KSU Launches Theater With Kibbutz Dancers
The company will usher in a new era of dance for metro Atlanta.
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It’s not the same old cucumber-and-dairy kibbutz.
The dance department at Kennesaw State University will present Israel’s world-renowned Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company for one show at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24, at the Dance Theater on KSU’s Marietta Campus (the former Southern Polytechnic).
Choreographed by Kibbutz Contemporary Dance’s artistic director, Rami Be’er, “Horses in the Sky” premiered in 2016 at the Sydney Opera House. The work uses powerful physical vocabulary to juxtapose a surrealist sense of dreams and an impending apocalypse.
Ivan Pulinkala, the founding director of Kennesaw State’s department of dance, who this time last year was working with the Israeli Consulate General and several arts organizations on the Exposed dance festival, saw “Horses in the Sky” in December in Israel and knew it would be the ideal work to launch a professional presenting season at the university’s new, state-of-the-art Dance Theater.
The first professional dance company to grace the Dance Theater stage, Kibbutz will usher in a new era of dance for metro Atlanta as Kennesaw State introduces a professional series of internationally renowned dance companies.
Photo by Eyal Hirsch
The Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company was founded in 1973 by Yehudit Arnon, who survived Auschwitz, then moved to Israel to establish Kibbutz Ga’aton in the Western Galilee.
Today, Kibbutz Ga’aton is home to the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, known for its compelling movements, technically virtuosic performers and inventive artistic voice.
Be’er, the company’s artist director, was born in 1957 to a family of Holocaust survivors. After his mandatory army service but while he continued to serve in the army reserve, he joined the Kibbutz Contemporary company as a dancer.
He has continued the founding vision of the late Arnon and established the company’s International Dance Village as a magnet for dancers and creative artists from all over the world.
“Horses in the Sky” will mark the first time the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company is seen in Atlanta.
The past five years, Pulinkala has established a strong presence for the Kennesaw State dance program in Israel, including an annual dance study-abroad session in Tel Aviv and a host of visiting Israeli artists, who have given Kennesaw dance students the experience of cutting-edge contemporary dance from one of its world centers.
The Kennesaw State dance program received a Schusterman Visiting Artist Grant in 2016 to bring an Israeli artist to campus for four months.
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