Pitch Event

Dr. Yael (yali) Nativ is a dance teacher and scholar with sociological and anthropological orientations. In her writing and research, she explores social and cultural issues looking at the linkage between dance, body, culture, education, gender and creativity. She is a co-founder and member of the Israeli Society for Dance Research and serves as the Head of the Israeli Association of Independent Choreographers. 

Her book Fractured Freedom: Body, Gender and Ideology, which she co-wrote with Dr. Hodel Ophir, was published in 2016 (in Hebrew). Currently she is engaged in an ethnographic research, looking at the experience of the body among professional Israeli ageing dancers who still perform on stage. 

Iris Lana is a dance researcher, lecturer, director of dance archive projects and an entrepreneur and facilitator of discursive platforms on contemporary dance in Israel. She served as the Director of Batsheva Dance Company's archive project and as the Director of the Dance project of The National Digital Collection. She teaches dance theory and analysis, history of dance in Israel and contemporary dance in Europe and Israel at The Jerusalem Academy of Dance, at the Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts in Tel Aviv and at the Mason Gross School of the Arts Online at Rutgers, State University of New Jersey.

Israeli born dancer and choreographer. She holds a B.A. in Dance from Columbia University and an MFA in Dance from Hollins University. 

As artistic director of her NY based dance troupe between 2000-2003, The Red Hill Project, she has created works that showcased at various venues across the US and Canada. Since her return to Israel, she has been teaching, giving workshops and choreographing for the Batsheva Dance Ensemble, OtherDance Festival, IntimaDance Festival, International Exposure, Curtain Up Festival and Dance Arena festival, to name a few. 

Ruttenberg seeks to create works that engage all the senses, not excluding the sense of humor, and to expand the existing audiences for dance. 

Between her works are: Dream Team, 60,000 Gra(h)m, Everything Must Go. Ruttenberg continues to produce and present her own work in Israel and abroad. 

Dana is also the founder and artistic director of Project 48 Dance, a creative blind-date adventure which brings in over 40 artists to create original dance works in two 24 hour rounds, in collaboration with Batsheva Dance Company and various academic institutions. She is the artistic co-director of Curtain Up Festival. 

Dana continues to create choreography for various Theater and TV productions throughout Israel, teach and perform abroad.

Maayan Liebman-Sharon is a Jerusalem-based choreographer, Artistic director and curator. 

From 2022 she is a lecturer at a high art college in Jerusalem. She holds a B. Dance degree and an M. Mus degree specializing in choreography from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and a B.A. in Occupational Therapy. She is a member of the Israeli Choreographers’ Association. Maayan’s work has been seen in festivals such as Israel Festival, Machol Shalem’s Jerusalem International Dance Week, Tmuna Theater’s Intimadance Festival, JISDF- Jerusalem International Solo Dance Festival , Between Heaven and Earth Festival, the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s 80 Squared, From Jaffa to Agripas Festival, Kelim Choreography Center’s March Hare Festival, Hazira - Dance Arena, the Dan David Award Ceremony, and more. Her work has been presented in museums and galleries such as the Israel Museum, Bible Lands Museum, Haifa Art Museum, Tower of David Museum, Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Museum of Muslim Art, and Moscow Museum. 

The origins of her creations draw inspiration from collaborations with artists working with different media such as visual art, video projection, film, ecology and nature. 

In 2019 she was the artistic director, curator, and mentor for original creations premiered in Machol Shalem Dance House’s Jerusalem International Dance Week. 

That same year, she curated the dance program’s pre-premieres in the Jerusalem Biennale, in collaboration with Mash and the Biennale. 

In 2020, Maayan created a new work at the Zagreb Dance Center as part of Mash and the Zagreb Dance Center’s Jerusalem Exchange Project. 

In 2021 she participated in Interstices, a cross-residency project of Catamon Dance Group and La Rotonde- Ville de Québec. 

In February 2022, she was the artistic director and mentor of the dance and visual arts program in the Studio of Her Own Gallery in Jerusalem . 

In May 2022, Maayan was invited to create a new work in residency at SE.S.TA Centre in Czech Republic. 

In November 2022, Maayan was invited to take part in residency at Jskd center in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Maayan presented her work in progress at Cirkulacija2 in Ljubljana.

Yulia Mezhetskaya is a choreographer, dancer and teacher based in Jerusalem, Israel. Born in 1992 in Moscow, Russia, she began dancing at the age of ten and has continued to practice her passion ever since.

In 2014, she moved to Israel and since then she is working with various Israel and international choreographers as a dancer and creates her own works. 

Her Choreographic work debuted in 2016 with a full length performance. 

In 2021, Yulia was chosen to participate in ‘Derida Dance Center’ residency program (Sofia, Bulgaria) as a part of Jerusalem Exchange of MASH, where she created the work "Energy Conversation". 

The work premiered at Machol Shalem Dance Center and since then has been presented more than 15 times throughout Israel.

Choreographer, performing artist, founder, and Artistic Director of Angela Dance Company and JISDF - Jerusalem International Solo Dance Festival. Born in Jerusalem (1983), Engel has been performing and creating for 20 years in Israel and at international festivals worldwide - in Europe, the USA, the Far East, and Africa. In 2011 Engel founded Angela Dance Co. - a creative organization producing original contemporary dance repertoire, alongside international ventures and collaborations, interactive and Site Specific projects. One of the main artistic ventures she created is the interactive concept project LoveINg Your City produced in Jerusalem and currently co-produced in other cities around the world. 

Engel is a board of directors member of I.U.P.A - Israeli union of performing artists, the CEO of Dance Space Jerusalem NGO, and a member of the Choreographers Association. 

She is regularly invited as a guest artist and lecturer to DePaul University (Chicago), Northwestern University (Evanston), and the SADC Center (Berkeley, California). 

Engel's works are characterized by a unique interpretation, design, and rich virtuosic performance. Following her rich accumulated artistic Résumé, and as a graduate of prestigious dance institutions alongside journalism and media studies, Engel stands out as a multidisciplinary artist and an active cultural entrepreneur.

Eyal Nahum, Artistic Director of Jerusalem Dance Theater Company About the Company The Jerusalem Dance Theater Company was founded in 1985 by dancer and choreographer Tamara Mialnik who undertook to perform dance creations on subjects with educational message and values related to heritage and Judaism as well as to the international repertoire. Between the years 2012-2016, the Company was directed by creator Lior Lev. 

Estimated and well-known creators contributed their creations for the Company, including: Noa Zuk, Yair Vardi, Eyal Dadon, Liat Weisburt, Ido Batsh, Pablo Girolami, Francesca Harper and many more. In 2017, creator and dancer Eyal Nahum was appointed and serves until today as artistic director of the Company. Eyal Nahum danced in a number of prominent Companies in Israel and around the world and created in various and well-known settings there. Eyal graduated with honors with a B.A. from the Open University and a M.A. from the Rubin Dance Academy. The Jerusalem Dance Theater is a repertoire dance company that strives to combine the creations of contemporary artists from Israel and the world who have unique style and sayings with the aim of initiating cultural personal dialog and bringing together different audiences. The Company is recognized as an institution for the dissemination of dance art and meets high artistic criteria such as those of the National Culture Basket Committee for Children and Youth, and gets impressive reviews by dance critics, and participates in well-known festivals in Israel and around the world. The Artistic Concept The Jerusalem Dance Theater and the creator Eyal Nahum combine between the works of different creators, as well as different dance techniques, with the purpose of echoing issues with a unique social and political interest for the period and location we are in. Subjects that concern special or disadvantaged communities are given an artistic expression with a unique saying that is characterized by an original, dynamic and aesthetic personal dance language. 

The Company performances, on the one hand, place the Company's art in contemporary cultural affairs, and on the other hand, represent and empower disadvantaged audiences vis-à-vis accepted social norms. 

jerusalemdance@gmail.com