Tel Aviv parties all White Night long

The White City hosts its annual dusk-till-dawn festival.

By BARRY DAVIS
Silent disco WHite Night 370 (photo credit: REUTERS/Nir Elias )
Silent disco WHite Night 370
(photo credit: REUTERS/Nir Elias )
Eleven years ago UNESCO conferred World Cultural Heritage Site status on Tel Aviv’s impressive collection of over 4,000 buildings built in the Bauhaus architectural style. This spawned the term The White City of Tel Aviv.
That, in turn, provided the inspiration for the city’s annual White Night cultural event, which takes place this Thursday.
The Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s White Night purview embraces practically every local cultural pursuit going, featuring numerous genres of music, theater and dance, community singing, movies, poetry, video art and sport.
The all-nighter also includes knockdown entry prices to museums, which will remain open until late, and restaurants and cafes across the city will have special discounts. Stores will also burn the late-night oil, and there will be lectures, guided tours and fashion shows and, if you can keep going, you might want to wind down with some seafront yoga sessions before you eventually hit the sack.
The evening-night-morning’s festivities will kick off at Hatikva Market at 4 p.m. with the program there featuring live music by the likes of swing- and tap-dancing act Ron & The Red Beans, Greek music artist Nir Andeleh, the Telma pop act and The Voice contestant Noam Maimon. There will also plenty of street performers such as Brazilian drummers, stilt walkers, human sculptures and capoeira dancers. This year there are quite a few early starters, designed to offer families with young kids to get a taste of the White Night action before bedtime.
Over in Rabin Square local residents who fancy a bit of shuteye at a decent hour won’t be bothered by the free party that will going on there between 8 p.m.and 2 a.m., courtesy of Radio Tel Aviv. All the partygoers will be grooving to music they will hear exclusively via headphones which will be provided at the square, or you can bring your own, hook them up to your smartphone and simply tune in.
If you prefer your entertainment more on the quieter and hands-on side the Train site will hold a community singing session from 8:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. You will be able to croon away to your heart’s delight to the professional accompaniment of the Tel Avivian band, and Yair Vermut and his group.
And if you start getting puckish midstream, the Train venue will also host all manner of culinary endeavor, between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. The gastronomic activities include a cookery workshop, stalls with wines, cheeses and other agricultural produce, cookery shows by top chefs such as Aviv Moshe, Yisrael Aharoni and Avi Biton, and a culinary odyssey through the history of Israeli food since the 1940s.
There will be plenty of vibes and decibels on offer over at Pisga Park in Old Jaffa, at the Indie Rock bash, between 8 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., with the lineup including Amir Lev, Tamar Aphek and Vaadat Charigim. And just down the road, the Tel Aviv Jazz Orchestra will do its thing at Kedumim Square between 8:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.
Rock fans should get themselves to Tel Aviv Port, between 8:30 p.m. and midnight for a lineup that includes Rockfour, Louis Marshall and Full Trunk. And if leg shaking is your thing, the Dancing in White with Sarah Aviv slot should be just for you. The dance session will take place in the piazza in front of the Gordon Swimming Pool from 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
Naturally, there may be a few soccer fans who won’t want to miss the World Cup action from Brazil. The aforesaid can avail themselves of the big-screen facilities laid on at the Bla Bla eatery at Frishman Beach between 9 p.m. and 2:30 a.m.
White Night also offers an opportunity to get a better handle on some urban history and the newly revamped former Templar Sharona district will host the Pe’imat Layla (Night Beat) arts program 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. The lineup takes in video art and human sculptures, dance and theater and art exhibitions.
And with klezmer and French music, the Dimie Cat electronic cabaret show laid on at the 1 Rothschild Boulevard venue (9 p.m.-midnight), folk dancing at the Suzanne Dellal Center (7:30 p.m.-11 p.m.), live ethnic music at Bialik Square ( 6 p.m.-midnight) and a kids’ music show at Kiryat Sefer Park form 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m., it looks like the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa has got just about every White Night base covered.
For more info visit whitenight.whats-on.co.il/en/