Sahar Azimi and the choreographers of Hazira New Dance 2013/Photo: Yuval Yosef

The choreographers will present their works in two programs:

Mikbatz Aleph: Flik Flak by Michal Herman, Hora LaNe’ehazim: Research Performance by Lilach Livneh, Hits (Part Aleph) by Shlomi Bitton. Performances: June 25th at 20:00, June 26th at 21:45.

Mikbatz Bet: Fail Better by Uri Shafir, InSect Solo by Ran Ben Dror, Out Body Out by Sophie Krantz. Performances: June 25th at 21:45, June 26th at 20:00.

Habeas Corpus, curated by Anna Waisman, with the participation of the choreographers and dancers of New Dance 2013, will be performed on June 27th at 20:00, outdoors in the Gerard Behar Center Square. Admission FREE.

Shay Granot and Nevo Romano, who participated in Hazira’s dance program last year, will present their work Sha’a Im Ochlei Kol (An Hour with Omnivores) on June 27th at 21:00. The dance is performed in the nude.

Tickets are 70 NIS for one program/60 NIS advance purchase/50 NIS dance students. A combined ticket for program Aleph and Bet may be purchased for 120 NIS/110 NIS advance/100 NIS students and dancers. Tickets may be ordered online: www.hazira.org.il

Lia Koenig/Photo: Gerard Alon

Israel prize recipient Lia Koenig is an incredible actor with a strong stage presence. She starred in the original Habima Theatre production of the play in 1999, and returns to reprise the role so many years later.

Mittelpunkt said of this production that “even then, when we rehearsed “The Visitor’s Guide” for the Habima production, Lia Koenig and I amused ourselves with the idea of someday performing the play in Yiddish. After all, Yiddish is the true language of this play’s world, at least in regard to the dialogues between Marga and Yosef, the inventory of the family guilt and atonement, the influence of distant landscapes and blurred images from “over there” on the members of the first and second generation today.”

Mittelpunkt’s play observes the relationship between Marga Weisberg (Koenig) and her son Yosef, an unsuccessful artist. The two come to Warsaw to claim ownership of a building that belonged to Marga’s family before World War II.

Yet the World War is not the only war in question, the conflict between mother and son is at the heart of the play. This conflict, with its history going back to Yosef’s childhood, and spanning many issues over the years, comes to a crisis in Warsaw. The play will be performed in Yiddish with surtitles in Hebrew and Russian.

A Visitor’s Guide to Warsaw by Hillel Mittelpunkt
Director: Hillel Mittelpunkt; translation into Yiddish: Leah Szlanger; Cast: Lia Koenig, Anat Atzmon, Irma Stepanov, Israel Treistman, Natan Hecht.

Performance dates, venues and times may be found on the Yiddishpiel Theatre website.

Malenki Theatre – Michael Gluzman and Tania Aya Stolnitz/Photo: Maxim Reider

Malenki Theatre first produced the play to critical acclaim in 2003. This month, in celebration of the theatre’s 10th anniversary, the play will be revived for one week only, with the original cast. Two of the cast members, Michael Gluzman and Tania Aya Stolnitz, will be coming to Israel from their current residence in the US and Canada, to participate in this performance.

Daniil Kharms is the pen name of poet and dramatist Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev (1905 – 1942). The avant garde writer was persecuted by the Soviet Regime and arrested several times, dying in his prison cell in 1942. The play as produced by Malenki Theatre, consists of dis-continuous vignettes, real and surreal, in the life of a writer torn between the desire to write and the need to sleep. His tranquility is disrupted by an old lady with a saw, a bizarre neighbor and a sexy young woman.

Performances will take place at the Malenki Theatre in the Gan Meir Cultural Center, on: June 24 – 30, 2013 at 20:30. To order tickets, call: 054-2488104.
Links: Malenki Theatre website

Hazkena veOseh HaNissim
Directed by Igor Berezin; translation: Roy Chen; adapted from the works of Daniil Kharms by Boris Yentin and Igor Berezin; musical direction: Michael Gluzman; Cast: Dima Ross; Michael Gluzman; Tania Aya Stolnitz; Michael (Misha) Tepelitzky.

Yiddishpiel – Chabad Songs/Photo: Gerard Alon

The Yiddishpiel Theatre is presenting a tribute to the treasury of songs from the Chabad movement, in the musical evening “Chabad Songs.”

This evening of song embraces the 200 year history of this community, known for its deep connection between prayer and song, the stories and mystique surrounding its leaders.
Chabad songs is written by Avi Koren and Kobi Arieli; directed by Itzhak Shauli; musical arrangements by Ariel Keshet; choreography by Tzachi Patish; cast: Dani Shteg, Kobi Arieli, Ofer Golan, Amir Hillel,
Amnon Fisher, Andrey Kashkear, Jonathan Rozen/Dori Engel and the Cantor Israel Rand, with clarinetist Hanan Bar Sela accompanied by a band.

Performances will take place in Yiddish and Hebrew. Performance dates and additional information may be found on the Yiddishpiel website.

1927 – The Animals and Children Took to the Streets/Photo: courtesy of PR

1927 presented The Animals and Children Took to the Streets at the Israel Festival, and it’s shows like this that make the Israel Festival such an exciting annual event; the festival’s ability to seek out and bring performances to Israel that expand the realm of the possible and open our eyes and minds to new vistas of art and culture.

Enchant your audience and make them laugh, it’s a time-honored technique for artists with a message, for then the audience will be open and receptive to hearing hard truths. The only hitch in the plan: it’s not at all easy to accomplish. Many shows created with a sincere desire to open hearts and minds fall short, succumbing to superficiality, stuck in the didactic doldrums or suffering from some other tragic theatrical flaw. Happily, 1927 presents a show that is sheer fun, a seductive mix of provocative social critique, sensual delirium with luscious layers of cinematic, literary and cultural references – pure pleasure!

Delivering a horror story, fairy tale and comedy all rolled into one, with just the right measure of romance, 1927 had the audience hanging on the edge of their seat and dazzled by the art and imagery. It’s a profoundly visual show, with animation, staging, costume and set design working together to create a feast for the eyes, yet at the same time, the intelligent text and memorable characters are strong elements in this genre-bending show.

1927 – The Animals and Children Took to the Streets/Photo: courtesy of PR

1927 have a knack for eliciting empathy without descending into the kind of sentimental slobber that typically leaves this writer slightly repulsed by those offerings so often touted as “a touching human story.” Creators of political or social theatre often seem to rely on what the audience already knows about poverty and other woes of humanity, inserting key words like “abuse,” “hate crimes,” or a fatal illness to elicit instant sympathy for a character or situation, or gruesome images of extreme situations that are nothing more than a copy/paste collage of mass media sludge – without much internal justification, resulting in texts that are not only clichéd and banal, but exceedingly predictable.  I like a little suspense in my theatre experience if you please, and 1927 delivers with a punch.

The heraldic voice of the narrator (with such excellent diction! Israeli actors – take note!) welcomes the audience to “Another day in the Bayou Mansions, the thorn in this city’s side, the ghost at the feast,” invites us to enter this world, to examine all that is usually overlooked in this “beautiful city” with its abundance of art and culture, “milk and honey in every frigidaire.” Live actors interact with animation, bringing to life the dismal environs of the Bayou Mansions where children are a blight on the landscape and a source of fear, the “queer fish” of a poetic caretaker who spends his days sweeping and his nights, “contemplating his loneliness” writing in his journal, the cynical owner of the junk shop and her rebellious daughter Zelda who yearns to make her mark. Into this den of depravity and depression comes cheery Agnes Eaves with her daughter Evie, armed with dry pasta bows, glue and good intentions to change the lives of the children in Bayou Mansions through craft projects.

The surreal plot and images dance on from there, giving the audience a good time and a good kick in the pants, all for the price of a theatre ticket.

Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance/Photo: courtesy of PR

JAMD – the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance is coming to Jaffa Port this Tuesday, June 18th with a FREE performance of dance. The Academy’s ensemble will perform works from an international dance repertoire of choreographers from England, Israeli, Sweden and the US, as well as student winners of the Gertrude Krauss choreography competition.

It’s a great opportunity to see a new generation of dancers and choreographers in action in a terrific venue – and all for FREE! Jaffa Port Warehouse 2 (Choreographer’s Society venue), Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 20:30.

Links: JAMD website

Israeli Chamber Orchestra

Tonight, June 16, 2013, the Israel Chamber Orchestra will grace the stage at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, in a concert featuring works by Mozart, Haydn and Israeli composer Aharon Harlap. Enjoy an evening of wonderful singing and, best of all, a pre-concert lecture by pianist and musicologist Anat Sharon.
Aharon Harlap’s song cycle “Pictures from the Private Collection of God” is based on the poetry of Yaakov Barzilai, a Holocaust survivor from Debrecen, Hungary. A number of his poems have been set to music by Harlap, a prolific composer whose compositions for voice are often performed in Israel and abroad.

The two Mozart works will be the Kyrie in D minor (K. 341) and the Vesperae solennes de confessore (K. 339). Both works were composed in 1780. Also on the program is Haydn’s Symphony 44 in E minor, also known as “Trauer”, “Mourning”. Haydn wanted the third, slow movement to be played at his funeral.

The stars of this concert make it especially worthwhile. If you haven’t heard of her, get used to saying the name Gan-Ya Ben-Gur Axelrod. This year, the Israeli soprano took first prize in the prestigious Hilda Zadek competition in Vienna.  I first heard her last summer at the International Summer Opera Program, in a masterclass given by the great American baritone Thomas Hampson. She will be joined by mezzo-soprano Anat Czarny, who is on this year’s roster at the Israel Opera’s Meitar Opera Studio, where she’s sung Cherubino and Hansel. Yair Polishook, bass, performed with the Israel Philharmonic in their 2011 production of The Barber of Seville and has sung in several Israel operas such as “The Bald Soprano” by Israel Sharon and “The Crook” by Menachem Avidom. Yoav Talmi, the Israel Chamber Orchestra’s musical director, will conduct.

Tickets can be purchased via 03-5188845. The concert begins at 20:30, and the lecture one hour earlier at 19:30.

Links: Israeli Chamber Orchestra website; facebook

Past winners include Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, and Nir Bergman’s Intimate Grammar; last year’s winner was Sharqiya, director Ami Livne’s first full-length feature. Here is a first glimpse of the new Israeli films we can look forward to seeing at the festival this summer:

Israeli Feature Film Competition

Hora 79/ Eli Cohen

A comedy about dance and growing older. Thirty five years ago, Israel’s mythological folk dance troupe “Hora ’79″ ceased its activity following a traumatic event, and the dancers went their separate ways. Now, after several decades, the Carmiel Dance Festival initiates a one-time event – a tribute to the legendary dance troupe. Upon receiving this surprising invitation, the troupe decides to reunite.

Will they succeed in overcoming the dark shadows of the past, the old rivalries and conflicts, and the betrayals of an aging body? Will they enjoy a moment of grace, returning, if only for a moment, to their lost youth? Cast: Hora ’79 dancers, Gila Almagor, Natan Datner, Yossi Graber. Producers: M. Slonim.

Youth/ Tom Shoval

Yaki and Shaul are teenage brothers who share a deep, almost telepathic bond. After their father loses his job, the family sinks into financial difficulties and heavy debt. Yaki and Shaul feel that they can’t stand on the sidelines watching their family fall apart. The fact that Yaki recently began his military service and has a  gun, lets them take destiny into their own hands and make the leap from boy to man. Cast: David Conio, Eitan Conio, Moshe Ivgy, Shirly Deshe, Gita Amli. Producers: Green Productions.

Arabani/ Adi Aduan

Arabani – the word means a combination of Arabic and Hebrew. Yosef, a Druze man, returns to the village of his birth after an absence of 17 years, with his son and daughter from his former marriage to a Jewish woman. His decision to settle in the small Druze village leads to conflicts between the conservative, closed Druze community, Yosef, and his mother Afifa, who embraces her son and his children, because according to the Druze tradition, only someone born to Druze parents is considered a Druze. Despite the problems and difficulties, Smadar, Yosef’s daughter, finds an unexpected love. Cast: Iyad Shiti, Daniela Nidam, Tom Klarich, Zohaira Sbag, Lucy Aharish. Producer: Itai Tamir – Layla Productions.

White Panther/ Dani Reisfeld

Alex Mansheyev, a boxer of Russian background, becomes a Neo Nazi as a response to the Israeli society’s rejection of him and his family. Meeting David Ohana, a boxing coach of traditional Mizrahi background from Tiberias, who dreams of returning Tiberias to its former glory as the home of boxing champions, proves meaningful to Alex, leading him to become a professional boxer with potential.
Growing closer to David, Alex begins a romance with Yasmin Ohana, David’s daughter, and for the first time in his life, he feels that he belongs to Israeli society.
Alex is torn between his loyalty to the Neo Nazi group headed by his brother Yevgeny, and his identification with the values of David Ohana, his new guru. Cast: Yevgeny Orlov, Zeev Revah, Meytal Gal, Zora “Vulcan” Kartevlishvili, Natasha Manor. Producer: Artza Productions.

Plasticine/ Vidi Bilu

Jerusalem 1966. In an old building at the center of town, on the third floor, lives a small, quiet family. Eli, the father, is away from home most of the day. Ruti, his wife, is enclosed within her own world, she spends most of the day in bed, reading thick romance novels that her husband brings her from the library. Michal, their eleven year old daughter, is lonely and bored, and forced to seek interest and attention from the other residents of the building. One day when Ruti decides to get out of bed and find a job, the apparent calm and quiet of the home is disrupted. Cast: Reymond Amsalem, Yehezkel Lazarov, Hana Laslow, Yael Ben Dor, Anna Dobrovitzky, Kobi Marziano. Production: Marker Films Elad Gavish.

She’s Coming Home/ Maya Dreyfus

After the break-up of a long term relationship 33 year old Michal returns to live in her parents’  small, crowded apartment in Herzliya, a sleepy, petit-bourgeois suburb. Michal is a young and promising director who should be writing a new screenplay but instead spends her days locked in her room feeling frustrated, and sleeping most of the time. Things begin to change when Michal meets the principal of the local high school, a 50 year old married man, and falls in love with him. The forbidden passion and storm of emotions that develops between Michal and the principal within the school walls recall the first love of youth. Without noticing, Michal becomes an adolescent once more. But this time, as opposed to her first teenage years, she rebels, and the small apartment, that is too narrow to contain a pair of parents and their 30 year old teenager, becomes a pressure-cooker full of conflicts. When the affair with the principal becomes serious, Michal finds herself torn. Cast: Tali Sharon, Alon Abutbul, Liora Rivlin, Eli Cohen. Producer: Amir Harel, Lama Productions.

Loyal jazz fest goers have some new twists to look forward to this year. The festival’s famous nightly jam sessions will take place at Dekel Beach, affectionately dubbed the “Festival Village” especially for the occasion. The village will include accommodation for young people and families for a symbolic price, food and beverages, and riveting nightly shows. Expect emerging jazz artists to play into the wee hours of the night, dynamic nightly jams under the stars and even a few surprise visits from the festival’s greats for some after-hours impromptu performances for intimate crowds of jazz aficionados.

Lineup highlights:

Al Foster/Photo: Sophia La Rue, courtesy of PR

Al Foster Quartet with Wallace Roney:

American jazz drummer and personality Al Foster is the only musician to have played with Miles Davis both in his funk fusion group in the 1970s and during his comeback in 1981. His versatile style of jazz to bebop to rock made him an integral part of the ensembles of Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson. Wrote Davis in his 1989 autobiography, “He had such a groove and he would lay it right in there. Al could set it up for everybody else to play off and just keep the groove going forever.”

Wallace Roney, a student of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, holds the prestigious anecdote of being the only trumpeter Davis ever personally mentored. After Davis’s death, Roney joined Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams and toured the world in tribute to the legend.

The two’s performance at this year’s festival will no doubt be a spectacular collaboration of old and new, bringing with them the nostalgia of the genre’s best and most revered together with the scope and vibrancy of fresh sound.

Their ensemble includes Al Foster on drums, Wallace Roney on trumpet, Douglas Weiss on Bass, Eric Alexander on tenor saxophone, and Adam Birnbaum on piano.

Branford Marsalis/Photo: Palma Kolansky, courtesy of PR

Branford Marsalis Quartet:

American saxophonist, composer and bandleader Branford Marsalis is considered one of the most esteemed instrumentalists of his time. The three-time Grammy winner and Tony award nominee (For his Broadway debut as composer of original music for the August Wilson play “Fences”), today Marsalis is the leader of one of the most renowned jazz quartets around. For the sake of some more awesome name-dropping, Marsalis also recorded and performed with Davis, Gillespie, Rollins and Hancock, as well as artists such as Sting and the Grateful Dead.

João Bosco/Photo courtesy of PR

João Bosco

Renowned Brazilian guitarist and singer-songwriter Bosco will also be gracing the festival stage. A versatile musician and charismatic performer, Bosco infuses bossa nova, Arabic, Afro-American and Brazilian style into his music. He will be joined by Ricardo Silveira on guitar, João Baptisa on bass, Kiko Freitas on drums, and Armando Marçal on percussion.

The full program and information on tickets and accommodation will soon be available on the Red Sea Jazz Festival website. Admission to the Festival Village is open only to ticket holders, the village will not be open to the general public.

Cafe de Flore – Antoine

2011, Canada. Antoine (Kevin Parent) is a DJ, not your run of the mill battered record bag and Technics headphones sort of feller, but a real player. He jets across the Atlantic to do gigs and stuff. He’s almost 40, and ought to be happy. Great job, great kids, beautiful house, loving girlfriend. Yes, there is the matter of Carole, his ex and mother of his daughters, whom he left for Rose (Evelyn Brochu). His parents still love her, and his kids haven’t quite warmed to his new paramour. He’d been with Carole since they were teenagers and bonded over a shared love of 80s music – The Smiths, The Cure, that sort of thing. (I’m puzzled about about how a semi-Goth  from the 80s becomes a super-cool club DJ. But perhaps I’m sweating the small stuff.) “Do you believe in soulmates? I do. I like the concept that there is somebody who is supposed to be with you for ever.” Antoine muses. He and Carole had told each other for years that their love was written in the stars, etc etc. Until, apparently, it was not.

Cafe de Flore – Jacqueline and Laurent

1969. Paris. Jacqueline (Vanessa Paradis) gives birth to a child with Downs’ Syndrome, and her partner does a runner when she refuses to put the child up for adoption. She’s determined not to give up on him though, despite the bleak prognosis – he won’t live past the age of 25, for instance. Tucked away in a grotty, book-lined Parisian garret, she does everything she can do to beat the odds. Laurent (Marin Gerrier – a really engaging presence, and not because of/despite his condition) is breast-fed until the age of four to boost his immune system, is fed a daily regime of vitamins to boost his immune system. She reads voraciously about his condition, indulges him incessantly. He’s now 7, and theirs is an intimate, almost inextricably intertwined pas des deux.

Almost inextricably. One day, Vero (Alice Dubois) turns up at Laurent’s school. Her parents are chic where Jacqueline is frugal, wealthy where she is impoverished. Vero is a Downs’ Syndrome child too: the two take a shine to one another on sight and become inseparable, literally so. It must be pretty rough when the centre of one’s world, the very reason for one’s existence, becomes smitten with someone else without warning. I’m not giving very much away when I say that Jacqueline takes it rather hard.

What brings the two stories together? There is the reasonable presumption that Vallee – who past work includes, most noteably, 2005’s C.R.A.Z.Y. – might have intended a thoughtful meditation on the real meaning of true love. What we have, 40 odd-years apart are two discomfiting menages a trois: Carole shut out from the world she had created with Antoine, Jacqueline from self sufficiency with Laurent. On this point, Vallee does strike the right notes most of the time. It’s always painful playing gooseberry. Carole sleepwalks, has violent disturbing dreams, is most certainly not in a good place even though she does yoga and tries to keep a brave face. Jacqueline, across time and the sea, is curt and tart with Laurent. When the school suggest that it is time for Laurent to move on to a more appropriate institution, she is quietly appalled; when Vero’s parents tell her that they have found the right place, and that they’d be happy to help with the costs given the attachment the two children have for one another, she lets rip with a passion. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned etc etc. Especially when her son is doing the scorning, albeit unknowingly.

Whether this premise would have been enough to carry the film would be grounds for a good argument. Sadly, it’s one we won’t be having because the link between the two strands is…well, let’s just say that it’s more causative than coincidental. Vallee holds his cards close to his chest: it takes quite some time before we even have anything more than a sniff of what pulls the two stories together: Laurent, Jacqueline and Vero, Antoine, Carole and Rose.

The thing is this: It’s one thing to make a film founded on an other-worldly premise. But if one insists on stretching credulity, it must be done as incisively and as cleanly as possible. Cafe de Flore is neither of these things. The tempo is uneven, the storyline wilfully fractured, at times jumping from the 1960s to the 2010s without warning: a staccato beat not quite like one of Antoine’s favorite grooves. But elsewhere, Vallee lingers at length in a place, and just as one is lulled into a false sense of continuity and security…

But it’s not just that. Cafe de Flore is a sprawling untidy film, ambitious yet unsatisfying. At two hours, it is simply too long: by the time the pieces begin to fit together, one’s patience had already been sorely tested. One wants at least have a sense of where one is being led, but the route is just too digressive and unpredictable. The acting and mise en scene is much the same. The contemporary story hovers too close to the banal to really keep one engaged, Florent the only one who manages to make the best of limited material. Back in the 60s, histrionics are the order of the day with Vanessa Paradis’s Jacqueline over-egging her passion. That said, some of her moments with Laurent – there’s a bit where mother and child are playing in bed together, for example – are the most beautiful and touching things you’ll see on a screen all year, I promise you.

But this isn’t enough to hold things together. Music is supposed to be the key: narrative prods are draped casually across the film, but these are more inside jokes than helpful hints. An incongruous name on an album sleeve. The Cure’s Picture of You. Most infuriatingly, a fleeting reference by Antoine to Sigur Ros’s Svefn-g-englar, a name-drop (a sound-drop?) so obscure that I’m still not entirely sure the reference was deliberate or not. (Look up the song’s 1999 video-promo after watching the film. Don’t cheat.) It all reeks of the self-indulgence that undermines an admittedly intriguing premise. It might be that Vallee’s love for his material was written in the stars: but he might have done himself a favour if he had grounded it in a place accessible for the rest of us.

Cafe de Flore (2011, 120 min, French with Hebrew and English subtitles)
Written and directed by Jean-Marc Vallee; Starring: Vanessa Paradis, Kevin Parent, Helene Florent, Evelyn Brochu, Marin Gerrier, Alice Dubois