Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Members of the Israeli Batsheva Dance Company rehearse a scene of the play
Telophaza
on May 17, 2007,
in Wolfsburg, Germany, before the Movimentos Dance Festival. (Getty Images / Image Bank.)
The Israeli Ballet was established by Berta Yampolsky and Hillel Markman in 1967 after they
returned from studying abroad. They were originally appointed the lead dancers and direc-
tors of the Israeli Opera Ballet, but a disagreement between them and the company caused
them to split and form an independent group — the Israeli Ballet Company. Reinforced by
dancers who emigrated from the former Soviet Union, this company is composed of forty
dancers and has performed all over the world. Its repertoire includes classical and neoclassical
works.
The Suzanne Dalal Center for dance and theater in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood of Tel
Aviv was founded in 1989 by the Dellal family in cooperation with the Tel Aviv municipality
and various cultural organizations. It could be called the headquarters for Israeli dance. The
Batsheva Dance Company, the Batsheva Ensemble, and the Inbal Ethnic Center for Arts all
fi nd their home there. In technical skill these companies are on a par with top dance compa-
nies around the world. The center often cooperates with the Israel Festival in Jerusalem, the
Karmiel Dance Festival, and dance schools across Israel.
VISUAL ART
In 1906, the Bezalel School was founded in Jerusalem to train professional craft workers and
artists. To it can be traced the beginnings of Israeli visual art. By the 1950s, the major groups
in Israeli art were divided between those emphasizing the universal-aesthetics dimension of
artwork (New Horizons) and those expressing the local dimensions in relation to Israel's his-
tory and society (social realism and the Group of Ten).
