Middle East cultural exchange yields 'dance diplomacy'
Alumna Frances Sedayao practices a movement from "Skin," a dance piece that Assistant Professor Nina Haft's dance troupe will perform in June at the San Francisco International Arts Festival.
- December 1, 2010
Think of it as dance diplomacy. Assistant Professor Nina Haft is directing development of a new dance piece based on a cultural exchange she led to dance festivals and a cultural center in Jordan, the West Bank and Jerusalem earlier in the year.
Following the 2010 Middle East research trip – the second she’s made to the region since 2007 – her dance troupe, including two alumni, is choreographing “Skin,” a work expected to debut at a June dance festival in San Francisco. Haft organized the Middle East Choreography Exchange, or MECEX, trips to better understand the role of dance and multiculturalism in the Middle East.
“My goal for MECEX is to create a dialogue of dance artists between the Bay Area and the Middle East, to explore our experiences of migration, interfaith dialogue, artistic expression and physical culture,” said Haft, a member of the Department of Theatre and Dance.
Dance can be a catalyst for social and economic justice, she said, but during her first study tour to the region she was struck by the lack of interaction and interest in one another’s work displayed by Palestinian and Israeli choreographers she met. The cultural divide she witnessed is unusual among dancers, added Haft, founder of the dance group Nina Haft & Company.
“I was really struck by how easy it was for me, as an American choreographer, to go back and forth across the wall,” Haft said.
Her Middle East dance colleagues, on the other hand, cannot slide easily between lands on either side of the border. In “Skin,” Nina Haft & Company explores concepts related to boundaries and borders separating people.
“You can decide to let someone in, if you wish,” she observed. “The way we experience borders has a lot to do with trust or lack of it.”
“Skin” includes close, complicated duets in which one partner lifts another. Some scenes feature structures where people try to get through a border, invite someone in or reflect that at times individuals give up the cross-border attempt.
“The piece can be described as a journey of a family or a whole group of people,” Haft said.
The cultural exchange with Middle Eastern artists inspired Edmer Lazaro '02 to think about the social implications of art in new ways.
“The perspective I gained as a dancer during my trip to the Middle East made me realize how people or groups of people use dance to communicate history,” he said.
He also learned that in many parts of the world, artists confront government resistance, as was the case for an Algerian company whose members he met at the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival. Algerian government officials, he said, tried to prevent the audience from attending a performance about illegal immigration of North Africans to Europe. Officials also threatened arrests and tried to cut power to the performance space.
“Hearing this (made me aware of) how much more I appreciate dance in the Bay Area and how dance art in the Bay Area offers artists the voice to communicate political philosophies without interference from government,” Lazaro said.
Additionally, the Americans attended the Amman Contemporary Dance Festival in Jordan. Haft’s research also included interviews with 14 choreographers about their work.
Notable to the American artists during their Middle East sojourn was the stylistic rift between Israeli and Palestinian dance, a natural result of their lack of interaction.
During a visit to a cultural center at the Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, Haft and her dance group witnessed a performance by young Palestinian dancers whose families had lived in the camp for generations. Their technique and the underlying narrative of the work reflected a traditional style also common in countries such as Lebanon and Syria. Themes revolved around the group experience as opposed to a common Western approach focusing on an individual’s need for self-expression, Haft explained.
“There’s a lot of footwork,” Haft said. “It’s very rhythmic. The movement the girls do emphasizes flowing arm patterns and complex footwork. For the young men, they tend to do more percussive movement, more stomping, vigorous jumping.”
During a workshop taught by Haft and her dancers at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, the Israeli artists’ movements and choreography clearly reflected European not Middle Eastern dance as their primary influence, Haft observed.
“The style of dance was contemporary, stylized and not political at all,” she said. “There was nothing distinctively `Israeli’ about it ... It has a balletic framework to it and is very Western.”
She said initial planning for the next research trip to the Middle East in 2012-2013 is underway. Haft also credited a Faculty Support Grant for helping with expenses on the cultural exchanges, which she hopes will evolve into a future trip by some of the Middle East dancers to the Bay Area.
“We’re already looking at connecting the Cal State East Bay dancers here with the dancers in Amman online and doing blogs and (seeing) each other’s work,” she said.
Talking and working with Middle Eastern choreographers –– who live in a region where great emphasis is placed on bringing up the next generation of leaders –– heightened Haft’s awareness of the need to mentor young artists. “They’ve got hope and stock placed in young people,” she said about her Middle Eastern counterparts.
It’s an appreciation she’s brought home to her work as an artist and an educator.
“I’m still processing (the research trip), and I’m learning all the time about how it changed me,” Haft said. “It helps me understand how being a choreographer and being an educator go hand in glove.”
In her CSUEB classrooms, for instance, Haft said she has more actively encouraged her students to see themselves as artists who are the authorities on their own experiences and how experiences of the individual may reflect more global, even political themes. Haft also has begun discussing more of her personal experiences with the young artists with whom she works.
“That has encouraged my students to make their own connections about their own experiences in life,” Haft said. “I’m modeling for them that it’s OK to be analytical about a personal experience.”
Nina Haft & Company is scheduled to perform “Skin” in June at the San Francisco International Arts Festival as part of a program called “Middle East Moving.” Explore .