March 16, 2006

Dance Europe's Unacceptable Discrimination Against Israeli Dancers

On March 8th I came across a post, "Dance Europe's Policy of Bias and Censorship" on Rachel Feinerman's Downtown Dancer Blog. Rachel linked to a story by journalist Stephanie Freid who publishes a blog from Tel Aviv, Israel. In this post Stephanie tells the story of what happened when she tried to pitch London-based Dance Europe magazine on writing a story about Sally-Anne Friedland Dance Drama Company of Israel.

Stephanie was told that Dance Europe does not write about Israeli dance companies or accept advertisements from Israeli companies because of the occupation. But the magazine will make an allowance if the dance company or sponsor makes a statement denouncing the occupation.

Dance Magazine's Editor Emma Manning, as quoted by the London Jewish Chronicle, said "as an editor, I am entitled to choose what to print. It is my perogative."

In addition to not providing editorial coverage or accepting ads (without disclaimers), Dance Europe will also not include listings of Israeli dance companies in its online directory.

I think that Dance Europe's blatant discrimination against Israeli dancers is pitiful and unacceptable. Dance Europe is clearly free to write about any topics it wishes and express its opinions as it pleases. But for a London-based publication that covers dance, supposedly in an unbiased manner as stated on its website, to single out one country in the entire world as the source of all evil and then punish the dancers of this country for the acts of its government is the height of absurdity.

CBS News team watches Joseph McCarthy
warn Americans of communist infiltrators

Dance Europe's demand of Israeli dancers to denounce the occupation if they wish to be covered in their magazine reminds me of the loyalty oaths that had to be taken during the red scare days of the McCarthy era. Last night I happened to watch "Good Night, And Good Luck" that tells the story of how Edward R. Murrow took on the fear-mongering of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the opening scene CBS employees whisper to each other as they contemplate whether they will lose their jobs if they don't sign loyalty oaths.

But even worse than their demand for denunciations by Israeli dancers, is Dance Europe's complete lack of appreciation for what it means to be an artist and how art can serve to bring people together as opposed to pushing them apart.

There are many ways to answer the question: what is art? I would say that at its most basic level art is about individual creative expression. In this light, Dance Europe's discrimination against Israeli dancers is especially pointless and mean spirited. Dance Europe is delivering collective punishment against individual dancers who undoubtedly bring to their work a diverse range of perspectives and interests. Some may be inspired by political and social considerations while others may be motivated by a range of other issues that don't even touch upon politics.

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Digital Worlds Institute's global arts
programs breakdown cultural barriers
by bringing together artists in
real-time from around the world.

Art, at its best, is a wonderful way to bring people together from different countries, backgrounds and perspectives. If you listen to the audio interview I recently did with James Oliverio of the Digital Worlds Institute, you'll notice that one of the themes that ties the interview together is his description of how his multi-country events, which bring dancers and other artists together in real-time via high-speed videoconferencing, serve to breakdown cultural barriers in unexpected and delightful ways.

In one of my many emails to Emma Manning, most of which went unresponded to, I recommended that Dance Europe play a constructive role, instead, in the search for paths to resolving the many challenges of the Middle East. My main suggestion was that she embrace existing programs (or participate in the creation of new ones) that fuse the power of dance with inexpensive digital communication tools such as video and blogs. By using these tools, dancers of all ages from the Middle East (and beyond) can share, both online and in person, their perspectives, stories, differences and hopes in a worthwhile and creative manner.

Then this morning I was searching for dance videos on YouTube. I happened to stumble upon videos that had been uploaded just minutes earlier from a group called Nemashim based in Haifa.

Nemashim is a commune that consists of Israeli Jews and Arabs who have recently graduated from high-school. The goal is to promote peace and understanding through theater and Jewish-Arab dialogue and meetings. In the words of their website:

We are living together in the middle of a terrible, destructive conflict and we feel that a way out is by developing peaceful resistance to violence, realising the ideals of equality and co-existence in a mixed group and by using theatre to advance these ideals.

Here are two of the videos uploaded this morning by Uri Shani of Nemashim. The first "Contact Improvisation" and the second "Trust":

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