The 49th Israel Festival, an annual highlight on Jerusalem’s cultural calendar celebrating the performing arts, will host artists from many countries including Israel, the United States, Britain, Argentina, Georgia, Lithuania, Germany, Denmark, France, Korea, Iceland, Poland, India and Japan in concerts and performances from 25.5.10-11.6.10 in venues throughout the city. Several of the performances will also travel to other cities in Israel, including Tel Aviv, Holon, Modi’in, Dimona and Haifa.
Opening the festival will be the Chinese Shen Wei Dance Arts. Other dance performances include British-Bangladesh dancer choreographer Akram Khan, who will perform his recent solo Gnosis; the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performing Serenade/The Proposition, a work that confronts the historic legacy of Abraham Lincoln; traditional tango meets modern dance with Tangokinesis (Argentina) and there will be a special three-dance tribute to the Jerusalem-based Vertigo Dance Company.
As for the stage, Shakespeare will be a central theme in this year’s festival, with the Theatre of Music and Drama (Georgia) performing a unique version of Macbeth; the OKT/Vilinius City Theatre from Lithuania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and an Israeli production of Romeo and Juliet commissioned for the festival will be performed at the Lab Theatre. Shakespeare Jerusalem will perform Bite-sized Shakespeare: a collage of select scenes from Macbeth and Midsummer Night’s Dream (in the original English).
Other theatrical offerings include Hotel Paradiso performed by Familie Flöz from Germany; The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol performed by the Gecko Theatre from England; the unique Finger Theatre founded in Georgia with performances which consists entirely of costumed fingers; From Enemy to Lover performed by the Arab-Hebrew Theatre and Mirror Theatre; Kokochu performed by the Zik group which creates works of music, theatre, sculpture, film and pyrotechnics.
The Revolution Orchestra, conducted by Roy Oppenheim, will perform a new adaptation of Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev and a performance of La Traviata to celebrate 25 years of the Israeli Opera. Jazz music programs will feature saxophonists Charles Lloyd and Joe Libano from the US, as well as The Andre Zagodjinski Trio from Poland and an evening with Mika Karni and Daniel Salomon performing works by Israeli composer Tomer Lev.
Festival music advisor/composer/pianist Gil Shohat plays in and presents a five-hour bicentennial Schumann marathon, while the ever-popular weekend concerts at Ein Kerem this year feature the piano music of Frederic Chopin, with, among others, the Israel Symphony Orchestra – IBA, conducted by Nir Kabaretti, playing an all-Chopin program featuring Rubinstein Prize-winning pianists.
Opera fans can enjoy the Israel Opera’s performance of Verdi’s La Traviata with exciting young US tenor Scott Piper as Alfredo while others can choose from medieval church music (Theatre of Voices (UK) and NYYD Quartet (Denmark) or a capella with the King’s Singers from the UK
Ticket prices NIS 60 to NIS 240. For more information, www.israel-festival.org.il
