Noa Dar & Dance Group
 

    Noa Dar Dance Group

The group was founded in Tel Aviv in 1993, By Noa Dar and 8 dancers, partners to the creation process and for the development of a unique movement and visual language. 
Since established, the Noa Dar Dance Group has created and performed 22 dance pieces. (15 are full evening programs).
 
The works were commissioned by the most prominent Israeli festivals: “Israel Festival”, “Curtain Up”, “Acco Festival”, and “Children’s’ Sound”. These works received excellent responses from public and critics alike. 
 
The company is performing intensively through out the year in Israel and abroad at International festivals including: Rome, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Lisbon, Vienna, Berlin, Rovereto, Budapest, Poznan, Tallinn, Vilnius, Shanghai, Santiago, San Jos'e and den Haag.
 
The Noa Dar Dance Group is the recipient of the 2002 Minister of Culture’s prize for outstanding performance. The work “Tetris” received an award of excellence from the 2006 "Acco Festival for Alternative Theater".
 
The company is giving regular classes at The Noa Dar Studio, workshops and lecture demonstration for dance students and the public.
 
The group is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sports (the dance division), the Israeli Lottery council for the arts, The Rabinovich Foundation and The cultural relations department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
 
 

    Noa Dar

Choreographer and artistic director of The Noa Dar Dance Group, was born in a kibbutz at the north of Israel, where she started her dance training. At 18, she was invited to join the Batsheva Ensemble.
 
Following a grant she received from Merce Cunningham, she moved to New York and danced with the companies of choreographers: Zvi Gotheiner, Jeanette Stoner and Neta Pulvelmacher.
 
Noa was a founding member of The Tamar dance Group, where she started to choreograph. 
In addition to her creations for her group, Noa has created several works for the “Batsheva Ensemble”, “Mooza dance Co”, “Be’er Sheva Theater”, and for “Transitions” dance Co. of the Laban Center in London.
 
During the years 1990-1992 Noa performed and created in Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin, supported by grants from the “America-Israel Cultural Foundation” and the French government. 
 
In 1996, Noa was awarded the Minister of Culture Prize foran outstanding young choreographer. In 1997 Noa was a recipient of a creation grant from The Bi-Arts, supported by the British Council.
 

    Latest works by Noa Dar

 
"Arnica” (2007) - Dancers: Michal Mualem, Shira Rinot, Noa Dar. Guest Artist: Uri Frost on electric guitar. Music by Tom Waits, Handel, Courinderu, Purcell. Duration: 55 Min.
 
Arnica collects and presents 17 short solos (1-4 min.) created during the last decade. 
 
"Arnica by Noa Dar becomes a fascinating touching dance evening, which succeeds to make these series of solo excerpts into a full, complex, multi-layers creation that deeply touches the routes of dance and at the essence of the dancers' art” ( Zvi Goren, “Habama”)
 
 “Tetris” (2006) -  Collaboration with visual artist Nati Shamia Ofer. Original music created by Composer Uri Frost, 7 dancers. Commissioned by the Acco Festival for Alternative Theater. Duration: 80 min.
 
Tetris is touching upon the tensions between movement and fixation, proximity and distance, between the estrangement of alienation and an involving, mutual experience.
  
 “Tetris is a spectacular creation, releasing from the body excitement and shock, causing turbulent and mind stimulated interactions between dancers and spectators.” ("City mouse" online)
 
“Water Music” (2006) - Performed with live orchestra, music by Frederick Handel, 6 dancers. Commissioned by The Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra.
 Duration: 30 min.
 
 “Clouds and Soup” (2005) -  Original music by Avi Belleli, 8 dancers
 Commissioned by 2005 “Curtain Up” festival at the Suzanne Dellal Center. Duration: 65 min.
 
“Clouds and Soup” deals with the world in which we would have wished to live in which stretches out at the gap between the desire to fulfill our dream – and reality. The fantasy developed up to the point where reality pulls us back.
 
"Noa Dar's new work is sharp, spectacular and joyful" (Ido Dagan, Zman Tel Aviv)
 
“The Sweetest Embrace” (2004)  –. Dancers: Shira Rinot, Oded Graf.
 Music: Braien Adamson. Duration: 20 Min.
 
Created as part of a duets evening for the Noa Dar Dance Group: "20, 30, 40”, with works by three Israeli woman choreographers who investigating an encounter between a man and a woman from her age’s point of view.
 
"It is an original and impressive duet. Noa Dar created a real master piece that revealed a crystallized choreographic vision" (Zvi Goren, "Habama")
 
"In a black, black land” (2003) - performed by six dancers and an actress, commissioned by the Israel festival.  Duration: 65 Min. Original Music: Uri Frost.
 
These work deals with despair and nightmares of a society that lives in an ominous reality – a reality that brings forth the dreams of fear and horror from the unconscious
.
“This is the best Israeli dancing I’ve seen this year, and one of the best post-modern works I’ve ever seen” (Gal Alster,”Time out – Tel Aviv”).
The fantasy developed up to the point where reality pulls us back.
 
 
 
Works for children:
Both works were commissioned by “Childhood sounds” festival.
 
 "Children's Games" (2002) Based on Pieter Brueghel’s painting. 7 performers. 55 Min.
 
"The dream is a great painter” (2004) based on poetry for children by Israeli poet Lea Goldberg. The work is performed in Arabic as well. 4 performers. 50 Min.
 
"Noa Dar dance Group respects the young and teaches them with fun and lightness, what is a real culture." (Micahl Sharon, "Yedioth Aharonot")
 
 

 

 
Noa Dar, Photographer: Eldad Refaeli
Noa Dar, Photographer: Eldad Refaeli