So You Think You Can Choreograph?
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Crossposted from Haaretz
Every young dance artist striving to establish himself as a choreographer dreams of the moment when the manager of a theater or cultural institution offers him funding and a framework to produce a full-length work. This is exactly what happened to Anat Yaffe after Emmanuel Witzthum saw a short duet she created. The artistic director of Maabada (The Lab), a performing arts center in Jerusalem, spotted an unusual talent in Yaffe and invited her to create a full-length piece as part of a new program to encourage young artists in Jerusalem.
For Yaffe, however, her response to this offer was not entirely obvious.
“I deliberated for a long time,” she acknowledges. “First of all because I really like to dance in pieces created by others, to be the simple laborer who does their best within the framework of what is asked. And on the creative side, I like to work at my own pace. Suddenly there was talk of putting together a performance to fill an entire evening, with a deadline and a commitment.
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