Hofesh Shechter ‘Uprising’ from Martin French on Vimeo.
A video excerpt of Hofesh Shechter’s Uprising.

In recent years, Israeli contemporary dance has stretched far beyond Israel’s borders as companies embarked on international tours and as some Israeli choreographers created artistic homes for themselves abroad.  Didn’t realize how much Israeli dancers were moving around the globe?  Consider the performing schedules of Hofesh Shechter and Talia Paz, two artists who will be featured later in Tel Aviv Dance 2008 (see our Events page for listings).

Hofesh Shechter’s U.K.-based company will be onstage at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center on November 11-12, while Israeli-based Talia Paz will perform at the Suzanne Dellal Center on November 20-21 in a work by Sharon Eyal.  Besides participating in the Tel Aviv Dance 2008 festival, they also appeared in New York for City Center’s popular Fall for Dance series in September – and in between these two events, Shechter’s troupe made several stops in the U.K., Spain, and Germany.

Dance In Israel was online in a beta version this summer and early autumn, and I wrote the post below about Fall for Dance prior to the blog’s renovation.

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For the last few years, City Center’s Fall for Dance series has given New York audiences the opportunity to sample offerings from a wide variety of companies and choreographers. Forget traditional programming; this is the chance to see ballet and butoh on the same bill. I was tempted to forgo packing and trek to the theater for this spread of dance, especially because of appearances by Talia Paz and Hofesh Shechter, but my aliyah schedule made it impossible to attend the performances (it’s official: I am an olah hadasha!). However, there are some reports available from other sources which I have compiled below:

One Fall for Dance program featured the exquisite dancer Talia Paz, whom I saw last year at the Suzanne Dellal Center in a solo by Mats Ek and in one of her own compositions. In New York, Paz performed an excerpt of Love by Sharon Eyal, Batsheva Dance Company’s house choreographer. Critic Claudia La Rocco of the New York Times praised Paz’s facility and artistry, calling her a “powerhouse of a performer but a nuanced one.”  For more, read La Rocco’s review, and check out this video clip of Talia Paz discussing her appearance at Fall for Dance with Dance Magazine.  You can also visit Talia Paz’s website.

Paz wasn’t the only former Batsheva dancer who participated in Fall for Dance. Choreographer Hofesh Shechter, who now has a company in London, presented his work in another Fall for Dance program.  Evan Namerow wrote two glowing posts about the excerpt from Shechter’s Uprising on her blog Dancing Perfectly Free. For the first post, click here; for the second, click here.  You can also visit Hofesh Shechter’s website.