Both pointe shoes and breastfeeding were passing moments in my life. The first because I eventually realized that ballet wasn’t my future and the second because the need for it waned. But I look back at both and remember that we are often stronger than we think and can handle more than we believe, that pain doesn’t always mean you’re doing something wrong and that the lessons learned by the body stay with us for life.Read more
Before I had children, I was sure that the moment I got pregnant would be the unquestionable end of my career as a dancer.It wasn’t.Read more
I don’t go out dancing anymore.
I used to.
There was a period when I was out dancing pretty often.
Nowadays I may find myself on a dancefloor here or there for a few minutes, at a wedding, at a festival, if the spirit truly moves me. But I don’t go out to dance.
There’s that joy, when you’re out dancing, of hearing a song that you like, singing along, seeing others belting out and watching that song charge the bodies around you.Read more
Before hitting first grade, most kids don’t read and write, at least not proficiently, they haven’t been exposed to mathematics or science, they don’t study history. They aren’t even really familiar with athletics. Their options for expression lie in the territories covered by art. Through the arts they are able to experiment with emotion, color, context, subtext and even violence. It is their voice in the world.Read more
בְּאוּלָם חָשׁוּךְ נִמְצָא חֲדַר חֲקִירוֹת לָבָןבּוֹ גֶּבֶר בִּלְבוּשׁ שָׁחֹרקוֹרֵס לְתוֹךְ עֹל שִׁכְמוֹתָיוהַזְּקוּפוֹת.בּוֹחֵן.אוֹתָנוּRead more
When I became a mother, I came from the life of a freelancer. Both my professions, dance and journalism, are incredibly flexible. I was in and out of my house every day, spent hours in the studio with people I found inspiring and traveled abroad often. I could pop my laptop open literally anywhere and shoot off articles to my editor without ever setting foot in the newspaper’s office.Read more
The choreographer lives in the “future”, plans the performance, maps out the score, imparts it to their colleagues while the dancer exists in “l’avenir”. The dancer’s true potential, personality, artistry and will come to fruition in “l’avenir”, in the unknowable future. It cannot be rehearsed, foreseen, controlled. It is the chemical reorganization of atoms that occurs to a performer when met with an audience that propels the dancer into this mystifying state of what is to come.Read more
For me, becoming a mother was like performing a show I had never rehearsed before. And it was a very public show. Everyone I knew saw it. My parents and sister flew in for the premiere. My in laws were there. Friends came out of the woodwork to see it. Complete strangers came and most of them had something to say about it afterwards. My partner was in the front row.
It is true that technology is engulfing our lives and, in many ways, for the better. Our day-to-day is made more efficient and more comfortable by digital advancements. However, the creation of dance is something that, in my opinion, needs no tech bolstering or interventions.Read more
Choreographer Iris Erez made me pause at the Israeli Museum this month when she suggested that a room full of international visitors take selfies and place their phones on the ground, out of reach. Viewers peered down to find their reflections in a mosaic of black mirrors following Iris’ 30-minute-long solo, Self Ritual, presented by Machol Shalem Dance House’s Jerusalem International Dance Week, which hosts top curators and theater programmers from around the globe for five days of dance performances around the city.