories, demonstrated the influence of Israeli literature on the political, cultural and social life of the country.

Festival Round-Up

Further north the Galilee town of Safed vibrates to the hypnotic sound of Jewish hassidic soul music, for the three days of the annual Klezmer Festival, August 10-12. Many of the traditional klezmer groups appearing are made up of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and five klezmer bands are coming from over-seas (US, Germany, Belgium). Alongside the performances are workshops for children, and a competition for young klezmer musicians. An exciting innovation this year is a real simcha, a marriage ceremony conducted by rabbis from Safed. Twelve couples, all from the former Soviet Union, will tie the knot and traditional klezmer musicians will accompany them, with festival-goers joining in the celebrations.

In July, lovers of classical music enjoyed a week of chamber music at the annual Kfar Blum Festival; popular Israeli music drew a younger crowd to the Arad Festival of Israeli Song, while Israel's Anglo population flocked to the shores of the Lake of Galilee for the Jacob's Ladder Festival of folk and country music.

Visitors to the well-established Karmiel Dance Festival could choose from 70 different events - classical, modem, ballroom or folk - or join in the open-air dance-in from dusk to dawn.

Hottest of all this summer is the 13th annual Red Sea jazz Festival, at the Red Sea port of Eilat, August 23-26, where aficionados hibernate during the day, and at night revel in the cool tones of top international jazz favorites, among them this year Chick Corea with the Origin Quartet.

Producers plead poverty and directors bemoan the lack of establishment support for the local film industry, yet the Israeli films screened at this year's Jerusalem Film Festival showed that movie-making in Israel is alive and well and inventive as never before. Prize-winning films which will undoubtedly be seen at international festivals in the coming months included "Menelik," the story of a young Ethiopian immigrant on the margins of Israeli society, living in the Central Bus Station of Tel Aviv, and surviving by theft. Daniel Wachsman's film won the 40,000 shekel New Foundation Award for cinema and television documentary. The Television Drama Award of 20,000 shekels went to Haim Bouzaglo for "Zinzana," a TV drama series about life in Israeli prisons, another look at the seamy side of Israeli society. And the most coveted of the Wolgin awards, 160,000 shekels for the best full length feature went to Ark Kaplun for "Yanna's Friends" (Haverim shel Yanna).

The film tells the story of Russian immigrants who land in the brave new world of Tel Aviv in the shadow of the Gulf War. Eastern European immigrants came to America in the early 20th century with stars in their eyes, ready to make a better life in the land of opportunity. Expectations are different in the 1990's setting of "Yanna's Friends," in which a young Russian couple immigrates to Israel for uncertain reasons, with minimal prospects - both in the country and with each other.

When Yanna's husband confronts the fact that their life in Israel is no easy ride and no easy money - he travels back to Russia, ostensibly to raise some cash there. Yanna is left in their apartment, pregnant and alone, able to speak only a few stammering sentences in Hebrew. After a short time, it becomes clear that her husband has done a bunk. Slowly, she admits to herself that she has been abandoned, and realizes that she must somehow take responsibility for her predicament.

Nor is Israel exactly the user-friendly, proverbial land of opportunity. jobs are scarce and creditors are on the trail. Her immediate contacts, a womanizing neighbor and a nasty spinster landlady, seem foreign and inaccessible. However, the ups and downs of Israeli life draw the characters together, as it turns out that each has his own particular story, and need for understanding. Yanna ultimately befriends the landlady, beds the neighbor and starts changing her attitude, becoming more positive. By the time her deadbeat husband shows up again, she is immune to his emotional immaturity, and on the road to making a life for herself.

With humor, playfulness and the occasional tear-jerking scene, director Arik Kaplun and his wife Evlyn, who stars in the film, have made a film to capture the predicaments of Israeli life from many perspectives.

The film was shown at the Czech International Film Festival (July) and will be shown in Warsaw (October 7-8).

Israel is marking the 150th Anniversary of the death of Frederic Chopin with a wide range of musical activities. Pianist Alexander Tamir is the driving force behind the Chopin Society in Israel, which he founded in the early 1990's. It is one of 47 member's of the International Federation of Chopin Societies, which this year celebrates the composer and his music with a worldwide program of concerts, festivals, competitions, exhibitions and other related events. Israel's contribution got underway earlier in the year, with a series of concerts within the framework of the Israel Festival. Cellist Nitzan Lester, flautist Ruth Ron, pianist Zacharia Flavin, soprano Susanna Poretzky, and the "Ir Shalem" piano trio joined forces with visiting Polish artists to present the entire opus of Chopin's chamber works, including chamber versions of the two piano concertos, performed by Polish pianist Piotr Paleczny and the Kaprizma ensemble.

Next comes the Frederic Chopin Piano Competition, organized by Israel Radio's "Voice of Music" network, in co-operation with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Ein Karem Targ Music Center. Twenty Israeli pianists, between the ages of 18 and 30 will compete for prizes awarded by the Ministry of Education and the Mayor of Jerusalem. The two preliminary rounds will be held at the Targ Center, the third stage requires the finalists to perform one of Chopin's piano concertos, accompanied by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, with the concert broadcast live on Israel Radio. The competition will take place 13-23 September 1999.

Details: Kol Israel, Voice of Music, P.O. Box 1082, Jerusalem 91010

Pianist Alexander Tamir is a natural to head Israel's Chopin anniversary events. Born in Vilnius in 1931, he speaks fluent Polish, and is an active member of the board of the International Federation of Chopin Societies. Together with Bracha Eden, the Eden-Tamir Piano Duo has performed on concert platforms throughout the world for nearly half a century. In February, the Eden-Tamir Duo performed in Warsaw for the opening of the Chopin Anniversary festivities, and Tamir gave a lecture to the IFCS on "Interpreting the Mazurkas of Chopin." The Duo has been invited to appear again in Poland for the conclusion of the Chopin Year.

Eden and Tamir are both professors of piano at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, Jerusalem, and play a prominent role in the musical life of the capital. Tamir's voice is well known to listeners to Israel Radio's classical program "The Voice of Music" where he lectures and presents classical music programs with a wide erudition, lightly worn But ask Tamir which of his accomplishments he prizes most, and he'll point to the beautiful house and garden of the Targ Music Center, situated in the village of Ein Karem, the birthplace of John the Baptist, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Here the small concert hall is filled weekly, sometimes twice weekly, for the ongoing series of chamber concerts produced and presented by Alexander Tamir. Young musicians are offered a platform for their professional debut, new talent is discovered, and some of Israel's finest artists are often to be heard, lured by the fine acoustics and the warm ambience of the center.

NEW PRODUCTIONS

You're Also Attractive Even When You're Dead

The Essen Academy has a tradition of working with students from another country in an annual co-production. In 1998 initial contact was made with Loewenstein, and the two groups of students met for several sessions of creative improvisation. Dutch playwright Arnon Grunberg was invited to write a play based on the students' work, and British-born Brian Michaels, now living and working in Germany, was appointed director. The Israeli students went to Germany to rehearse the play, and last September it was premiered at the Dusseldorf Municipal Theater to much acclaim, followed by three performances in Israel this summer.

The play is in English, with some German and Hebrew interpolations, built around a series of monologues, allowing each character to tell his or her story. The director has succeeded in welding the company - eight Israelis and seven Germans - into a homogenous group, and the young actors deliver powerful and convincing performances. The play itself is raw and shocking and pulls no punches. It touches on most of the Seven Deadly Sins - lust, greed, cruelty, hypocrisy, racism - and deals with some painful issues of modern society. Ugly and direct, Grunberg's play takes a cynical look at the relations between Israelis and Germans in the 1990's, boldly tackling taboos that have inhibited both sides in the past half century.

Tel-Aviv - Jaffa
"Tel-Aviv and the Artists who have Loved It"

Some of Israel's most prominent artists have contributed their perspective on Tel Aviv. Avigdor Arikha's ink drawings capture its frenetic pace and layout, from a mellow vantage point high above the rooftops; Yoav Ben David, by contrast, paints realistic street scenes that offer the viewer a ringside seat to everyday life, Gadi Dagan photographs the inner chambers of the city and its institutions, showing Tel Aviv both at work, busy with people and traffic, and at rest, when it seems to take a break from its own pace. Ofer Lellouche uses simple black and white etchings to give a sentimental, almost hazy view of life in Tel Aviv, at beach and pool-side. Buildings are a favorite topic. Shalom Flash records them faithfully on canvas, including their tops and sides. Barry Frydlancler sees them through the camera's lens, in wide panorama and in the detail of a doorway. Dana and Boaz Zonshein photograph both the beautiful and the modest homes of the city, as equally important elements of its urban landscape. Eli Shamir and Jan Rauchwerger offer abstract views of the city, awash with color and motion, sun and sand.

The artists who capture Tel Aviv express awareness of the city's uniqueness - an 11 old-new" city that is partly the result of careful planning and partly the result of spontaneity and haphazardness; part-European, partMiddle Eastern, part order and part chaos. Shalom Flash muses: "I look and paint this city which gets more and more mysterious, evading my understanding. I wonder how it grew from here to the sea." John Moore, an American painter who participates in the exhibit, commented: "...yet the longer I looked, the clutter, the density, the texture and the dusty desert light appeared elating, mysterious and drenched with meaning and beauty. It has never left my mind."

From the sidewalk to the timeless landscape of Jaffa, after 90 years, the Tel AvivJaffa exhibit now catalogs artists' understanding of its personality. The result is an extensive and very textured range of views. And as some of the works emphasize, construction is constantly charging ahead creating more of the city, for future generations of artists to chronicle. The exhibit continues at the Tel Aviv Museum until August 29, and is accompanied by a comprehensive Hebrew/English catalogue.

CULTURE-BRIEFS

Moroccan Tourism Posters

An exhibition of early travel posters from Morocco was featured at the Jerusalem International Book Fair. These Art Deco posters of tourist sites in the Maghreb and Mediterranean were on loan from the Abderrahman Slaoui Foundation in Morocco, They provided a nostalgic glimpse of the romantic age of travel in the 1920's and 1930's, the era of Wagons Lits and Orient Express, of leisurely cruises and camel rides for the well-heeled tourist from Europe and America. A meeting of European and North African cultures, this oriental style collection constitutes a piece of advertising, graphic and colonial history.

"Murder" in Germany

Hanoch Levine's powerful drama takes to the road, after more than 200 sold-out performances in Israel. Directed by Omri Nitzan, the cast includes both Jewish and Arab actors. The play deals with the never-ending cycle of violence in Israeli society; revenge is followed by revenge, murder leads to murder, claiming innocent victims on both sides. Last year "Murder" traveled to Italy where it featured in the Parma Festival. Now German audiences will be able to see Levine's penetrating critique of Israeli society. Weimar, September 22; Bonn, September 24; Heidelberg, September 26.

Book Trade Directory

The 1999-2000 edition of the "Israel Book Trade Directory" has just been published. For 32 years, this has been the key reference book to the world of books and publishing in Israel. The 104 page book has separate listings of publishers, translators, photographers, literary agents, publishers' representatives, book importers and exporters, electronic publishers, literary magazine, etc.

Available at 50 shekels ($10) from Weill Publishers, P.O. Box 7705, Jerusalem 9 1067. Special price for multiple quantities.

Chair in Polish Culture at Hebrew Universty

A chair in Polish history and culture has been inaugurated at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The aim is to stimulate interest and develop specialists in the field. Courses, seminars and an exchange program between Polish and Israeli scholars and artists will be sponsored by the Polish foundation which has endowed the chair. The first visiting professor from Poland is Professor Jacek Wozniakowski, former mayor of Cracow, and a distinguished art critic, who will teach courses on Polish culture at the Hebrew University.

Kadishman's Sheep

Hundreds of sheep heads, oil and acrylic animal portraits on identical 80 x 60 cm unframed canvases, fill the exhibition space, each picture free-standing on the floor, on its own wooden base. This is Menashe Kadishman's "The Herd," a major work which has obsessed him in the past decade, now drawing enthusiastic plaudits wherever it is shown. Each sheep portrait is different, ranging from near-abstract to conventionally representative, some in rich color, other's monochromatic. And the expressions of the sheep - some timid, others face the viewers curiousiy, or with an aggressive gaze. To experience "The Herd," the viewer walks through the array of pictures lined up like soldiers on parade, or worshippers at prayer. Kadishman's manic obsession takes hold of the spectator, drawing him into a strange world, with its own inner logic and magnetic appeal.

What will India make of Kadishman? From 1st August "The Herd" will be on display in Bombay. The sheep will then be shipped to New Delhi and put out to graze at the Lalit Kalo Akademy, opening September 1st. Kadishman is scheduled to conduct a joint workshop there with Indian artist Jatin Das. This follows a previous workshop they conducted together in Israel. Later in the year Kadishman's sheep will find new pastures in Singapore.

Classic Status for Amos 0z

Amos Oz's novel "My Michael" (1968) has been included in the Modern Classics series of great literary works of the 20th century, published by the giant German publisher, Bertelsmann. Other literary greats include James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf. Oz is delighted: "It is a very Israeli book about the long-gone Jerusalem of the 1950s. That city no longer exists, and I'm glad that at least in literature it will live on and endure".