Panim- Faces of Art and Culture in Israel- November-December 1998

The Children Shall Lead...

Israel may never have been famed for its strength in choral music. Yet a steady phenomenon is taking the country by surprise: over the last 20 years, choirs have sprung up in almost every municipality. More intriguing is the intense success of these groups both in Israel and abroad. Most exciting of all is that these internationally successful singers are only nine and 20 years old.

The Moran choir at Moshav Beit Yitzhak is an example. Founded 13 years ago by elementary school music teacher Naomi Faran, its 46 children now sing with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Israeli Opera and the Israel Chamber Orchestra. Moran performed in Oslo for the first anniversary celebration of the Oslo Accords; for President Clinton during his 1996 visit to Israel, and sang in a special performance of Jewish traditional music and American Gospel, together with the Boys Choir of Harlem. Recently, Moran was one of three Western choirs chosen for an international festival in Hong Kong in August, after which the festival's director wrote to Faran: "You are one of the best choirs. The festival and the conference would not be so successful without your presence." Singers in Moran are between 11 and 20 years old.

The Ankor choir is another example: founded in 1983 at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, it now performs regularly with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Ankor sang at Denmark's celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Tivoli Gardens, and has also sung in Switzerland, Stockholm, London's Barbican Center, Glasgow and Czechoslovakia (1990). The choir performed a concert series with the Berlin Symphony, and in Italy last December. The even choir performed live from Jerusalem for a Hollywood event entitled "To Life: America Celebrates Israel's 50^th" which was broadcast on national American networks.

Added to these is Cantabile, conducted by Eva Pitlin, and, one of the oldest, Ephroni, conducted by Maya Shavit. Liron is another, and the trend continues to grow: Kfar Saba and Pardes Hana both have choirs called Shir; while Rehovot has Meitar and Petah Tikva has Neve Shir. Pa'amon represents the Galilee area, while Tzlil and Rakefet are two more choirs on the local scene. The Bat Kol choir of the Tel Aviv Conservatory (directed by Anat Morahg) is still flushed with success from last May, when it won a gold metal out of 100 choirs in a festival in Vaasa, Finland.

"Israel is definitely witnessing a boom in children's choirs," says Eva Pitlin, chairman of the newly founded Israel Choral Organization (ISCO). "Our children are winning first prizes at international competitions around the world and they are constantly invited abroad."

She knows this firsthand: Cantabile was invited to a competition in Tolosa, Spain in the summer of 1997. The group's success led to an invitation to the prestigious "Festival des Choeurs Lauréats" in France (the Festival of Prize Winning Choirs) in late July 1998, one of only four choirs, all the others being adults. It has also performed in South Africa, and plans to return for a performance in France next summer. Further, Pitlin has taken the initiative through the International Federation of Choral Music to start a symposium for conductors of children's choirs. The first one took place in June 1998, in Germany. Is Israel joining a growing world trend? Or leading one? And how do kids handle being trend-setters?

The children work extremely hard. Ankor rehearses twice per week, and each child also comes in for personal vocal instruction; altogether, children attend the Academy three to four days per week, for one to three hours each day. "I am competing with television, Internet, parties, boyfriends and pimples, not to mention self-consciousness and the insecurities of being 16," admits Dafna Ben Yohanan, Ankor's director. "But these kids are learning about responsibility to something bigger." The children learn discipline and a professional work ethic as well as music. "I think our girls will grow up to be better citizens" says Ben Yohanan. Faran goes further: "The choir experience drives their motivation in school and other areas. Even their matriculation scores go up!"

The hard work of these choirs to put Israel on the map is beginning to bear fruit at home: In 1997, Israel held its first-ever International Choral Competition, founded by Henry Klausner. In October Shirat Hayamim held its second now-annual festival in Netanya, in which 25 foreign choirs participated. Last year, the sweeping success of the festival was not surprisingly a children's group: Cantabile won first prize in fully three categories, children's singing, folklore, and overall highest score.

The choirs' music is diverse: Ankor, for example, is noted for its strength in classical music. It has performed work ranging from Mahler's Eighth Symphony to Christian liturgical music through to Baroque melodies. Cantabile is heading clearly in the ethnic direction, which was displayed at Shirat Hayamim. Moran is remarkably diverse, with Christmas carols, songs of Eretz Israel, and a Bulgarian tune or two in its repertoire.

Given their successes at home and abroad, the children are definitely breaking a new path in the Israeli musical scene. "The girls are angelic, so apolitical, that they charm people abroad" said Faran. But the secret to the choirs' success is more likely simply the quality of their music and their hard work: in the field of Israeli choral music, it is clearly the children who lead.

Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror: In Step with Reality

Convincing dancers to sit still for a chat is about as simple as flagging down a taxi in the middle of the Sahara Desert. When Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror, the on-and-off stage dance couple, finally agree, only Ben Gal turns up. "We are never interviewed together," says Ben Gal, his winning smile and sparkling blue eyes betraying an urgent need to get on with things. "That," he adds, "would be a complete waste of energy."

And energy, just about any type of energy kinetic, erotic, aerobic, acrobatic is what emanates from their lithe bodies the instant they and the dancers of their troupe, appear on stage. They openly and passionately kiss, embrace and fight. They disrobe, they shatter glass, they bake bread. It is a vital life-force display both starkly modern and primitive to the core that has made Ben Gal and Dror the darlings of the disco and theater-going set and something of the black sheep among pure dance enthusiasts.

Ben Gal admits their productions have ruffled many a dance critic's feathers. "They say we overstep the boundaries of dance and break iron-clad rules." It is criticism Ben Gal and Dror have no trouble swallowing, viewing their own works as an exploration of body language and movement, as an expression of the totality of human expression. Sitting, talking, eating; making love and making war, for this dynamic duo, the stage is a mirror, their works a reflection of life's small and large moments.

Nose-in-the-air criticism notwithstanding, it is their intense portraits of human conflict -- between Israelis and Palestinians, between men and women, between dreams and reality -- that have made the Ben Gal Dror Company such a success both in Israel and abroad.

As dance professionals, they were late bloomers. Born on kibbutzim in norther Israel, Ben Gal, 39, and Dror, 38, high-school sweethearts, married after completing their army service and only then began studying dance at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem and later with Judith Arnon, founder of the Kibbutz Dance Company. After premiering their first choreographical works ("for us dancing and choreographic are one and the same," says Ben Gal) at the Tel Aviv Museum in 1985, their careers took off instantaneously.

In 1992 Ben Gal and Dor became parents, both of their eldest son, Erad (they also have a 1 1/2 year-old daughter, Elisha) and to a company of twelve dancers. Ben Gal attributes part of their success -- as a couple, as parents and as dancers -- to their kibbutz background with its sense of community and equality. Dividing tasks, from changing diapers to designing sets to organizing publicity, comes easily to them, admits Ben Gal.

Ben Gal and Dror have no less than 10 full-length productions to their credit; they have won local and international awards (the Gertrud Krauss Prize, the Young Choreographers Contest, the Grand Prize at the Recontres Choregraphiques Internationales de Bagnolet); and have performed throughout Europe, North America and Israel. They have the artistic stature to attract rave rviews and harsh criticism.

Ben Gal and Dror are willing to court criticism. Even the titles of some of their dances -- "Circle of Lust", "Land of Rape and Honey" -- are enough to raise a few eyebrows. Passionately left wing, for them everything is political. "All relationships involve power struggles: who is stronger and who is weaker, who is dominant and who is submissive," says Ben Gal. Dance, it naturally follows, has to be more than aesthetically pleasing.

Ben Gal smokes incessantly and talks a lot about tension and strife. "Just open a newspaper, get on a bus, or wait on line at a bank and everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else," says ben Gal, between puffs. "Even children's television shows are about winning and losing." Just as it seems he's about to rant on, Ben Gal throws a curve ball: "You know, most of our dances are about love."

"We use our bodies to explore what it means to love, to give purely and unconditionally of one's self," says Ben Gal. Their latest production,"The Dance of Nothing," which has toured throughout Europe and will premier in Israel in November, is a celebration of human relationships. Using original Arabic music ("even that is a political statement") and carpets to evoke a Bedouin tent setting, the performance resounds with a constant flow of male and female enegy and with a deepening sense of spiritual calm.

"Reaching that state," says Ben Gal before scurrying off to rehearsals, "will always be our ultimate goal."

Orchestra Makes Music and Friends

A buried treasure of a building, nearly invisible from outside, is tucked into the Jerusalem wadi just outside the Old City walls. This is the Alpert Music House, and inside it not only music, but friends are made. Jewish and Arab children sit in a little stone hut facing a valley of green, learning to play together in the framework of an orchestra. Teaching them music is one of the main goals of the center, says musical director Yossi Davara. The other is to teach them about one another, and develop a social bond between every child regardless of background.

The musical fruits are clear and plentiful: last year the Jewish-Arab Youth Orchestra held 17 concerts, both in Jerusalem and outside the city. While the orchestra plays some classical works, the emphasis is on Israeli and Arabic folk music. Davara and his assistant Jamal Othman believe that learning one another's musical traditions is an important part of the orchestra's activities. Local influences are seen in the variety of instruments, such as the mandolin, accordion and guitar.

The group's social benefits may be at least as important for its members. The orchestra is a regular youth club, organizing hikes and retreats, celebrating holidays and special occasions with the joy and tensions that accompany any group of kids ages 11-17. "Like any normal children, they laugh and curse and have fun. Together, it never matters who is an Arab and who is a Jew," says Davara. "While it may be a little harder to arrange schedules, because there are double the holidays, we turn this into an advantage, celebrating all the holidays together." This is no small task, when the group includes religious and secular Jews, Moslem and Christian Arabs alike.

The group even has an element of social work: about 30 Arab children from broken families receive emotional care at two nearby monasteries, and play with the orchestra as well, making up part of the current group of roughly 80 children. But this year, Davara hopes to slim down the orchestra somewhat, in order to raise the quality of its work even higher.

Founded in 1973 by Avraham Gila, the project was the initiative of longtime Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, through the "Jerusalem Foundation," which holds as one of its central missions the promotion and funding of Jewish-Arab coexistence projects. The Foundation is the major support behind the Orchestra, making music and friends, hopefully for life.

Painting and Writing for Peace

Rutie Atsmon, who directs of a co-existence project called "Windows," has no illusions about her art students' feelings toward the Middle East peace process. "They sometimes draw horrible things...but that is the reality of what children see. We cannot suppress it." The new exhibit "Our Children's Hope: Peace," is anything but subtle. Paintings and drawings accompanied by the young artists' quotes reflect daily reality: some show soldiers firing guns, others show bombed streets in chaos. Many of the pictures are traumatic; many are unidentifiable as Israeli or Palestinian.

The drawings are the result of a series of workshops conducted by Atsmon throughout August 1998 in both the West Bank and Tel Aviv. In contrast to the organization's earlier exhibit, "My Habitat," (Panim, Oct 1997) hope seems absent or tentative at best, as in one depiction of forlorn Israeli and Palestinian figures at the top of a long, winding path. The caption reads: "There's still a long road ahead," and yet the figures seem to be holding hands. The children had plenty to say about their experiences, and about their hopes: nine-year old Huria Ziada wrote: "The meaning of my name is freedom. In my drawing I show what is happening to my people...I dream that there will be peace and I will be able to erase these images from my head."

In October, the children traveled to Washington, DC for a special opening of the exhibit. Sponsored by the Fund for the Future of Our Children, and co-sponsored by Georgetown University's Center for Moslem-Christian Understanding, the Middle East Institute, and the Arab-American Institute (among others), the program included interactive workshops with the children around the DC area. "Our Children's Hope: Peace," will be displayed at the Senate Russell Building Rotunda from November 9-13, and some of the drawings will be on display at the DC Jewish Community Center from October through February.

But when Atsmon's group also publishes "Windows," a magazine written by Israeli and Palestinian children in both Hebrew and Arabic. Recently, "Windows" has started publishing a magazine for high-school aged students ("Face to Face"). It delves deeper into political, social and journalistic issues. Atsmon insists: "The more they must work together, the more they will know each other. The moment they see each other as people, they will have to begin thinking of long-term solutions."

Haifa Ushers in Films for Fall

Autumn wouldn't be complete in Israel without the annual Haifa International Film Festival to occupy film buffs over the holiday of Sukkot. And occupied they were: The festival screened 120 films over the course of six days to 40,000 viewers, including a host of new Israeli feature, short and documentary films. Kesher Ir ("City Connection") directed by Yehonatan Segel, won the best Israeli feature film award; "Stars" won for best documentary. The Haifa festival must have caught child fever, too: for the first time, it held a celebration of children's films. A special area of the promenade was reserved for the screening of these films, including the Israeli film Arvot Sumsum, directed by Chaim Avraham. New Israeli (grown-up) films screened at the festival included...

"Dangerous Acts." Directed by Shemi Zarchin and produced by Eitan Evan, this is the first time that Israeli acting giants Gila Almagor and Moshe Ivgi have appeared on the big screen together. Almagor actually stars on the big stage as well, playing a famous theater actress named Tzvi'ah who is haunted by her past: three years earlier, Tzvi'ah's husband and pregnant daughter were killed in a road accident. The film begins as Tzvi'ah is celebrating the success of her latest opening, while the driver of the truck that killed her family (Ivgi) is being freed from prison. Maddened by guilt, he begs her forgiveness, but she refuses any sign of conciliation. He becomes so distraught that he jumps off the roof of her house, paralyzing himself. In a strange psychological twist, Tzvi'ah suddenly pities him and begins to care for him. Their relationship becomes increasingly intense and intriguing, raising questions of life's value and meaninglessness, shown through human relationships and the theatrical arts that parody them.

"Chronicle of Love." This new film was not shown at Haifa, but stands as a candidate for the upcoming Israel Film Academy Awards. Tzipi Trope has produced and directed a rare feature film on the subject of battered women, in this relentless, painful drama. What begins as the story of a seemingly solid and happy wife/mother/professional little by little chips away at the family's exterior. At first, Nava's husband is portrayed as mildly domineering. When she pursues her dream of leaving social work and studying music, he lashes out verbally and then physically. The film moves between Nava's life and those of her clients, also abused women, emphasizing that women from all segments of society may be subject to physical abuse by their own partners. The film touches upon often-overlooked issues, such as women who leave abusive husbands and then return. It even confronts the most painful reality of all: that in some cases one member of the couple will not survive the relationship.

Savyon Liebrecht on Tour

With stories translated into German, Italian and Chinese, the English-speaking world is now privy to a collection of Savyon Liebrecht's finest short stories. "Apples from the Desert" (The Feminist Press, 1998) is Liebrecht's first book published in English, and she will present it to American readers in a three-week book tour throughout the US in November. Liebrecht describes the inner lives of families and individuals, and mirrors greater conflicts in society, including the gender, political and generational complexities that shape life in Israel and elsewhere. Stories such as "Written in Stone" tackle the Ashkenazi-Sephardi tensions in Israeli society; while "A Room on the Roof" and "The Road to Cedar City" address the problems of Arab and Jewish populations trying to live both together and apart. Liebrecht also writes about religious-secular tensions and the shadow of the Holocaust in Israel's collective consciousness, yet, as a Washington Post critic noted, "Though resonant with deep philosophical and social themes, this book teems...with rich, exciting, believable stories...[of] the lives of real people to the heart of their emotional and moral being."

Liebrecht will speak at the Jewish Museum in New York on November 17 as part of a tour that will include Miami, Houston and Los Angeles. Information can be obtained through the Feminist Press, at the City University of New York.

Brits and Israelis Debate Culture

The Anglo-Israel Colloquium held its second annual conference at Beit Gabriel, on the shores of the Galilee, in September. The meeting of minds brought together theater and opera directors, media culture figures, museum and film leaders, as well as academics and businesspeople from both countries, with the goal of saving culture. The Anglo-Israel Association organized the event, at which underfunding, censorship, and public versus private support for the arts were debated under a title that demanded: "Culture: Whose Responsibility?" The group concluded that more funding is needed from both public and private sources in partnership, that innovation must always be encouraged, and sensitivity maintained in redefining the role of art in society and nation-building.

"Curtains Up" Coming Up

Topping off the fall is the annual international dance festival at the Suzanne Dellal Center, Tel Aviv. From November 12 to December 11, Israel's top modern dancers present mostly original work, alongside a host of international companies. Performers include: Combina, Yossi Yungman, Rina Sheinfeld, Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal, Vertigo, Tamar Borer, Bat Sheva Ensemble.

Israel Museum Faces East

The curators of "To the East: Orientalism in the Arts in Israel" decided that the 50th anniversary was the ideal time for introspection of Israel's complex relationship with the East. They set out to criticize historical outlooks that were once canonical, in order to analyze and redefine Israeli identity. Thus Yigal Zalmona and Tamar Manor-Friedman began gathering artwork from the last century that depicted the East from the perspective of the West. They didn't stop until they had constructed the largest exhibit in Israel to date on this topic.

"The subject of this exhibit is the view that the West had of the East," said Zalmona. This is displayed in the naive, exotic or romanticized tone of many of the early works, such as those of Nahum Gutman, Reuven Rubin, Moshe Eltanan and Abel Pann. As the exhibit's text states: "The European notion of the East was a romantic projection of nostalgic yearnings. As such, it turned a blind eye to the concrete reality of the region."

Trends and moods that reflect Israel's dual attempt to fit in, and alternately to distinguish itself from its Eastern environment are also clearly conveyed in the artwork: photographs by Yaacov Ben Dov in the 1920s and Micha Bar Am (see Panim July/Aug) from the 1950s and show early settlers wearing Arab headdresses and Jews dressing up in Arab clothes for the photos, while modern images show the traditional Arab garb being used as a symbol of terror. The curators looked for evidence of Western attitudes toward the East in a variety of contexts, ranging from commercial advertisements ("Tourism in Palestine") and sculptures ("The Jerusalem Effendi"), to textiles, carpets, installations and accessories.

The exhibit shows the "ways in which the West markets the East for its own needs and purposes, and the representation of the East in Israeli society, with its escapist squinting toward the West," according to the exhibit's text.

Artwork related to hopes and dreams for the new society gives way to cynicism and distrustful outlooks as the decades move on. Romanticized visions are replaced by horror in some cases, as in Hila Lulu Lin's "Cold Blood: A Poem in Three Parts," (1996), computer-generated scenes of prayers at the al-Aqsa mosque under skies awash with blood and carnage. Yoram Kuperminz' "Arabian Taste" series recalls derogatory views of Arab culture within Israeli society. This progression of views is explained at length in the carefully composed text, and the whole exhibit is intended to raise one overriding question: how the presence of the East influences the definition and redefinition of Israeli identity.

Myumana Beats Out a New Path

Myumana derives from the Hebrew word for proficiency, a fitting description perhaps the only description for a group whose work defies categorization, yet displays the utmost precision at whatever it does. Each young (24-35) member of the nine-person troupe can drum with astonishing rhythmic virtuoso, dance with lithe movements to hyper-precise choreography, tell stories through pantomime and most strikingly convey wordless, but riotous humor to wildly enthusiastic audiences.

Myumana has worked for two years to produce its polished product. Founders Eylon Nophar and Boaz Berman gathered an eclectic group combining immigrants as with native-born Israelis from the fields of dance, theater, and music. They began teaching each other their skills, until a 75-minute collage of talent emerged. The show pastes together all manner of objects: the performers beat on huge blue plastic garbage barrels and utilize towering green garbage containers, both drumming on them, and flapping their noisy lids in impressive coordination. Tin cans, jerry cans, water-filled jars and even their own bodies, all make surprisingly beautiful sounds when played sensitively, and look impressive when jumped over, on or around by oft-airborne players.

The group's strongest element is surprise: as each new collection of items is wheeled out under momentary darkness and the stage is then suddenly illuminated, the viewer can only begin to guess what unprecedented use these aficionados will find for their makeshift instruments. Another striking feature is the unrelenting motion, noise, and direct audience eye contact that captures attention and holds viewers hostage to their playful, but sophisticated carousing. Playful' describes a skit in which drummers paddle an imaginary ball, creating verbal sound effects so real that one envisions the flying object; sophistication' is apparent in a scene showing each member tapping and moving in identical ways, to the hapless chagrin of one nonconformist.

Nearly wordless, Myumana redefines communication with its own multi-media language, by using only household items, and having a lot of fun.

Children's Festival Hits Home

In celebration of Israel's little ones, the Suzanne Dellal Center held a grand festival this summer just for children and anyone else with a sense of humor or a youthful spirit. Parents flooded in with toddlers in tow, for a two-day bonanza of outdoor events and carnival-like activities at Kessem Shel Agada ("The Magic of Myth").

The late-summer festival yielded creative, innovative performances, supposedly for children, but with remarkably universal relevance. The Orna Porat Children and Youth Theater performed two plays, one of which was a première. Ma'ale Krachot (roughly translated as "Baldy Heights") is a charmingly rhymed play written by Ephraim Sidon and directed by Tzipi Pines, about the very timely topic of conformity and difference, as well as democratic participation. A town full of bald people, quite proud of its baldness, elects a mayor whom the citizens love. That is, he is loved until the day the good mayor sprouts a hair on his glowing pate, instilling terror of rejection within his family, and causing the frustrated losing candidate to begin a hate-campaign urging a coup. When the mayor is ousted due to the offending hair, the smug citizens suddenly find themselves sprouting hairs and thus among the targeted, for the senseless hatred has only grown. After many clever songs, witty rhymes and energetic dancing and prancing, a lesson is learned by all, including one hopes the children in the audience.

Another première at the festival was presented by Ensemble Bat Sheva, who danced to the latest Ohad Naharin creation, "Zechacha." Wildly fun, silly and serious, this show blends some of the Bat Sheva troupe's best moments. Snips of "Sabotage Baby" and clips of "Anaphase," (particularly noteworthy is the part involving audience participation) are melded together seamlessly with works from other shows, performed partly in clown costumes and strange shoes. Jumping, talking, storytelling and wall-climbing kept children laughing and adult audiences rapt, as the performance mixed "movement and theater, reality with imagination."

Acre Festival 1998

With modest quantity but high quality, the yearly Acre Festival of Alternative Theater brought 14 new theatrical productions into the alternative theater scene. New plays included "Rust," by Avishai Hadari, which won the award for Best Production. Hadari himself starred in this dark, but thoroughly introspective play based on the murder of Yitzhak Rabin and its political, social and historical context. "Dress Rehearsal" won the prize for Best Play. Created by Boaz Gaon, this witty production deals broadly with power and weakness, directed by Freda Refael. "Hail to Life" recalled the difficult theme of the Holocaust in its use of poetry and cabaret material written in Thereseinstadt. The production, which is a cabaret of sorts, won the prize for best musical direction (awarded to Hannah Hacohen). "Before the Bride Chokes," was another notable: a unique, somewhat surreal depiction of a women who remembers her childhood in all its moral contradictions; it was written and directed by Efrat Ben Yehuda,. Three of the 14 plays were outside the framework of the competition: one was "Story Theater," based on three stories by S. Y. Agnon, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Savyon Liebrecht.

The Bible is Back!

Although Ensemble Itim's Vayomer Vayelech is still packing theaters, director Rina Yerushalmi cannot contain her creative muse. The latest result, Veyishtachu. Vayireh is a continuation of the first part of the Bible Project, which uses a combination of drama, movement and narration to depict scenes from the Bible. This second part focuses on the Kings and Prophets as its subject matter, and will eventually be followed by a third production. The show opened earlier this year in Germany, and performed in late October in Ramat Gan. The première in Israel will be in November, at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.

"Black Moon" Rises In the Desert

The Beersheba Municipal Theater has a plethora of new productions in the coming season: "Black Moon," by Motti Aberbuch is one; "Phoenician Women," Dan Almagor's translation of Euripides' play is another. The company is also staging a modern theatrical version of the "Diary of Anne Frank," as well as a brand new production of Yosef Bar-Yosef's "The Orchard."

"World of Jewish Music"

An all-out celebration of Jewish music and musical culture will be held in London from November 1-29. Possibly the most comprehensive collection of Israeli, European and American musicians, lecturers, dancers ever are gathered to honor the melodies of the Jewish tradition. Eve's Women, the funky fusion-jazz-klezmer women combo, is among the Israeli contingent, which also include the Ziryab Trio (member of Bustan Avraham), Noa Lachman and Nima Jacoby, the Oranim Dance Troupe, and others. For information, see: http://www.jmht.org/festival98

Gallery on Wheels!

Omanut L'Am (Art for the People) is ever-busy bringing art to the people, as literally as possible. The latest adventure involves a 12.5 meter by 2.10 meter buggy, seven artists' work, and an interactive computer: all the fixings needed to take Israeli modern art to every nook and crannie in the country.

Gal-galeria (Wheel Gallery) was inaugurated in September by the plastic arts division of Omanut L'Am. The artists involved in this first exhibit included Galit Eilat, Smadar Levi and Adi Rosenblum, among others. In addition to the exhibit, which is largely made up of work which engages the audience actively, is the interactive computer-catalogue. Viewers can design their own catalogues using a computerized information bank, through which they can also find all needed information about the artists and their works. The traveling wonder will be rolling around the country through November and December.