This is a video of Israeli dance troupe Batsheva Dance Company, based in Tel Aviv, performing “Naharin’s Virus“. Some of the music used in the performance was composed by an Arab-Israeli, Habib Alla Jamal.
The Batsheva Dance Company performed at Edinburgh Fringe this week, their performance interrupted by anti-Zionist dullards. A boycott of Batsheva has been encouraged by the national PSC and various local chapters.
The Electronic Intifada has previously encouraged a boycott of the dance troupe, claiming that:
“A recipient of public financing since the 1990s, the dance troupe is clearly an Israeli apartheid cultural institution. Writing October 26, 2008, in The Independent of London, Jenny Gilbert reports that the dance company is “funded by Israel’s government, its performers include none of Arab extraction, and it is ‘proud to be considered Israel’s leading ambassador.’”
(emphasis mine)
In an interview with the Dance Insider, founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and dance enthusiast Omar Barghouti gave his reasons as to why Batsheva Dance Company should be shunned:
“PACBI, including I, call for boycotting ALL Israeli dance companies due to their complicity,” Barghouti explained. “None of them has ever taken a position calling for an end to the occupation, not to mention recognizing UN-sanctioned rights of the refugees or ending racial discrimination against the state’s ‘non-Jewish’ citizens (the remaining indigenous population).”
But is this true?
Let’s have a look at the head choreographer of the Batsheva Dance School, Ohad Naharin.
The Independent reports:
“In interviews, he has supported Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, and criticised the government of Ariel Sharon. On stage, his dancers scribble “PEASTELINA” on the wall and think that that counts as incisive comment.”
For publicity purposes, much has been made of the fact that Naharin’s Virus, created by the Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin for his Batsheva Dance Company, uses music by the Arab-Israeli composer Habib Alla Jamal. Actually, the 75-minute dance, seen recently at BAM, co-opts only a bit of this engaging material, which is rooted in Arabic folk melodies — along with gleanings from Samuel Barber et al. And although Naharin speaks out publicly for détente in the Arab-Israeli conflict, opposing the current stance of his government, the suggestions of political comment in Virus lie largely in the imagination of the beholder.
The Israel Prize laureate choreographer Ohad Naharin expressed harsh criticism of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians. Naharin said in an interview with the Canadian newspaper The Gazette: “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.” The article was published in the arts section of the newspaper. It was reported that Naharin volunteers as a translator for the organization Mahsom-watch. “IDF soldiers calm down only when they fear that their mothers are watching them”, said Naharin. “That’s how abuse of force is reduced.”
“Yediot Ahronot” reports that in another article published in the Canadian newspaper La Presse, Naharin was presented as “a pro-Palestinian who strongly opposes the Israeli occupation.”
Sources in the Foreign Ministry criticized Naharin’s statements and said that they seriously harm the image of Israel, especially in view of his being an Israel Prize laureate.
If Batsheva Dance school really were an “Israeli apartheid cultural institution” as is claimed by the Electronic Intifada and Mr Barghouti, then why is its co-ordinator Ohad Naharin so outspoken in his support for a Palestinian state, even to the concern of the Israeli foreign ministry? The PSC’s complaint is that the Batsheva Dance Company is state-funded.
I don’t know how the PSC expects Israel to function without state-funded projects, but that is exactly the point – they don’t want Israel to function, full stop.
As is clear from both the PSC, and from the wider PACBI movement, a boycott of Israeli Jews is being advocated here simply because the dancers are Israeli Jews.
Sarah adds:
Recently I read an interesting story about an Arab Israeli/Palestinian ballet dancer. The article described how members of his own community raised cultural and religious objections to his career. He also asserted that the Israeli ballet school where he trained is not now so receptive to Palestinian students. I was very surprised to read a suggestion that this discouragement of mixed cultural events was the fault of the Israeli state. I meant to follow this up – but it slipped my mind until I read this post. Now I see that the following text has been added to the article.
Correction 24 August 2012: Parts of this report have been amended to remove a suggestion that Israel had adopted a policy concerning mixed dance organisations and to clarify specific allegations of discrimination within Israeli arts.
The BBC has spent a third of a million pounds stopping people reading the Balen report, commissioned to evaluate the fairness of its coverage of Israel/Palestine.
Gene adds: Look who’s bragging about it:
http://www.socialistunity.com/pro-palestinian-activists-disrupt-performance-by-israeli-state-funded-dance-company-in-edinburgh/
You know how you can tell that the Scottish PSC is anti-Israel rather than pro-Palestinian? There isn’t a single mention on their website of the Syrian government’s attacks on the Palestinian Yarmouk Camp in Damascus.
