October 3: Sara Levi-Tanai and Inbal

Sara Levi-Tanai, who founded the Inbal Dance Theater in Israel in 1949 and choreographed more than 70 dances for the company, died at the age of 95 on this date in 2005. Born in Jerusalem in a Yemenite family, she began Inbal exclusively with Yemenite dancers, but ultimately included in her choreography Jewish folkloric materials from the range of Israel’s subcultures, including the Yemenite, Moroccan, Kurdish, Persian, Hasidic, and Arab. While some critics considered Inbal (the “tongue of the bell”) to be carrying the baggage of “oriental folklore,” the company became internationally identified with Israel’s culture, and thrived for decades. Levi-Tanai also composed the music for several of her best-known pieces. “Her uniqueness expressed itself,” writes Gila Toledano at the Jewish Women’s Archive, “not just through [her] new language of movement, but also by its style — dance-theater, which was very new. . . . Artists in various media—music, scenery and costume — who were neither Yemenite nor Mizrahi, but of Ashkenazi origin, worked for the company and were profoundly influenced by her concepts and compositions.” To see some excerpts from a performance at the Joyce Theater in New York, click here. “Inbal caused a sensation on its early tours in Europe and in the United States largely because the Yemenite rituals and folk customs Ms. Levi-Tanai theatricalized so vibrantly were a revelation to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences in the West. So strong was this impact that the American choreographers Jerome Robbins and Anna Sokolow went to Israel several times in the early 1950s to help Ms. Levi-Tanai professionalize the company further.”—Anna Kisselgoff, New York Times Watch Amalia Maya perform a “Tribal Fusion Bellydance” for the Inbal Dance Theater: