Presented by Jerusalem’s Confederation House and curated by Effie Benaya, the Hullegeb Festival aims to showcase exceptional performances authored by individuals from Israel’s Ethiopian community.
By ORI J. LENKINSKIDEGE FEDER’S ‘Bug’ will be showcased at the annual Hullegeb Israeli-Ethiopian Arts Festival.(photo credit: YOEL HAYOT)
Dege Feder is one of the most intriguing dance artists working in Israel today. Though not widely presented in mainstream platforms, Feder’s choreographic vision is one that should be paid attention to, and closely.For the past decade, Feder has tirelessly honed her voice, both figuratively and literally, experimenting on and off stage with singing, music, visual art and movement. Her previous works, which include Jalo and Amedja, represent an arc in the artist’s process. This month, Feder will unveil her newest work, a quartet titled Bug, as part of the annual Hullegeb Israeli-Ethiopian Arts Festival.Presented by Jerusalem’s Confederation House and curated by Effie Benaya, the Hullegeb Festival aims to showcase exceptional performances in music, theater and dance authored by individuals from Israel’s Ethiopian community. Now in its ninth year, the festival has been a major supporter of Feder since its inception. For the last several years, Feder has used the platform to unveil a new work of her own created for Beta Dance Troupe.Feder, 40, was born in the Gondar region of Ethiopia. In 1985, she immigrated to Israel with her family as part of Operation Moses. She began her career as a company member in Ruth Eshel’s Haifa-based troupe Eskesta. As a part of this endeavor, Feder traveled around the world, performing in South Africa, the United States and Europe. She began to choreograph while dancing in the company, creating works for the repertoire. Together with other founding members of Eskesta, Feder founded Beta Dance Troupe, for which she serves as its artistic director.Last year, after contending with the boundaries that keep her from infiltrating the more popular and marketed dance platforms in Israel, Feder shut herself away from the noise and worked on a solo. Jalo boasted Feder in her most natural state: alone, free and oscillating between performance genres.This year Feder decided to go back to working with groups and employed an ensemble cast to realize her vision for Bug. “I spent the better part of a year working on this creation,” she explained in a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post. “I decided to really take my time, in a calm way, and delve into the process.”Followers of Beta and Feder’s work will note a major change in the cast in Bug. Whereas previous pieces have boasted exclusively Ethiopian dancers, this work is comprised of Ethiopian and Israeli-born women. This step is monumental for the troupe and marks a paradigm shift in the concept and aesthetic that Feder and her crew are proliferating.“We now have three women from the Ethiopian community and three that are not in the company. Obviously, this influences the work. The creation looks totally different from anything we’ve done in the past; both because of the dancers, but also because I change from year to year.”Feder went on to explain that Bug was not intended to comment on Ethiopian culture or heritage. “I was not aiming to deal with our culture or origin but, naturally, the movement and language of Ethiopian dance exist, and they shine through to the dancers, regardless of their origin or ethnicity,” she said.Bug premieres December 23 at 7 p.m. at the Leo Model Hall in the Gerard Behar Center. For more information, visit tickets.bimot.co.il.
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