2012

​

Tights: Dance & Thought started its activity in 2012 with a series of evenings dedicated to watching and discussing dance performances. These evenings brought together different artists, journalists, academics, and the general audience. The first year of activity included six exciting and fascinating meetings in which we discussed issues that were, and still are, at the heart of Israeli discourse on art and dance. Among these issues were: the image of dance, ideological spaces in the dance scene, dance and biography, exhausted dance as a political act, the invisible body in dance, the exclusion of young art from Israeli stages, and more. Among Tights’ participants during that year were artists, academics, and journalists like: David Marques, Mia Haviv, Lilach Livne, Gilad Ben Ari, Dr. Rona Cohen, Prof. Ruth Ronen, Savyon Fishlovitch, Moshe Shechter Avshalom, Elad Smorzik, Arkadi Zaides, Sharon Zuckerman Weiser, Irad Mazliah, Ran Brown, Lior Avizoor, Ido Feder, and Shir Hacham.

 

​

2013

​

In 2013 Tights significantly expanded its activity. During that year Feder and Hacham, together with Prof. Ruth Ronen from Tel-Aviv University’s Philosophy department, organized a first of its kind conference dedicated to the philosophy of dance. In it, choreographers and academics discovered something of the truth pertaining to dance, and tried to explore dance’s conceptual horizon while discussing this artistic medium that is often ignored by the field of aesthetics. Among other subjects, the conference discussed: the internal and external in dance performances, the dancing image, the physical experience, the problem of movement, composition, the body as an aesthetic site, and more. Among its participants were: Prof. Ruth Ronen, Prof. Eli Friedlander, the choreographers Yasmeen Godder and Anat Shamgar, Dr. Rona Cohen, Dr. Einav Katan, Shir Hacham, Ido Feder, and Danny Neyman.

 

2013 also saw the production of a lecture-performance titled “Dance, the state’s best embassador?”, by invitation of the curator of the Jerusalem culture season Omer Krieger. In it Talia de Vries, Tami Lebovitch, and David Marques performed Ido Feder’s choreography. The lecture was dedicated to the history of Hebrew-Israeli dance, being the epitome of a avantgarde-utopian collaboration between a national liberation movement and art. The talk took as its starting point the understanding that the Zionist project was a corporal one and so went through five moments in the history of local dance, combining performance, theory, and a discussion.

 

In September of that year Feder and Hacham presented their paper “The Dancing Body Legitimizes the State”, dealing with the political aspects of Ohad Naharin’s work, at the Musée de la danse led by Boris Charmatz, in the exhibition “Dance and War”. The paper was the product of an invitation by the curator, the Serbian theoretician, Bojana Cvejić, and was later published in the performing arts journal Walking Theory, dedicated to social choreography, and edited by Cvejić and Ana Vujanović.

 

2013 saw also six independent Tights evenings, in which, among others, participated: Anat Eisenberg, Nava Frenkel, Niv Sheinfeld, and Iris Lana. One these meeting was entirely dedicated to the work of Yasmeen Godder and discussed the political aspects of her work.

​

2014

 

In 2014 Tights performed anew the performative lecture “Dance, the state’s best embassador?” this time in Intimadance festival titled “generations” with Talia de Vries, Anat Vaadia, and Moshe Shechter Avshalom.   

 

2016

​

In 2016 Tights further expanded it activity and initiated several in collaboration with the Inbal dance company, in order to shed light on this unique company and its contribution to Israeli dance and arts, that was long ignored. Furthermore, Tights organized a summer program for the 21st century dancer where different choreographers shared their practices, among them: Maya Levy, Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor, and Ariel Cohen; and started working on a residency program.    

​

2017

 

Tights’ residency programs first class started in 2017 with funding from Mifaal HaPais and included five choreographers: Shira Eviatar, Hillel Kogan, Avigail Sfez, Elad Bardes, and May Zarhy. The residency program included an event revolving the works of its residents, workshops for the general audience, and special workshops for primary school children exposing them to the pleasures and advantages of dance.

​

2018

 

In 2018 Tights is expanding all of its activities. This year’s residency program will include seven female artists: Annabelle Dvir, Hagar Tenenbaum, Merav Dagan, Iris Erez, Sharon Zuckerman Weiser, Tami Leibovits, and Yuli Kovbasnian. We will conduct an annual conference dealing with issues brought up by Prof. Erin Manning in the SenseLab at Concordia University, and will have a special program for dancers in the framework of La Collectiz!, seeking to give them physical and intellectual tool that will empower their art.    

​

2019

 

Tight's 2019 residency program included the following artists: Asaf Aharonson, Bar Altaras, Danny Neyman, Lilly Pfalzer (In collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum Tel Aviv), Uri Shafir, Eran Shanny, Kim Teitelbaum and Hagar Tenenbaum.Its Second Annual Conference was held at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, dealing with the worldwide rising trend of dance returning to the white cube, and examining the relationship between the museum and live art disciplines and its contemporary renaissance. In addition, this year's La Collectiz! #2 were exposed to a huge variety of artists and their practices (Vinvent Riebeek, Michele Rizzo, Andrew Tay and others), going through different workshops, and performing at different venues. Tight's also collaborated with 'The Thing' In Jaffa Museum ATAR curated by Lilach Pnina Livne and Tal Michael Haring as part of The Non-Image Club.