Stav Ziv

3 weeks ago | dancemagazine.com | Stav Ziv

In the first episode of Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino’s series “Étoile,” a ballet company director from Paris says to another in New York City: “I propose a swap!”They devise a plan—which becomes the premise for the whole show—to rescue both organizations from their post-COVID fragility: They’ll trade artists for a year, a publicity stunt and an artistic experiment rolled into one. If that all sounds a little dramatic and made-for-TV, well, it is.

1 month ago | forward.com | Stav Ziv

In the New Jersey suburb of Tenafly, just a few miles outside of New York City, you're just as likely to hear Hebrew as English while walking down the street. It's common for families to move to Tenafly from Israel and back again. And it's not unusual for a Tenafly High School student to decide to hold off on college and enlist in the IDF instead, as Edan Alexander did after he graduated in 2022.

2 months ago | forward.com | Stav Ziv

Everything changed for Billy Barry the day that choreographer Ohad Naharin walked into the studio. Before that moment, the second-year Juilliard student imagined himself becoming a contemporary ballet dancer, probably in New York. Afterwards, all paths led to Batsheva, the acclaimed company in Israel that Naharin helmed and Barry had, up until then, known little about. As he put it: "Bat-what-va?"Barry didn't want to be in Naharin's piece for Juilliard's spring 2009 repertory show.

Mar 14, 2025 | forward.com | Stav Ziv

Watching Batsheva Dance Company perform Ohad Naharin's MOMO is like seeing two worlds animated in the same space, one transposed over the other to create a singular work of art as beautiful as it is bizarre. In one world, four men dressed only in gray cargo pants appear in a tight clump in an upstage corner while the house lights are still on. They embark on a slow walk across the back of the stage before the audience even realizes the show has begun.

Mar 12, 2025 | dancespirit.com | Stav Ziv

The first time Jessica Tong auditioned for Hubbard Street’s second company, she made it to the end of the call but didn’t get the job. The next time she auditioned, six months later, she also didn’t get the job, but she did get a note from then-artistic director Julie Nakagawa telling her to keep in touch. Tong eventually joined Hubbard Street 2, moved to the main company, and became rehearsal director and associate artistic director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.