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Last week brought the tale of the drunk who attacked some members of a Russian ballet in a hotel lobby for, you know, talkin’ Russian and bein’ faggy and stuff.

Now a bunch of pro-Palestinians are protesting the arrival of Tel Aviv’s Batsheva Dance Company, founded by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva De Rothschild and led by superstar choreographer Ohad Naharin. (Batsheva comes to the Paramount every couple of years or so.)

Bruce Nestor, head of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, is leading the charge:

“It has nothing to do with the content, but we’re asking people to boycott because of the funding they receive and because of the policies of the state of Israel,” Nestor said. His letter specifically mentioned the recent Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip.

So besides being one of the world’s best choreographers, is Naharin some kind of baby-eating, pro-war freak?

Not according to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel:

To what degree, then, has Ohad Naharin — Israel’s most internationally visible dance artist and thus arguably the least vulnerable to destructive backlash — done this? I’ve been monitoring Naharin’s statements for more than two years now, both here on the Dance Insider and in other publications, and while he’s been willing to criticize his country, he doesn’t volunteer it; you have to ask. …when pressed, he’s used a term as strong as ‘war crimes’ but without any specificity.

This is asinine and counterproductive.

First, he’s a choreographer so—sorry choreographers—who cares what he thinks?

Second, he’s a choreographer who criticizes Israel and condemns its “war crimes,” just not loudly and frequently enough in the pages of Dance Insider magazine.

Third, he receives funding to make art from a government that uses other funding to do bad things. And that’s unlike American artists—those who are lucky enough to get funding—exactly how?

What the fuck, head of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild?

Ohad Naharin is your foie gras.

Photo of Batsheva ripped off from some blog that probably ripped it off from some other blog.

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

7 replies on “Minneapolis Hates Dancers”

  1. Your citations demonstrate that he is not pro-war, but you have done nothing to demonstrate that he does not eat babies.

    Besides one needs no reason to protest dance other than the obvious reason that it’s dance.

  3. Pretty soon this is going to turn into a “dance sucks” comments section. But before it does, I just wanted to get in my vote that Naharin’s choreography is funny, smart, and WATCHABLE! it’s sad to boycott actual. good. dance. based on where it comes from. enough crap has come from the usa in the last 8 years that this boycott seems just stupid. and anti-Semitic? Maybe?

  4. I *heart* Batsheva Dance Company. I’ve been waiting impatiently for them to return to Seattle since their awesome performance at the Paramount a few years back. So sad they won’t be coming here — I’ve been debating whether or not to go up to Vancouver to see them next weekend.

  6. People should suck it! Really suck it! Why? Because people really suck! Artists are the exception. That includes dancers. The rest can suck it! SUCK IT!!!!

  7. Oh how the baby is thrown out with the bath water. One would think a lawyer of all people would see that a dance choreographer is not the problem.

    BTW I was at the book signing held by Pres Carter. What an anti-climactic event. You can’t get within 10 feet of him and he scribbles something in the book. Dull and aloof at the same time.

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