RDT Brings Back The Middle-Eastern Folk Dance Blended With Contemporary Dance In Zvi Gotheiner's DABKE

After rave reviews last season, Repertory Dance Theatre, a revolutionary institution of modern dance, will bring back the powerful evening-length work by Zvi Gotheiner, DABKE, March 16-18, 2018 in the intimate Leona Wagner Black Box Theatre at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.

Recognized by The New York Times as one of Alastair Macaulay's TOP TEN DANCE FAVORITES OF 2013, Zvi Gotheiner's DABKE is based on a Middle-Eastern dance often performed at weddings, holidays and community celebrations. Strongly referencing solidarity, the dancers, linked by hands or shoulders stomp the ground with complex rhythms, emphasizing their connection to the land.

With DABKE, Gotheiner blends Middle Eastern folk dance and Arab pop music with contemporary dance vocabulary to highlight tribal and national identities...as well as to dissolve those definitions.

A frequent collaborator with RDT, Zvi Gotheiner is an Israeli-born choreographer who has been working in New York since the late 90s. Gotheiner has worked with RDT since 1993 when he and composer Scott Killian were commissioned to create "Erosion," inspired by the red-rock, canyonlands area. Since then, RDT has performed seven of Gotheiner's works including six commissions, most recently, Dancing the Bears Ears which premiered in October of 2017.

RDT first performed excerpts of DABKE in 2015 and then performed the full 48-minute work in April of 2017. This March, the Company will perform the work in its entirety in a more intimate setting -- the 200 seat, Black Box Theatre at the Rose Wagner. After the performance in April, comments from the audience included "It was moving and beautiful," and "Fantastic movement and music that transcends generations."

Reflecting on the recent "Arab Spring" movement with unstoppable forces for change, DABKE is about conflict in the Middle East, conflict in the world, and the hope for peace. As Alastair Macaulay stated, "'Dabke' ...is thrilling in how it continually realizes the changing human impulse that prompts people to dance."