{"id":18368,"date":"2012-03-22T01:52:29","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T08:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=18368"},"modified":"2012-03-26T01:09:40","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T08:09:40","slug":"51st-israel-festival-opens-may-23-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=18368","title":{"rendered":"51st Israel Festival Opens May 23, 2012!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yamato\/Photo: Masa Ogawa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ancient maps place Jerusalem at the center of the world, and the Israel Festival<\/strong><\/a>, with over three weeks of music, dance, theatre and festivities is a citywide celebration of Jerusalem as a cultural center. Now in its 51st edition, the Israel Festival will take place from May 23rd to June 14th 2012.<\/p>\n

The Israel Festival will open with a tribute to the late Yossi Banai<\/strong> in Safra Square on the 80th anniversary of his birth. Chanteur, actor, songwriter, and dramatist, Banai was born in Jerusalem and grew up in the Mahne Yehuda market neighborhood. Awarded the Israel Prize in 1998 for his contribution to Israel theatre, Banai\u2019s deep smoky voice still sings in the heart and the Israeli cultural collective memory.
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\nCelebrating Israel\u2019s international relationships, festival performances will reflect two landmarks this year: 60 years of diplomatic relations with Japan and 20 years with Czechoslovakia.<\/p>\n

Wadaiko Yamato<\/strong>, the drummers of Japan, will arrive for a unique sunset performance at the Mount Scopus Amphitheater, on May 24, 2012 at 20:00. A musical group founded in 1993 by Masa Ogawa, they take their name from the word \u201cwadaiko\u201d which means \u201cJapanese drum\u201d and \u201cYamato\u201d which was the former name of the group\u2019s place of origin \u2013 the city Nara. Enjoy a sense of things to come from their YouTube clip:
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Not to be missed – Saburo Teshigawara<\/strong>\u2019s Karas dance company from Japan will be performing their latest work, Mirror and Music<\/a> at the Jerusalem Theatre from June 7 \u2013 9, 2012.<\/p>\n

There are several wonderful Czech collaborations to look forward to in this year\u2019s festival, including outdoor performances of Obludarium, an alternative theatre work by The Forman Brothers<\/strong> in the Jerusalem Theatre square \u2013 FREE and open to the public!<\/p>\n

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The Forman Brothers\/Photo: Irena Vodakova<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jazz, dance and photo exhibitions from Prague will be featured in the Israel Festival: DOT 504<\/strong> dance company with \u201cMa Hunt,\u201d Jaroslav Jakubovic<\/strong> at the Jerusalem Theatre Jazz Club, and the celebrated K\u00fchn Choir of Prague<\/strong> in an A-Capella concert.<\/p>\n

A truly moving and unique collaboration at the Israel Festival will be the \u201cDefiant Requiem \u2013 Verdi at Terezin<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 the multimedia Czech-American project in memory of the destiny of Czech Jews, initiated, researched and conducted by Murry Sidlin<\/strong>. Verdi\u2019s Requiem will be performed at the Jerusalem Convention Center by the Czech K\u00fchn Choir<\/strong> and the Jerusalem Symphonic Orchestra<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Israel Festival site<\/a> is already up and running, with times, dates & tickets sales. Check out the Israel Festival facebook page<\/a>, and look forward to festival updates from Midnight East!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ancient maps place Jerusalem at the center of the world, and the Israel Festival, with over three weeks of music, dance, theatre and festivities is a citywide celebration of Jerusalem as a cultural center. Now in its 51st edition, the Israel Festival will take place from May 23rd to June 14th 2012. The Israel Festival […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,4,30,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-dance","category-free","category-music","category-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}