Boston Research Journals

Concert and Ethnic Dance in Israel: A Century of Divergence and Convergence

Dr. Ruth Eshel

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Abstract

This article treats the Land of Israel as a cultural laboratory where ethnic, folk, and concert dance have cyclically diverged and converged. Tracing a century - from Ottoman rule and the Mandate through statehood and globalization - it follows early pioneers (Agadati, Nikova), Ausdruckstanz artists and holiday pageants, the post-1948 melting-pot government policy, and Sara Levi-Tanai's Inbal Dance Theater singular expansion of Yemenite sources. After an era of detachment (1960s–80s), rapprochement since the 1990s reflects pluralism and third-generation curiosity. Parallel Arab developments (dabkeh infrastructures, joint projects) and the Ethiopian-Israeli trajectory Eskesta Dance Troupe to Beta show how embodied micro-techniques can seed contemporary vocabularies. Recent exemplars, Orly Portal and Stav Struz-Boutrous, expand languages from within while interrogating gender, power, and identity. The article argues that Israeli dance models a plural modernity, where archives, pedagogy, and equitable collaboration sustain living traditions as engines for contemporary creation

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Eshel, R. (2025-11-05). Concert and Ethnic Dance in Israel: A Century of Divergence and Convergence. Boston Research Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 5(9), 21-46.

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References

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Copyright

© 2025 Eshel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Dr. Ruth Eshel

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