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DEBORAH FRIEDES |
Yair Vardi. Photo by Gadi Dagon, courtesy of Yair Vardi.
The Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv
The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance (also called the Rubin Academy), in Jerusalem
My interview with Yair Vardi is actually third in the series I am podcasting on Israel Seen, but I decided to start with it here because it gives a great overview of the Israeli concert dance scene. After a notable career as a dancer, Yair Vardi became the director of Tel Aviv’s Suzanne Dellal Center, a gorgeous Lincoln Center-type complex with studios and theaters primarily used for dance. He also serves as the director of dance at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, one of the few institutions of higher learning in Israel that grants degrees in dance. Though these jobs and other advisory positions keep Yair very busy, he found some time to sit down with me and chat about Israel’s vibrant dance scene. If you want to know about the history and programming of the Suzanne Dellal Center, the curriculum in Israel’s premiere undergraduate dance program, and how Israeli contemporary dance compares to American and European contemporary dance, tune in at the link below! It’s worth listening to this just to hear how many performances there are at Suzanne Dellal each year (I’m not telling!) - plus if you’re interested in dance notation, there’s a little bit about Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation, which was developed in Israel and is taught at the Academy.
You can listen to my interview with Yair, see more photographs, and check out additional links at IsraelSeen.
Also, you can subscribe to IsraelSeen’s podcasts for free on iTunes. You may occasionally get a podcast on a non-dance subject, but who knows, maybe you will find it interesting!
Enjoy!
