{"id":4575,"date":"2010-04-24T00:49:16","date_gmt":"2010-04-24T07:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=4575"},"modified":"2010-05-01T08:49:51","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T15:49:51","slug":"suzanne-dellal-centre-celebrates-israel-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=4575","title":{"rendered":"Suzanne Dellal Centre Celebrates Israel Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yair Vardi, Director of Suzanne Dellal\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Israel\u2019s highest honor, the Israel Prize, was awarded to the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre in a state ceremony on Independence Day, April 19, 2010. The prize selection committee was headed by Dr. Hadassah Shani, with Dr. Ziona Peled and Eran Baniel. This week, Suzanne Dellal celebrated at home, in Neve Tzedek where it all began with a dream and a vision, 25 years ago. Today, the center is not only home to the Batsheva Dance Company, Inbal Multicultural Ethnic Center, Inbal Pinto Avshalom Pollak Dance Company and the Orna Porat Theater for Children and Youth; it is a home for dance and creativity in all its many forms. Those who turned the dream into a reality gathered on Wednesday, April 21, in the courtyard of Suzanne Dellal, the arched doorways blooming with flowers as evening rolled in from the sea.<\/p>\n

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Celebrating Suzanne Dellal Israel Prize\/Photo: Elizur ReuveniThe establishment of the Suzanne Dellal Centre was a turning point for dance in Israel, which has become Israel\u2019s ambassador to the world. Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai opened the speeches, noting that once more, a Tel Aviv cultural centre has been honored, thanking former Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat \u201cCheech\u201d, the Dellal and Yershalmi families who made it all possible, and attributing Suzanne Dellal\u2019s success, \u201cabove all, to Yair Vardi, who has been at the helm for 20 years.\u201d Minister of Culture and Sport Limor Livnat, Arye Mekel, Deputy Director General for Cultural and Scientific Affairs,at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Spanish Ambassador Alvaro Iranzo, and Batsheva Dance Company General Director Dina Eldor conveyed their congratulations, as well as Renana Raz and Ido Tadmor, who spoke for Israeli dancers and choreographers.Celebrating Suzanne Dellal Israel Prize\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The recollections of those who were there in the beginning, when two former school buildings stood empty in a neglected part of the city, gave the listeners a sense of the vision, daring and enormous effort required to create such a center as Suzanne Dellal. Miki Yerushalmi, whose family established the Yaron Yerushalmi Hall in memory of his brother, a paratrooper killed in the War of Attrition, recalled the rainy day when he first came to see the area with his parents, and the first theatre performances that took place under the stars, before the renovation of the buildings. Among these were Yoram Kaniuk\u2019s Adam Ben Kelev and Hanoch Levin\u2019s The Patriot, directed by Oded Kotler, which Kotler decided to present despite a ban by the Council for Film and Drama Criticism.<\/p>\n

Zeev Sokolovsky, representative of the Dellal family in Israel, recalled \u201cwe had five very difficult years establishing the center. It was a wonder that it succeeded.\u201d Elisha Rubin, who with Ronit Rubin was the project and structure architect for the centre said that in planning the renovation they were guided by a vision of Suzanne Dellal as an urban cultural center that would be active day and night, attracting seekers of culture, neighborhood families and connecting the city to the sea. The original fa\u00e7ade of the buildings was retained while building was enlarged and the interior transformed to accommodate its new purpose. New buildings, such as the Batsheva studios, were designed in harmony with the originals. This loving, attentive and precise vision extended to the courtyards designed by landscape architect Shlomo Aronson, creating the unique atmosphere of Suzanne Dellal, enjoyed daily by hundreds of visitors.<\/p>\n

The Director of the centre since its inception, Yair Vardi spoke last, thanking all those who made the vision possible. Recalling a when the Suzanne Dellal Hall was just a lone wall, recalled that \u201cthings looked very bleak. Everyone prophesized doom, they called the project a white elephant and said it had no future. Who would have believed?\u201d The man who never rests, giving his expert attention to every aspect of the center, always dedicated to excellence, closed the celebration by looking to the future, saying, \u201cWe must all continue to work and create for the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos of the event may be viewed on the Midnight East flickr page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s highest honor, the Israel Prize, was awarded to the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre in a state ceremony on Independence Day, April 19, 2010. The prize selection committee was headed by Dr. Hadassah Shani, with Dr. Ziona Peled and Eran Baniel. This week, Suzanne Dellal celebrated at home, in Neve Tzedek where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575","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=4575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}