Canadian dance and all that jazzCanadian dance troupe Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal will return to these shores soon, to perform six shows in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, from February 2 to 8.The shows will feature three works – Harry by Israeli- American choreographer Barak Marshall, Night Box by Chinese-Canadian choreographer Wen Wei Wang and Closer by French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied. The first two works were created especially for the company. Marshall’s creation is based in the conflicts of daily life, such as tensions between men and women, whereby compromises are made in order to achieve and maintain equilibrium. The work is set to a score that takes in jazz, Israeli folk songs and traditional music. Despite the clear tension, the work also incorporates humor and conveys a sense of hope.
Meanwhile, Night Box feeds off the sounds, rhythms and music of urban night life. It is a high-energy work in which love, loss, sexuality and joy are intertwined in a state of perpetual movement. It fuses contemporary ballet with street dance in alternating sequences for group, trio, duet and solo performers.Closer is a duet based on a work by English playwright Patrick Marber, which tells the story of an entangled web of relationships between misfit couples. This is a sensual and energized work performed to music by Philip Glass.For tickets and more information: (03) 692-7777 (Tel Aviv), (02) 560-5757 and (04) 835-3555Sax at LatrunNext Saturday (February 1, noon) the Saxrange jazz quartet will perform a highly varied program of musical works at the Latrun Monastery. The foursome was founded in 1995 with each member playing a different variant of saxophone, from Dmitri Shurin on soprano, Oleg Raskin on alto, Constantine Gurtikov on tenor to Alen Basin on the baritone. The group’s repertoire takes in different jazz genres, including swing, bebop, cool jazz, free jazz and ragtime, as well as the blues, Latin American music and even works by Bach.For tickets and more information: (02) 535-6954The towering infernoThe first part of the Babel thematic trilogy of exhibitions will open at the Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, at Tel Aviv University, tomorrow at 8 p.m. All told the three-art project incorporates some 200 works that come from the Yigal Ahuvi collection, and is curated by Sarit Shapira. The opening installment is called The Towering Inferno and, as the name suggests, the exhibits have some connection with contemporary tall buildings, ranging from iconic structures such as the Eiffel Tower, industrial plant towers and skyscrapers, as well as communication masts. The edifices are portrayed as sort of silent sentinels after their powers have waned, and one of the issues raised by the exhibition is whether the towers in question still have any validity in the contemporary world.The new show includes works by such leading artists, both from here and abroad, as Joseph Beuys, Avner Ben-Gal, Jeff Wall, Rafi Lavi, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Haim Steinbach.The Yigal Ahuvi collection comprises around 1,600 works of art from Israel and around the world. The Towering Inferno will run until April 24.For more information: (03) 640-8860Pop goes the operaNext Friday (doors open 11:15 a.m., show starts 1 p.m.) the Zappa Club in Herzliya will host the next slot of the opera-pop series, starring soloists from the Israeli Opera. Next week’s show is called Imagine and features songs written and recorded by The Beatles, including such evergreen numbers as “Penny Lane,” “Let It Be,” “Michelle” and “Hey Jude.” The songs will be performed by Israeli Opera stalwarts sopranos Efrat Ashkenazi and Yael Levita, mezzo-soprano Anat Cherni and tenor Nimrod Grinboim.David Sebba will provide piano accompaniment.For tickets and more information: *9080 and www.zappa-club.co.ilShowtime
Canadian dance and all that jazz.
