Cultural Boycott

Tamar-kali with her band and special guest Sonny Singh at "Palestine Calling"
Brooklyn vocalist and composer Tamar-kali with her band and special guest Sonny Singh at our "Palestine Calling" event on November 14th, 2015.

Press Coverage

Haaretz

Batsheva Dance Company greeted with dabke protest in New York

Abstract: 

Audience members arriving at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday night to see Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company were treated to an exuberant preshow performance in which dance protested dance. Approximately 60 protesters crowded inside an enclosure of police barricades on the sidewalk: some waved Palestinian flags, some brandished signs proclaiming “Don’t dance around apartheid,” while others danced the dabke, a traditional Arabic communal dance.

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Press Coverage

Hyperallergic

50 Protest Batsheva Dance Company Opening at BAM

Abstract: 

Around 50 members of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement gathered at a rally yesterday in response to the premiere performance of Batsheva Dance Company’s four-day run of Sadeh21. Outside the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), signs and slogans denounced the Israeli Foreign Ministry-funded troupe’s participation in a campaign called “Brand Israel,” which, according to literature distributed by the organizers, seeks “to distract from the facts of Israel’s ongoing occupation and colonization of Palestinian land.”

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Press Release

Anti-Apartheid Dance and Songs Meet Israel's Batsheva Dance Company in Protest at Brooklyn Academy of Music

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 13, 2014, New York, NY - On busy Lafayette Avenue outside Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), 80 New Yorkers gathered last night to dance and sing in protest of Batsheva Dance Company's performances in BAM's 2014 Next Wave Festival (photos). Batsheva's appearance is part of the “Brand Israel” initiative designed to distract from the facts of Israel’s ongoing occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, and its denial of rights to Palestinians the world over. The demonstration was organized by Adalah-NY and endorsed by 15 other local human rights organizations including the BDS Arts Coalition, Brooklyn For Peace, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the Ya-Ya Network.

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs touts Batsheva as "perhaps the best known global ambassador of Israeli culture." Batsheva is funded in part by that government office as well as by the Ministry of Culture and Sports. While Batsheva artistic director Ohad Naharin has criticized Israeli abuses of Palestinians, Batsheva Dance Company continues in its role as a prominent cultural ambassador of the Israeli state.

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Press Coverage

The Jewish Week

Artists’ Voices Should Be Heard

Abstract: 

This should have been a story just about music, about a fruitful and enticing cross-cultural collaboration between an Israeli pop icon and the scion of an African musical dynasty. Instead, we begin with a battle of petitions and committees, pitting the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against supporters of the State of Israel.

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Press Release

Thousands call on World Music Institute to cancel concert by Israeli “ambassador” Idan Raichel

November 4, 2014, New York, NY - In a public letter, over 4000 individuals and 50 groups from around the world have called for the New York-based World Music Institute (WMI) to cancel their presentation of a concert by Israeli musician Idan Raichel on November 18 at New York City’s Symphony Space due to Raichel’s role as a cultural ambassador for Israel who provides “uncritical support for the Israeli military and government.” Raichel will be performing with the Malian musician Vieux Farka Touré.

Current signatories to the letter calling on WMI to drop Raichel include filmmaker and WMI honorary board member Mira Nair; the Grammy-nominated Haitian band Boukman Eksperyans, scheduled to perform with WMI in May; Egyptian writer and activist Ahdaf Soueif; musician Shubha Mudgal; writer and art critic Lucy Lippard; poet Ammiel Alcalay; actor David Clennon; the Palestinian hip hop group DAM; playwright Naomi Wallace; and groups from the US, India, South Africa, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

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