“Adama”

Adama is a cultural center, built in a fashion that

allows each one that walks through its gates to take

off his shoes, dance, take part and grow.

In the ‘Spice Route Quarter’ of Mitzpe-Ramon, a

massive industrial hanger was alternated into a large

culture hall. Primarily it’s a dance and movement

center and the home base of the Liat Dror and Nir Ben

Gal dance company.

However, the concept that initiated it is much wider.

It is a dance school that operates like no other school.

It has a full studying program (three days a week), yet

beyond the dance studies, the students receive artistic

and general tools that would allow them to face the

world ready and whole both as dancers and people.

The school also enables the local residents, as well

as neighboring communities and passing tourists to

enjoy a variety of lessons and activities, from yoga and

relaxation lessons to free style dance parties.

The center imports and exports a diversity of cultural

activities in and out of Mitzpe-Ramon; dance courses

students from high schools around the country come

here for two days workshops, teachers and artists

from the center of Israel come to teach and perform

within the school, and the dance company performs

throughout Israel, being an ambassador of the center,

Mitzpe-Ramon and the Negev.

The artistic spring of the center is dance and

movement; however, other arts such as music and

video art, film, theatre and art performance are

represented. Therefore a multi artwork process as

well as the interrelations between the arts, becomes a

fascinating part of the studies in the center.

In order to enrich the students, the residents of the

area and guests from the center of Israel, the center

produces art festivals during the three Regalim (three

jewish high holydays) in which we always intertwine

dance shows performed by the company and students,

along with guest artists.

To facilitate these activities that may require a long

stay, the hangar is prepared for accommodation in the

same spirit and guides of the cultural activity.

The kitchen is vegetarian and partially organic, based

on the finest production of our home.

Sleeping is possible in a camping yard facing the

desert, or in small sleeping spaces. Whoever wants

to retreat in to the silence of the desert can be

accommodated also when there are no cultural

activities.

Besides the engagement in culture and art, the center

is involved in the preservation and developing of our

natural environment. Environmental Principles such

as recycling, preservation of resources and energy,

and cultivation of organic vegetable garden and

chicken-coup, are integrated in the activities of the

center and learned here. The lovely garden, slowly

becoming an oasis, proclaims so.

This is apparently the fundamental nature of the

interrelations between the two systems.

Between each two systems that we choose, between

each two worlds, the two coexist in our body.

The one initiates the self, the other works better

when it is passive. We can examine the function of our

heart and digestive system versus the function of our

limbs, the former know their job and do it on their own

accord, the latter welcomes us to initiate and perform.

The union of the two creates a home within us, the

more they coexist with understanding and acceptance,

the more stable and free our home will be.

Sometimes when we follow only one inclination, we

lose our ability to connect, accept and heal. We loose

our freedom.

When there is no anger in us we are free; when anger

appears we are captured.

The ability to release anger builds our physical power,

builds our strength. When anger exists there is a

dependency in another person or in a thing.

When anger disappears correlation begins. That

means that the two systems, the two worlds have

independent movements and cycles.

Dance and observation lead and guide us into the

two worlds. Through them we learn our strength, its

streaming, its source and its ability to formulate.

One brings the interior outside, the other, the exterior

inside. Dance demonstrates us our strength through

action, observation does it through silence. Both

systems guide us to acknowledge the periodicity of

movement; they lead us to accept both stability and

freedom. In order to create an electric circle there

must be a plus and a minus, likewise in the cycles of

our lives. We are all different beings, we have different

cycles, but the structures are the same.

The plus and minus, the good and bad will teach us

about the streaming force, that electric force that

engages and acts. Similarly we will learn to shut it

down, to turn off the light. We will allow our body to

know the elasticity that lies in the transition between

the two worlds, in knowing them and their signs.

When there is a change, when we must follow a

teaching, then it’s a learning that heals, a healing that

teaches. It is an expression followed by rest and rest

that is wholly an expression. The time is now and we

work in the present.

We will go through the past and look at the future, but

we will know that the source of our strength is always

here and now, in modesty, simplicity and routine. Each

time we pass a different gate, but all gates lead us

to the same house, the same kingdom, a kingdom of

knowing our selves and all we are.

 ליאת דרור ניר בן גל הלהקה

Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal are a duo of dancers\choreographers.

Their first work together, “Two Rooms Apartment”

won in 1987 the Israeli “Shades of Dance” prize and

later on other important international prizes, such as

the French “Bianola” and the German dance festival

in Keln, and was followed by the works “Donkeys“ and

“The Third Dance” that were successful in Israel and abroad.

In 1991 the two established a dance company and

went on creating with the dancers an innovative and

unique movement language. The company worked in

Tel-Aviv and produced several shows that gained much

attention, mostly in Europe and the United States (“In

The Passion Undertow”, “Sit-Down Get Up My Love”, “Inta Omri”, “Investigation” and others).

Their artistic path, the search for new meanings in

dance and movement along with the dialog between

the studio and “Real life”, had brought them to make

the “Dance of Nothing”. A production created in the

Loire valley in France that was shown around the

world and received great reviews. That show became

the closure of a chapter in their work.

Thus in the year 2000, realizing that dance, as a way of

life, cannot coexist with the reality surrounding them,

the couple moved with the company to Mitzpe-Ramon

in the heart of the desert, believing that this change

would create the union of dance and therapy.

“We wanted to live a life without separation, so dance

would be a part of our daily life and not a detached

art that demands a competitive and hectic life. We

wanted to return to dance from a place of dedication,

discipline and love”.

In Mitzpe-Ramon the company produced new works

which form the next step in their creative path:

“Earth”, “Don’t Ask Questions And I Won’t Tell

Lies”, “The Rite of Spring”, “Like Heals With Alike”

“Earth is Shaking”. These works mark a new way of

transforming body movement and attentiveness into a

healing process.

The work “Hold Me Now” co-produced with musicians

from the bands “Seven” and “The Prophecy Fools”

connects to the desert, to silence, a place where the

company works and dances. “Prince of Dreams” a

dance with twelve dancers and bamboo poles, was

invited to be shown at the Israel festival 2007 in

Jerusalem in 2007.

ליאת דרור נירבן גל הלהקה

Liat Dror Nir Ben Gal The Company

972-8-6595190

The association was founded in 1996 | Association 580200830

The company is being supported by the Office of Science Culture and Sports\ Culture Administration\ Dance

Department

Tel 972-8-6595190

Fax 972-3-5696191