Moshe Efrati (; 26 – 1934 September 2020) was an Israeli choreographer and the founder and artistic director of the Kol Demama Dance Company, based in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

. His works have been performed in venues around the world.Dance with a Difference, Simon Griver, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1-1-1999

Dance career

Efrati was one of the first members of the

Batsheva Dance Company The Batsheva Dance Company (Hebrew: להקת בת שבע) is a renowned dance company based in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was founded by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild in 1964. Its inception was inspired by Israel's growing inter ...

. In 1975, he left Batsheva and established Kol Demama (The Sound of Silence) integrating ten dancers with

hearing impairment Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to Hearing, hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to Lang ...

together with ten dancers with normal hearing. Efrati cued the hearing impaired dancers by pounding a board on the floor or having a dancer stomp on the floor, creating a vibration that could be picked up by the dancers feet, similar to theories of an elephant hearing via vibrations perceived through its feet. Nijinsky is said to have used this method to cue his dancers for

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of ...

’s

The Rite of Spring ''The Rite of Spring'' () is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky ...

, as the rhythms were too complex for Nijinsky’s dancers to follow. The dancers also get their cues from the vibration of bass notes in the music, eye contact, touch, movement of others, and lighting cues, all woven into the choreography. Kol Demama has a Tel Aviv school for dancers, teaching several hundred young dancers each year. Efrati intended Kol Demama to be judged on artistic grounds, "''I am neither a social worker nor therapist, I am a dance creator.''" Efrati blended strictly formal and classical ballet choreographic vocabulary with free-form contemporary dance. He drew inspiration from diverse influences ranging from

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of real ...

's ''

The Metamorphosis ''The Metamorphosis'' (), also translated as ''The Transformation'', is a novella by Franz Kafka published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, ''The Metamorphosis'' tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes to find himself inex ...

'' and

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

to the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

and the Jewish Poets of Muslim Spain. His dance was set to music ranging from traditional early Spanish rhythms to contemporary electronic music.Moshe Efrati: Current Creations
Efrati worked with the former

president of Israel The president of the State of Israel (, or ) is the head of state of Israel. The president is mostly, though not entirely, ceremonial; actual executive power is vested in the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet led by the Prime Minister of Israel, pr ...

Yitzhak Navon Yitzhak Rachamim Navon (; 9 April 1921 – 6 November 2015) was an Israeli politician, diplomat, playwright, and author. He served as the president of Israel between 1978 and 1983 as a member of the centre-left Alignment party. He was the f ...

, setting his words to dance with music, for Israel’s 1982 celebration of the 25th anniversary of the retaking of Jerusalem.

Awards

In 1996, Efrati was awarded the

Israel Prize The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...

, for stage arts - dance.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Efrati, Moshe 1934 births 2020 deaths Israel Prize in dancing recipients Israeli choreographers Israeli male dancers Israeli dancers

Dance career

Awards

See also

References