Batsheva Dance Company

Press Coverage

New York Times

Abstract: 

The big hook for the Batsheva Dance Company’s Joyce Theater engagement is that two casts perform Ohad Naharin’s “Project 5” sampler program, one all-female and the other all-male. However, having seen the women at Tuesday night’s New York premiere and the men on Saturday evening, I must say that the only distinction of real note was the presence, on Saturday, of the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, accompanied by a considerable security detail and heckled by members of Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel.

Press Coverage

JTAj. the jewish news weeklyThe Forward

Abstract: 

Two New York–based human rights groups organized a boycott of performances by Israel’s national dance company. Adalah-NY: the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel and the New York chapter of Artists Against Apartheid announced the boycott in an open letter to the Batsheva Dance Company.

Document

Why We Are Boycotting Your Performances at the Joyce Theater in New York City

September 17, 2010

Dear Batsheva Dance Company,

We are a group of New York-based human rights activists and artists calling for a boycott of your performances at the Joyce Theater in New York City due to your collaboration with the Israeli state and its Brand Israel campaign. Launched in 2005, Brand Israel is a government public relations initiative which uses cultural productions to distract from Israel’s daily human rights violations. In 2009 Arye Mekel of Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated, "We will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits... This way you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.” While efforts to promote a positive image of Israel abroad persist, Palestinians continue to suffer from Israeli state policies.

Here are some of the realities the Brand Israel campaign would like to distract us from: Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands is the longest in modern history. 223 Jewish-only settlements and “outposts” on Palestinian land have been built in violation of International Law. Israel has built an “Apartheid” wall in the West Bank that further appropriates Palestinian land and separates Palestinian farmers from their land. The Israel Defense Forces have demolished over 24,000 Palestinian homes since 1967 and continue to do so. The 2009 invasion of Gaza killed over 1400 Palestinians, prompting allegations of War Crimes by UN Fact Finding Mission Justice Richard Goldstone.

Press Coverage

The Local (New York Times)

Abstract: 

The protest outside the Brooklyn Academy of Music last night, where the Batsheva Dance Company was performing, drew about 30 demonstrators from Adalah-NY, but it included an interesting twist: Audience members were slipped a seemingly official program that opened to reveal a flier heavily criticizing Israel’s actions in the 22-day war in Gaza last year.

Event

 

WHAT:Freedom Dabke vs. Batsheva Dance Company
WHEN:TONIGHT, March 5th, 6:30 pm
WHERE:BAM - Howard Gilman Opera House: 30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY


As artists we value art, performance, and theater. As activists, we will use our art forms to demonstrate thatsilence is complicity. We will call the Batsheva Dance Company on their support of their government’s oppression of the Palestinian people. In 2005, OHAD NAHARIN, Batsheva’s current director said “I continue to do my work, while 20 km from me people are participating in war crimes… the ability to detach oneself from the situation, that is what allows one to go on.”

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