New Ann Arbor Batsheva Protest Leaflet Available

Click here to download a PDF file of the most recent Ann Arbor Batsheva Dance Company protest leaflet.

Four Cities Now to Protest Batsheva Dance Company

Their tour hasn't even started yet but protests against the Israeli apartheid Batsheva Dance Company are now planned or in the works in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Vancouver, and Pittsburgh.

• No Dancing on Gaza's Graves--Boycott the Batsheva Dance Company (Ann Arbor)
• Chicago to Protest Batsheva Dance Company
• Vancouver Activist on Batsheva Dance Company
• Pittsburgh to Protest Batsheva Dance Company

There's still time to sign the e-letter to UMS and you don't have to live in Michigan or Ann Arbor to take a stand against Israeli apartheid. Please sign today.

Send UMS an E-Letter--Boycott the Israeli Apartheid Dance Troupe

Chicago to Protest Batsheva Dance Company

Received via e-mail:

Boycott the Batsheva Dance Company's U.S. Tour!

Picket at the Chicago Performance

When: Sunday, February 8...12:30-2:00 PM
Where: Auditorium Theatre - 50 E. Congress, Chicago

Israel's latest brutal war on Gaza killed over 1300 people and injured over 5000; with over 400 children killed and another 1500 injured. These numbers are expected to rise as more bodies are discovered beneath the ruins. Meanwhile, Israel's ongoing and illegal siege still does not allow crucial necessities into Gaza.

Israel's leading dance company, Batsheva, is touring the US and Canada starting January 28th through March of 2009. As cultural ambassadors and representatives of the Israeli state, Batsheva was asked to denounce the racist and brutal policies and crimes of their government against the Palestinian people, and refused.

"Writing October 26, 2008, in The Independent of London, Jenny Gilbert reports that the dance company is "funded by Israel's government, its performers include none of Arab extraction, and it is 'proud to be considered Israel's leading ambassador.'"

Activists across the country have been planning and organizing a boycott of Batsheva Dance Company for several months. The most recent Israeli atrocities in Gaza have added another sense of urgency and another layer of public anger towards Israel. In 2005, hundreds of Palestinian civil society organization called on activists and institutions around the world to organize and join the movement of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel. The calls for boycott include commercial, academic, and cultural aspects, and have been echoed by numerous Israeli and international artists, academics, and thinkers.

For more information on BDS: http://www.bdsmovement.net/ and http://www.pacbi.org

Endorsing organizations [ list in formation: ] International Solidarity Movement-Chicago chapter, Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago, Chicagoans Against Apartheid in Palestine

To endorse please contact: ISMinChicago@aol.com or 773-267-5198

Vancouver Activist on Batsheva Dance Company

The letter below was posted as a comment to "Pittsburgh to Protest Batsheva Dance Company." It has been slightly reformatted here for readability.

Dear Dance House Productions,

I want to let you know that as an active arts member of Vancouver's dance scene, supporter of New Works and collaborator with many of Eponymous's arts clients, I however will be boycotting your presentation of Israeli Batsheva Dance Company's 'Deca Dance' on February 20th and 21st 2009. Under the present political circumstances it would be impossible to enjoy such an event. I prefer to add my own artists voice to the many others that are calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural events due to the illegal military and civil actions occurring at this time in Israel.

I will be actively encouraging others to join the boycott and I sincerely ask you to reconsider your involvement in this event.

I have no doubt that history will look back on this in much the same way that they now do of the 1980's cultural and sporting boycotts of South African apartheid.

I feel I should be brave enough to take the personal effort to make my feelings known to you directly, so you don't think its just radicals out there, and do not confuse this with anti-semitism. Boycotting Batsheva is a very real response for many mainstream Vancouverites, including myself. I have travelled to Israel and the West Bank several times, so this is a carefully considered decision. After weighing all the options I have decided to join the international call for a cultural boycott.

Boycott is a tactic which allows people, as distinct from their elected governments, to apply pressure on those wielding power in an unjust way. It is directed not against people but against oppressive and unjust policies and regimes in order to bring about change. However it should also be noted that the dance company members have included past and present Israeli soldiers in the junior ensemble.

Batsheva operates throughout the year with its 2 companies (Batsheva Dance Company and the junior Batsheva Ensemble) and 40 dancers. With 250 annual performances in Israel and around the world, the company is considered Israel’s leading cultural ambassador. As you must be aware Israel has been violating UN resolutions and international law, and has no right to be regarded as an ordinary member-state with whom Western democracies should be engaged in cultural exchange. By hosting a dance group which represents Israel, you implicitly collude with Israel's crimes.

sincerely
jamie griffiths

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/01/israel-boycott-divest-sanction
http://www.danceinsider.com/f2008/f0912_1.html
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/

jamie griffiths
Director (Film)s & Live Projection (Designs)
Primal Divine Productions
art & performance films
interactive stage designs

Pittsburgh to Protest Batsheva Dance Company

Reposted from KABOBfest:

Boycott Israeli Dance Company on US/Canada Tour

By Fayyad

Call for Action: Israel’s leading dance company, Batsheva, is touring the US and Canada starting January 28th through March of 2009. As cultural ambassadors and representatives of their country, Batsheva was asked to denounce the racist and brutal policies and crimes of their government against the Palestinian people, and refused.

Activists across the country have been planning and organizing a boycott of Batsheva Dance Company for several months. The most recent Israeli atrocities in Gaza have added another sense of urgency and another layer of public anger towards Israel. In 2005, hundreds of Palestinian civil society organization called on activists and institutions around the world to organize and join the movement of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel. The calls for boycott include commercial, academic, and cultural aspects, and have been echoed by numerous Israeli and international artists, academics, and thinkers.

Join this effort and protest the Batsheva performance in your town:
(schedule and other resources below)


1) Contac the sponsors and hosts of the event, and demand they cancel and/or end their sponsorship of the event.
2) Contact the media in your town and inform them of your intention to boycott and protest the performance
3) Write op-ed and letters to the editor to explain your reasons for the boycott call.
4) Turn out at the event, protest and picket, and call for people to boycott the performance, bring your signs and photos from the attack on Gaza.
And don’t forget to forward this call to your contacts in cities on the tour.

Reasons for Boycott and Talking Points:

- Boycotts were instrumental to ending South African apartheid. Such international pressure is needed to bring an end to the Israeli occupation.
- Israel's military occupation of the Palestinians violates international laws and their inalienable rights to self-determination and sovereignty.
- Artists and academics who speak up against Israel's military occupation of the Palestinians are not a target for boycott
- Boycott is not meant to punish or isolate artists; it is a conditional measure that is intended to push the Israeli government to make peace by ending the occupation.
- Artists are cultural ambassadors of a country, and often employed by their government to promote the country.
- Boycott sends a message to the Israeli public and the government, strengthening the hand of those working for peace among them.
- Over 540 Israeli professors and public intellectuals signed a letter calling for a boycott of Israel.
- Cultural and Academic boycotts have been called for by Palestinian civil society, and solidarity groups around the world, including South Africa
- Since Israel is a democracy, it should actually respond to international opprobrium.
- Batsheva explicitly refused to distance itself from Israel’s military occupation and racist policies.
- Batsheva is a Jewish-only dance company, despite the fact that 1 in 5 Israelis are not Jewish.
- Batsheva's choreographer and artistic director, Ohad Naharin, served in the Israeli military, the same forces that just killed nearly 1000 civilians in Gaza.
- Several dancers in the company are in the army reserves; reserve units conducted this month's invasion of Gaza.
- No Batsheva dancer has challenged or objected to military duty, despite the growing movement of conscientious objectors in Israel.

Schedule (http://www.h-artmanagement.com/calendar.html):

January 28 - Houston, TX
January 30-31 - Purchase, NY
February 2 - Princeton, NJ
February 3 -, Philadelphia, PA
February 5 – Pittsburgh, PA
February 7,8- Chicago, IL
February 10 - Columbus, OH
February 12 - Ottawa, ON
February 14 - Ann Arbor, MI
February 15 - Ann Arbor, M
February 18 - Minneapolis, MN
February 20,21- Vancouver, BC
February 24 - Santa Barbara, CA
February 26 - La Jolla, CA
February 28 - Los Angeles, CA
March - Brooklyn, NY


Letter Sent to Batsheva from Pittsburgh Groups:

To: Naomi Fortis- General Manager
Cc: Dance Company Members,
Batsheva Dance Company,
6 Yechieli Street, Tel Aviv 65149

Re: Your Scheduled Performance in Pittsburgh, PA

It is in somber spirits that we, residents of Pittsburgh, receive news of your planned visit to our city. Your government has just commenced a brutal, three-week attack on the besieged, starved populations of Gaza, during which more that 1300 Palestinians were murdered, including at least 419 children and 108 women. In addition, 5300 Palestinians have been injured, 4,000 homes, schools, hospitals, and shelters have been destroyed and more than 20,000 others were severely damaged.

Artists are often the conscience of their communities. We submit to you, as artists conscious of the suffering caused in besieged Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to voice your unequivocal opposition and denunciation of the Israeli government’s policies toward Palestinians, from brutal occupation, to Apartheid-like policies against non-Jewish citizens; policies that have inflicted more than sixty years of suffering, dispossession, and discrimination on the Palestinian population and resulted in deaths and casualties among Israeli civilians as well.

It is our hope that we receive your prompt response that makes clear a position you take against the policies of your government, at which point you will be most welcome in our city. However, it is our intention to call upon our community to boycott and protest your presence, should you remain silent and complacent of your government’s policies, and continue to whitewash and provide cover for your government’s crimes by serving as cultural ambassadors.

As citizens of the United States, the members of our coalition denounce similarly devastating military actions perpetrated by our government, and we simply ask you to do the same.

In commitment to bringing lasting peace and decency to all peoples,
(Signed, multiple Pittsburgh groups)


PRESS RELEASE: Groups Launch Campaign To Boycott Israeli Dance Troupe Performing in Pittsburgh

Several Pittsburgh organizations have launched a campaign to boycott the February 5th performance of the leading Israeli dance company, Batsheva.

The organizations, including Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee, Students for Justice in Palestine, Code Pink, Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, Anti-War Coalition, among others, contacted the host, Benedum Center, and event sponsors asking they cancel the event and end their sponsorship.

The local coalition, which had earlier approached Batsheva with a letter demanding that the dance company denounce the policies of the Israeli government, has received no response and plans to protest and picket the event should it proceed as scheduled.

A movement of divestment and boycott (economic, academic, and cultural) against Israel modeled after the movement against apartheid South Africa has been building in the US and Europe for over eight years. In July 2005, dozens of Palestinian civil society organizations issued a call in support of a wider Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement (http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=66_0_1_10_M11), until Israel ends its racist and brutal policies of discrimination and military subjugation against the Palestinian people.

Calls for divestment and boycott have intensified in recent weeks in the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza, with prominent journalists and scholars publishing articles calling for BDS. In a letter published in the Daily Star on January 12th, more than 900 academics, mainly US-based, called for the apartheid remedy to be applied to Israel (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=98940). This call followed a similar one signed by more than 300 UK-based academics, artists, and cultural icons (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/16/gaza-israel-petitions).

Israel’s attack on Gaza, during which it shut out journalists from entering the strip, left more than 1300 people dead, a third of whom are children, nearly 5600 injured, and more than 20,000 homes destroyed or severely damaged. So far Israel has prevented relief and aid workers from entering Gaza, severely restricting the entry of food and medicine.

Batsheva’s artistic director, Ohad Naharin, is a veteran of the Israeli military, and several members of the dance company are members of the army reserve. Reserve units conducted this month’s invasion of the Gaza strip.

Batsheva Dance Company Tour

Below is the list of dates, hosts, and venues for the Batsheva Dance Company's upcoming North American tour. This list was accurate and complete as of December 2008. Go to the web site of their North American booking agent for updates and corrections: www.h-artmanagement.com/calendar.html.

January 28, 2009
Society for the Performing Arts
Jones Hall
Houston, TX

January 30-31, 2009
The Performing Arts Center
SUNY-Purchase
Purchase, NY

February 2, 2009
McCarter Theatre Center
Princeton, NJ, U.S.A

February 3, 2009
Dance Affiliates
Zellerbach Theatre
Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts
Philadelphia, PA

February 5, 2009
Pittsburgh Dance Council
Benedum Center
Pittsburgh, PA

February 7-8, 2009
Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University
Chicago, IL

February 10, 2009
Wexner Center for the Arts
Mershon Auditorium
Columbus, OH

February 12, 2009
National Arts Centre
Theatre
Ottawa, ON

February 14-15, 2009
University Musical Society
Power Center
Ann Arbor, MI

February 18, 2009
Univ. of Minnesota
Northrop Memorial Auditorium
Minneapolis, MN

February 21-22, 2009
DanceHouse
Vancouver Playhouse
Vancouver, BC

February 24, 2009
University of California, Santa Barbara
Arlington Theatre
Santa Barbara, CA

February 26, 2009
University of California, San Diego
Mandeville Auditorium
San Diego, CA

February 28, 2009 - March 1, 2009
University of California, Los Angeles
Royce Hall
Los Angeles, CA

March 4-7, 2009
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Howard Gilman Opera House
New York, NY

Send UMS an E-Letter--Boycott the Israeli Apartheid Dance Troupe

***PLEASE FORWARD***

No Dancing on Gaza's Graves--Boycott the Batsheva Dance Troupe

Please ask Executive Director Ken Fischer and members of the Board of Directors of the University Musical Society (UMS) of Ann Arbor, Michigan to honor the Palestinian people's boycott against Israel by canceling the Batsheva Dance Company performances scheduled for February14-15, 2009, and by endings all scheduling of Israeli performers until such time as the boycott against Israel is ended by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee.

The Batsheva Dance Company is funded by the Israeli government, it has no Arab performers, and is "proud to be considered Israel's leading ambassador." Ohad Naharin, the dance company's director, is an Israeli army veteran and current Israeli soldiers/reservists also belong to the company.

To send an e-letter to Ken Fischer and UMS Board members asking them to cancel the upcoming performance go to http://michiganpeacenetwork.org/eletters/.

Please plan to join us outside to nonviolently protest the performances unless the UMS cancels them. The protest is sponsored by the Middle East Task Force with support from Home for Peace and Justice; MidEast JustPeace; Newaygo County People for Peace; Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends; Ann Arbor Coalition Against War; Palestine Office; Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice; the Rev. Naim Ateek, Director of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem; and the Israel/Palestine Action Group of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

Click here to download a PDF file of the Ann Arbor Batsheva Dance Company protest leaflet.

No Dancing on Gaza's Graves--Boycott the Batsheva Dance Troupe

NO DANCING ON GAZA'S GRAVES

PROTEST THE ISRAELI APARTHEID
DANCE TROUPE COMING TO ANN ARBOR
7:30 PM Sharp, Saturday February 14, 2009
3:30 PM Sharp, Sunday, February 15, 2009
(performances start at 8 PM and 4 PM)
Power Center, 121 Fletcher (at Huron) UMich-Ann Arbor

(see map below or click here)

Sponsored by the Middle East Task Force with support from Home for Peace and Justice; MidEast JustPeace; Newaygo County People for Peace; Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends; Ann Arbor Coalition Against War; Palestine Office; Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice; the Rev. Naim Ateek, Director of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem; and the Israel/Palestine Action Group of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

Occupied Ramallah, Palestine - 27 December 2008: Now, more than ever, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, BNC, calls upon international civil society not just to protest and condemn in diverse forms Israel's massacre in Gaza, but also to join and intensify the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel … Without sustained,effective pressure by people of conscience the world over, Israel will continue with its gradual, rolling acts of genocide against the Palestinians, burying any prospects for a just peace under the blood and rubble of Gaza, Nablus and Jerusalem.

The University Musical Society is bringing the Batsheva Dance Company of Tel Aviv to Ann Arbor for two performances. This is a violation of the 2004 Palestinian call to "comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions" and the 2005 call of 171 Palestinian civil society organizations for broad boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The Batsheva Dance Company is funded by the Israeli government, it has no Arab performers, and is "proud to be considered Israel's leading ambassador." Ohad Naharin, the dance company's director, is an Israeli army veteran and current Israeli soldiers/reservists also belong to the company. We urge you to join us as we nonviolently oppose these performances as part of a sustained BDS campaign.

What you can do:
1. Call, write, or send an e-letter to Ken Fischer and the UMS Board asking them to cancel the show and honor the boycott against Israel (go to http://michiganpeacenetwork.org/eletters/).
2. Write letters to the editor of the Michigan Daily and Ann Arbor News.
3. Don't buy tickets to the Batsheva performance.
4. If you already have tickets then exchange them for another show.
5. Please join us in nonviolently protesting the Batsheva performances unless the UMS cancels them.

Click here to download a PDF file of the Ann Arbor Batsheva Dance Company protest leaflet.

RSVP (not required) on:

Click on the image below to enlarge it.

Batsheva Dance Company in the News

In an article out today, the Detroit News refers to the Batsheva Dance Company as one of "three edgy dance companies [to be] presented by the University Musical Society (UMS)" and says:

Next up at Power Center is Israel-based Batsheva Dance Company, Feb. 14-15, featuring a different program at each performance choreographed by artistic director Ohad Naharin. The Feb. 14 show offers "Three," a three-part dance to the music of Bach and two contemporary scores. The next afternoon features "DecaDance," with 10 excerpts from Naharin's body of work.

"He has a very distinctive movement vocabulary," [UMS programming director Michael] Kondziolka says. "It's not about anything but the movement. It's powerful work."

An article in Tuesday's The Dance Insider fills us in on just how "edgy" Israeli dance troupe's are:

On Sunday I asked regular Dance Insider contributor Omar Barghouti, a Jerusalem-based freelance choreographer, cultural analyst, and founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (www.PACBI.org), to reiterate the justification for including dance companies in this overall boycott.

"PACBI, including I, call for boycotting ALL Israeli dance companies due to their complicity," Barghouti explained. "None of them has ever taken a position calling for an end to the occupation, not to mention recognizing UN-sanctioned rights of the refugees or ending racial discrimination against the state's 'non-Jewish' citizens (the remaining indigenous population).

"A dancer here or there may say things here or there, but none of their groups has ever taken a position. This is complicity.

"Also, none of them has ever challenged reserve service in the occupation army, despite the fact that punishment for doing so is minimal in Israel (unlike Germany in the '30s, say). This is an even deeper level of complicity. Those same dancers are part-time occupation soldiers, manning roadblocks, protecting colonies, evacuating homes and demolishing them, killing children and letting pregnant women die at checkpoints by preventing ambulances [from passing through], letting young bleeding youth bleed to death without medical aid, etcetera. What a bunch of liberal dancers! And what do their institutions do? Nothing." [Indeed, in October 2006, as cited by Michelle J. Kinnucan in the web-based magazine Electronic Intifada, Naharin told Dance Magazine that two of the dancers in his junior company were Israeli soldiers.] (To read a related article by Barghouti in these pages, click here.)

In addition to PACBI, international organizations and individuals supporting a boycott include UN general assembly president Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (on Monday, Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza as well as the culture ministry -- exactly how are these centers of Hamas power?), renowned art critic John Berger, choreographer Ornelia D'Agostino, composer Brian Eno, dancer/choreographers Serene Huleileh and Zkynap Tanbay, dancer and musician Magdalene Joly, movement artist Rainer Knupp, dancer Maria Munoz Guillen, writers Eduardo Galeano and Arundati Roy, and filmmaker Elia Suleiman.