Dance analysis as a ‘social seismograph’ is an appropriate metaphor to convey the central core of this research. Adhering to the argument that 'art works are able to carry multiple and historical meanings as well as contemporary ones' (Adshead, 1998:165), this study investigates the specificity of Israeli society and its contemporary theatre dance and contributes to the claim that dance is an activity of potent cultural significance. Within this specific cultural context, the research process addresses more general questions such as what can be learned from dance about society; the ways in which dances articulate the concerns of their social and historical moment and how dance analysis can record, inform or construct perceptions of the socio-cultural environment, political events and artistic periods within which dance works are created, performed and received.
An analytical model is devised comprising an intertextual approach to two selected cases studies, both choreographed by Rami Be’er: Aide Memoire (1994) and Screensaver (2002). The analyses ascribe to these works some of the key social-psychological-historical and political concerns in contemporary Israeli society. Aide Memoire re-presents the second generation’s struggle with the Holocaust and their own role in Israel today. The analysis of Screensaver suggests a society living in a hostile area caused by successive wars and terror attacks. This work addresses the multi-faceted concept of ‘borders’ in the sense of personal, community and national boundaries. The existential anxiety on which Israeli society has fed since the establishment of the State, the devotion to military might, emerged from the analysis of both works.
The research process is underpinned by an interweaving matrix of relationships between the choreographer Be’er, the components and the totality of the works themselves, the researcher (myself) and Israeli culture.
The thesis fills two important gaps: it benefits Israeli scholarship with a social and political analysis of dance which, to date, has been sparsely addressed. It also places Israeli contemporary dance within international dance literature.