The Cultural Affairs Department at the Embassy of Israel seeks to increase awareness of Israeli culture in The Netherlands. Our goal is to organize and promote cultural events featuring Israeli artists or artwork. Below you will find more information about Israeli art from different sectors.
Architecture
UNECSO world heritage site
In 2003, UNESCO designated the ‘White City architecture’ of Tel Aviv as World Heritage Site. As of 2011 this list consists of 936 sites worldwide. For more information click here.
Bauhaus
During the 1930s, when the Modernist movement in Europe was blooming, Tel Aviv was undergoing rapid development. Most of the architects in the city at that time had a European background and brought the ideas of the Modernist movement with them. They were influenced by Le Corbussier, Walter Grufius and their contemporaries. The Bauhaus school of Art and Design built many buildings in the center of Tel Aviv. For more information and architectonic pictures, please click here.
Literature
Israel is a source of inspiration to the country's writers and poets. A developing nation built on an ancient heritage, it exists in the midst of complex social relationships. Every era, each social change, creates a dynamic of constant restlessness providing a wealth of material for creative writing. Many of our foremost authors and poets visit other countries, including the United States and the Netherlands, to appear on literary panels and to address and teach various audiences. Under the auspices of the Institute for the Translaiction, novels, [G2] poetry, drama and children's books have been published in some seventy languages.
Literature Links
Israelian poets on the website of Poetry international Rotterdam:
Cinema
Film-making in Israel has undergone major developments since its inception in the 1950s. While the first features produced and directed by Israelis, such as ‘Hill 24 does not answer’ and ‘They were ten’, like literature, tended to be cast in the heroic mold of that period, some recent films are deeply rooted in the Israeli experience, such as the experience of Holocaust survivors and their children (Gila Almagor's ‘The Summer of Aviya’ and its sequel ‘Under the domim tree’) and the travails of new immigrants (‘Sh'hur’, directed by Hannah Azoulai and Shmuel Hasfari, ‘Coffee with lemon’, directed by Leonid Gorivets). Others reflect a more predominant trend towards present Israeli reality, whether dealing with the Israel-Arab confrontation (Uri Barbash's ‘Beyond the walls’) or set in the context of a universalist, somewhat alienated and hedonistic society (’A siren's song’,’’Life according to Agfa’ and ‘Tel Aviv stories’).
Cinema exports are growing, as more Israeli-made films become successful abroad and more dollar-earning foreign and co-productions are filmed on location in the country. The Israel Film Center, a division of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, promotes filmmaking in Israel by both local and foreign producers and provides services from arranging professional contacts to offering financial incentives.
Israeli Film Links
Film Festivals:
Theatre
Theatre in Israel is composed of a wide spectrum of elements - contemporary and classical, indigenous and imported, experimental and traditional - with playwrights, actors, directors and producers of many backgrounds merging the foreign with the local and creating a distinctive Israeli theatre. While a majority of the professional companies perform in Hebrew, there are productions performed in many other languages, including English, Russian, Arabic, and Amharic.
Theatre Links:
Dance
Today, Israel is considered to be one of the foremost countries in the area of contemporary dance. After the establishment of the state of Israel, art dance was developed to a high professional level by a number of ensembles, each founded on the basis of a distinct orientation and style. In the 1950s and 60s, Martha Graham, Jerome Robbins, and Anna Sokolov were involved in the formation of various dance traditions in Israel. Among the major professional dance companies from Israel that perform regularly in North America are: The Batsheva Dance Company, The Bat-Dor Dance Company, The Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, The Inbal Dance Theater (whose repertoire is largely based on movement material suggested by the dance, music, and poetry traditions of Yemenite and other Eastern Jewish communities), Kol-Dmama (a unique company comprised of deaf and hearing dancers), and The Israel Ballet (which is the only professional classical ballet company in Israel). Israel's modern dance scene is further enhanced by a number of smaller groups, dependent on the potential of a single artist. Many of these groups are scheduled to perform in North America, including Tnuatron and Ido ýTadmor and his Ensemble. Folk Dance Israeli Folk Dance emerged as an amalgam of Jewish and non-Jewish folk dance forms from many parts of the world. While in other countries folk dance is fostered to preserve old rural traditions, in Israel it is a constantly developing art form which has evolved since the 1940s. Folk dance troupes appear at most local and national celebrations and perform, as well, at international festivals.
Israel Dance Links