Ido Tadmor is Dancing for the Dead Sea
Internationally-acclaimed dance Ido Tadmor does an enigmatic dance for the Dead Sea at Kalya Beach. (image by Inbal Marmari)
Becoming one of seven natural wonders can have enormous benefits for tourism, though competition is steep. Among the 28 candidates for the present campaign are the Great Barrier Reef, the Galapagos, and the Grand Canyon. Scores of people, even Harley Davidson riders, have shown their support for the Dead Sea campaign, which will be a boon to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. But there’s more to the campaign than generating money. The founder, Bernard Weber, intended for this global initiative to protect remaining beautiful places, to generate unity and respect. Perhaps more than any other pledge of support, Ido Tadmor’s Dead Sea dance – choreographed by him – does just that. Read more
Mixed reactions to rocking the casbah
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture, Social Justice, War
Everyone the world over is now aware of the video clip that IDF soldiers stationed in Hebron made, dancing while on patrol to the music of “Tik Tok,” the pop hit by the singer Kesha.
The video shows six soldiers from the Benjamin Brigade walking quietly down the street armed with guns and bullet proof vests, and suddenly breaking into synchronized dance steps when “Tik Tok” replaces the mezzuin calls from a nearby mosque.
The clip, which was made by the soldiers as a parting gift to their comrades as they prepared for demobilization, received worldwide coverage after being loaded to YouTube -with some praising the playfulness of the soldiers and others condemning the act as trvializing the Israeli occupation of the Arab residents of Hebron.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the soldiers likely got the idea from a comedy routine that ran for months on the satirical TV show “Eretz Nehederet.” The skit features two salesgirls at a clothes shop who start off giving begrudging service but then go ballistic when shoppers mess with the folded clothes, forcing the offenders to fold with them in moves synchronized to the “Tik Tok” tune.
The bit, known as hamekaplot (“the folders”), featured celebrities and politicians as the violators and was a huge hit, as were the countless clips made by Israelis applying the idea to everything from rolling joints to preparing sushi. Even Peace Now made a version, “starring” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak folding T-shirts bearing inscriptions such as “two-state solution,” “civil rights” and “settlement evacuation.”
While Israelis and the world media debated the actions of the soldiers, it was interesting to read the reactions of the Palestinian residents of Hebron, who spoke with Yediot Ahronot.
Naoul Sultan and her daughter Rima watched the filming of the clip from their house after hearing the music at 4:30 am. “It looked like a dance group in uniform,” said 15-year-old Rima. “At first I laughed, but it’s not entertaining at all. It shows their ridicule towards us.”
Naoul says she realized from the very beginning that the soldiers were shooting a video clip. She says the photographer was standing on a fence near her house and shooting a video of the dancing soldiers. “I was angry, but I just looked out my window and was silent. I don’t talk to them.”
“In the past we were afraid of them, but today the soldiers are part of the neighborhood’s landscape. We have gotten used to them. They have lost any sense of shame and so they allow themselves to dance in the middle of the street.”
But both the mother and daughter admit that the soldiers sometimes manage to make the local population happy. “For example, when the small children play football, the soldiers join them and they play together. That’s actually nice. For us they are already part of the neighborhood.”
Another neighbor adds, “It’s not the first time I see them like this. We have already heard them singing and dancing on the street. Once, we stood next to them and applauded.”
Whether it was in good, harmless fun, or a symbol of the corrupting powers of Israeli presence in Arab population centers, the commanders of the soldiers aren’t going to let off with a pat and a smile.
According to Yediot, they were told that they did not act appropriately by participating in the video while donning their uniform, armor and weapon – but because their behavior did not display any moral flaws, they were being given an educational assignment. Which is to produce a video in order to prevent similar incidents in the future.
I wonder if there’ll be any dancing involved.
International Mayumana ensemble’s capital premiere
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Pop Culture, Profiles
With all the talk in recent years about Israeli popular music exports, it’s easy to forget that there are plenty of Israeli entertainers in other realms who have been enjoying growing successes overseas. The world over, there are plenty of Israeli illusionists, dub bassists, jazz saxophonists, supermodels and even boxers - you name it.
When the percussive Mayumana dance troupe got started 13 years ago, many dismissed it as a local knockoff of international sensation Stomp. Now the ensemble maintains a busy schedule touring worldwide. Today Mayumana employs 100 people globally and has starred in ads for brands like Fiat and Coca Cola. Last week, the ensemble premiered Momentum, its new show, for local audiences of thousands at the Jerusalem Theater, under the framework of the Israel Festival.
Ha’aretz recently interviewed Tel Aviv-born Mayumana co-founder Boaz Berman as well as producer Roy Ofer, who joined the team shortly after its launch.
Ofer believes that the key to Mayumana’s success has been the way that he makes sure to keep things in-house:
“We have our own people who we work with, and we rarely involve people from the outside. On tours abroad, we have our own way of doing things. We don’t just perform and leave. We performed in Madrid for eight months, we were in New York for six months, and so on.”
Berman, meanwhile, remembers the early days fondly:
“Our goal was to put on a show that would be different from anything else out there. We were so fired up that we were sure we’d succeed. The people who worked with us then did it for free, because they all believed in us. We worked all day every day, and when we had enough material we started doing open presentations to friends on Wednesdays, which evolved from week to week.”
But according to Ofer, it’s unfair to call Mayumana a “troupe,” when so much more comes into the performances:
“In a troupe, the members all do one specific thing – dancing or drumming or whatever,” Berman explains fervently. “With us, everyone does everything, even though on the face of it they’re completely disparate – one is a professional dancer, another is the national archery champion, another one’s an actor, this one’s a contortionist. Our job is to unite them. It’s a group of people, not a troupe.”
Hey, man. Whatever terminology you prefer. Just keep doing whatever it is that you want to call what you’re doing, because people seem to like it.
Spin Takes A Turn With ISRAEL21c
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, Pop Culture, Sports
ISRAEL21c is now a contributor to SPIN Earth, a new web video initiative from SPIN Magazine. The first video up: a profile of the Israel Parkour Team, who use the sidewalks and walls of Tel Aviv as their training ground.
Nostalgia Sunday on Tuesday – Adloyada
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
Apologies for the delay in posting; this was due to circumstances far beyond my control. Whew. Okay. A moment before the Purim holiday ends, let’s take a look at days gone by, in particular the Adloyada parade.
“Adloyada” is a bastardization of the phrase “ad lo yada” or “unable to differentiate”, referring to the Purim tradition of drinking until one is unable to tell the difference between evil Haman and good Mordechai. The parade was instituted in 1912, in Tel Aviv, the first modern Jewish city, by a teacher at the Herzliya Gymnasium high school and became the stomping ground for Hevre Trask (“the noisy folks”), a band of merrymaking bohemians.
In the 1920s, the event had its profile raised by dancer-choreographer and bon vivant Baruch Agadati. Here he is, the crown prince of of Tel Aviv night life in the 1920s, pictured with Zippora Zabari, winner of the “Queen Esther” beauty contest for 1928.
And another Purim lovely:
And here’s a picture of the parade itself, which was famous for its floats.
It had the support of Mayor Meir Dizengoff. This costume parodied his well-known penchant for riding around town on a horse.
At the end of the 1920s, a committee of artists, poets, architects and theater people was established with the stated goal of giving the Adloyada a higher educational and artistic tone, and it became something of an establishment tool.
Adloyada floats never shied away from politics, such as the 1926 coffin burying the British Mandate, and the 1934 anti-Nazism float. The event ceased activity in 1936 but after it was reestablished in the 1950s, the topical subjects continued. Here’s Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nasser and David Ben-Gurion, acting out a prime ministerial summit that never happened in reality… as far as we know…
The Adloyada shut down, once again, in the 1970s and was revived, once again in the early 1980s by the Sheinkin avant garde, led by a stellar performance artist, the late Danny Zakheim. This time, the tone was different and probably more like that of the original Adloyada of the 1920s – a punk street fair bacchanal that went on for days. Here’s Mayor Shlomo Lahat venturing into unknown territory.
There are a few parades today calling themselves Adloyada. Holon – a sleepy suburb with ambitions to become Israel’s new center of the visual arts – has apparently been deemed the location for the national Adloyada. But the real deal has been and always will be Tel Aviv. It’s only a matter of time before the Adloyada comes back home.
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