Dance and Movement Department at Orot Israel College Celebrates its Ten-Year Anniversary

הללוהו בתוף ומחול במנים ועוגב... תהלים קנ, ד

A decade – a space of time and place, a decade of performance, search and growth. The right time to celebrate this exciting event was Hannukah, a time of thanksgiving, renewal, clarification – light from darkness, Greek culture against Beit Hashmonai.
We all gathered in the auditorium - the academic faculty, graduates of the program, students and guests, for a moment of sharing the fruits and remembering the common path - a path that started with a group of young women, some of them from the world of dance and part of them from the world of Torah and education, who joined together in order to answer the yearn for dance in the world of Torah. Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, Rabbi Dr. Yehuda Felix, Dr. Moshe Kedem ז"ל, Rabbi Tuviah Katz and Mrs. Talia Perlstein, everyone in his field, held meetings, deliberated, and created the department of Dance and Movement at Orot Israel College.
The program began ten years ago with a handful of worried girls, not knowing what they should expect; teachers who had never before passed the green line; a meeting between worlds – religious and secular, modern and classic dance, a spiritual world, etc. Since then, the department has continuously developed and grown.
The day started with performances of the students, each year with its special performance showing the religious artistic development that the students are undergoing through their training in all the fields – expression, technical accuracy, refinement, awareness, control, creativity, spiritual maturity etc. The compositions included both classic and modern repertoires, carefully chosen and faithful to the spiritual world of the girls.
The composer, Prof. Andre Hajdu was invited to introduce his compositions that express musical reading in the Bible, and thus exposed us to his philosophy regarding the relationship between art and religion. During the day, there were several workshops on the subjects of movement, religion and art which enabled exchanges of views between the graduates, students and guests. The day closed with the performances of graduates from all the years. They produced 10 first fruit works, after a long time of intense personal work and artistic guidance. The performances emphasized the need of these young women to find a sincere way for personal expression. Producing these performance in itself is a breakthrough to the possibility of combining family responsibilities, livelihood and fulfillment of personal creation in dancing of religious women. The enthusiasm and commitment that characterized the creative process of the graduates toward the decade celebration, were an incentive for Orot's administration to create (will already start אי"ה next month) a continued framework for the graduates of the dance department, which will enable their artistic development in the field of creation and performance.