Israel Ballet

The Israel Ballet’s repertoire includes classical, neoclassical, and contemporary works, bringing together Yampolsky’s choreography and ballets by George Balanchine and other international choreographers.[1][5] Yampolsky served as artistic director and choreographer, while Markman served as general manager; they also opened a ballet school linked to the performing company.[2]

The company’s neoclassical approach combines classical technique with modern ideas and demanding performance standards.[5] Its programming has included full-length narrative ballets, abstract choreography, family productions, and collaborations extending beyond conventional classical-ballet performance.[1][6] In 2004, the troupe comprised 35 dancers, most of whom were Israeli-born, alongside immigrants from the former Soviet Union and dancers from Western countries.[1]

Berta Yampolsky, born in Paris in 1934, began studying dance at age fourteen with Valentina Arkhipova-Grossmann; Hillel Markman later studied with Grossmann as well.[2] Grossmann opened a ballet studio in Haifa in 1936, shortly after Mia Arbatova opened one in Tel Aviv in 1934.[4] Yampolsky also studied with Arbatova. After marrying in 1957, the founders continued their training in London, with Markman at Ballet Rambert School and Yampolsky at the Royal Academy of Dance and later Sadler’s Wells Ballet School.[2]

Before returning to Israel, Yampolsky and Markman performed as soloists with companies in Belgium, Switzerland, France, and the United States, including the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.[2] They returned in 1964 and became principal dancers in the Israeli Opera’s ballet company, established by Edis de Philippe.[2] They left about a year later to pursue their goal of establishing a high-level ballet company.[2]

Sources differ on the company’s formal founding date. Several biographical and performance records place its establishment and debut in 1967, including a January 25, 1967 performance at Rina Hall in Holon by Yampolsky, Markman, and four young dancers.[2][7] Other accounts give 1968; in a 2008 interview, Yampolsky herself dated the founding to January 27, 1968.[4][5]

After limited municipal support in Holon, the ensemble moved to Tel Aviv in 1970, adopted the name Classical Ballet, and opened a school linked to the company.[2] The troupe later adopted the name Israel Ballet; accounts connect the change to its early touring period, and the name was in use by 1975.[2][5]

The company began without financial backing or investors.[5] Recalling the early years in 2006, Yampolsky said that people had discouraged the couple from establishing themselves in Israel, but that “we made it our place.”[8] She also recalled that “Nobody helped us in the beginning,” emphasizing the founders’ reliance on their own efforts.[8]

Yampolsky’s work for the troupe developed across dramatic, abstract, and contemporary ballet in a neoclassical style.[1] She created dozens of ballets for the company.[2][8] The founders’ leadership ended amid a 2012–2013 transition; by March 2013, Yampolsky was contesting the board’s effort to remove her and appoint a successor.[2][9]

A permanent base became an important part of the company’s development when it moved into a newly constructed building in Tel Aviv’s Basel district in summer 2004.[8] In 2006, 30 dancers were rehearsing there, and Yampolsky said the company would not have survived without the permanent home.[8] The Israel Ballet Center on Har Nevo Street also became a repository for the company’s archival materials from 2004 onward.[3]

In 2008, Yampolsky described the Israel Ballet as a registered nonprofit receiving Ministry of Culture support, rather than a national company.[5] Amid budget cuts, she and Markman personally guaranteed dancers’ wages, explaining that they could not leave the performers unpaid when funding was insufficient.[5]

After Yampolsky’s departure, the company came under Tadmor’s artistic leadership, and by 2014 it was presenting new collaborative work.[6] A subsequent leadership change brought Mate Moray to the artistic directorship in 2015.[10] Moray had spent three years as a soloist with the Gyor Ballet before joining the Israel Ballet, where he performed for a decade; after leaving the company, he taught students around Israel.[10] Following his appointment, he set out to improve the performing repertoire and invest in the school, envisioning an institution that combined professional classical ballet with training for a new generation of ballerinas and soloists.[10]

Yampolsky’s works for the Israel Ballet included The House of Bernarda Alba (1978), Carmen (1980), The Nutcracker (1985), a full-length Romeo and Juliet (1989), Gurre Lieder (1996), and Medea (1999).[1] Her original choreography also included Written in the Sand, while other documented productions included Dancing to Songs and Concerto 622.[3][2] The company’s international repertoire encompassed works by Roberto Lazzini, Heinz Spoerli, Roberto Trinchero, and John Cranko, including Cranko’s Onegin.[1] Balanchine works performed by the company included Four Temperaments and Serenade.[3]

The company’s 45th-anniversary program in 2012 included Yampolsky’s Co-Venti, set to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, together with excerpts from her earlier works and Itzik Galili’s contemporary piece Hikarizatto.[11] By that anniversary, Yampolsky had choreographed most of the company’s repertoire.[11] Another 2012 production, Sleeping Beauty, was a new adaptation by Yampolsky set to Tchaikovsky’s music, presented as a full-stage family production with a prologue, three acts, and 36 dancers.[12]

In 2014, the company collaborated with Mayumana on Game On, bringing together 30 dancer-performers.[6] Classical dancers worked alongside performers using athletic movement, percussion, singing, and unconventional instruments.[6] The creative process included improvisation, which artistic director Tadmor described as unusual in classical-ballet work.[6]

The 2015 season opened with a new production of Raymonda, a ballet originally created by Marius Petipa in Saint Petersburg in 1898 to music by Alexander Glazunov.[10] The season also included Cinderella, the children’s production Bilbi, based on Pippi Longstocking, and The Nutcracker.[10] Plans included a new Cinderella by Croatian choreographer Ronald Savkovic and, for 2016, a new work based on Swan Lake by Greek choreographer Andonis Foniadakis.[10]

In May 2026, a new Carmen was announced as a world premiere, with original choreography by Konstantin Uralsky to Georges Bizet’s music and a musical adaptation by Gil Shohat.[13] The production credits included set design by Roi Vaturi, costumes by Margarita Alexandrov, and lighting by Uri Morag; its announced running time was one hour and 40 minutes, including an intermission.[13]

The school’s connection with the professional troupe was demonstrated in the company’s 2014 Nutcracker, which involved 30 dancers and 15 girls aged eight to twelve.[14] Nina Gershman, then the company’s rehearsal director and the school’s professional director, emphasized student participation as a means of continuing classical-ballet training in Israel.[14] That production retained most of the original story while adapting aspects of the choreography to the number and abilities of the available dancers.[14]

Educational outreach has also included performances for students, teenagers, and Israel Defense Forces soldiers, accompanied by explanations.[7] This activity complemented the company’s school-based training and professional performances.[3][7]

The Israel Ballet developed during the expansion of Israel’s dance institutions in the 1960s and 1970s and remained among the country’s major companies in 2026.[4] A 2012 assessment placed it among Israel’s three largest dance companies.[11] In 2014, it was described as the only classical company then operating in Israel.[6] In 2008, following Bat-Dor’s closure, it was also identified as Israel’s sole neoclassical troupe and a continuing standard-bearer for classical ballet.[5]

The company performed at festivals across Europe, the United States, and South America.[7] Yampolsky recalled substantial international success during the 1980s, including performances of works that were fully modern in style.[5] She also described an audience encompassing younger and older people and linked increased demand for classical culture to immigration from the former Soviet Union during the 1990s, which also brought skilled professionals to Israel.[5]

Recognition of the founders’ artistic work included Yampolsky’s 1977 prize for best foreign choreographer in Santiago, Chile, for Dvořák Variations, and the Minister of Education and Culture Lifework in Dance Award in 1998.[1] The company received the Minister of Culture’s dance-company performance award in 2000, recognizing its dancers’ artistic level and quality.[7]

In 2023, dancer Isaac Akiba described his American-Israeli Ballet Association’s goal as helping place Israeli ballet on the international map.[15] His aspirations for the Israel Ballet included international touring, recognition among the world’s leading ballet companies, and opportunities for audiences to connect with Israel through ballet.[15]

The founders’ joint archive preserves films, local and international press clippings, programs, documents, and photographs of productions.[3] Yampolsky, Markman, and the company collected and preserved these materials, first at the former Tel Aviv offices and later at the Israel Ballet Center.[3] After the leadership transition, some materials moved to the founders’ home while others remained at the center.[3]

The archive was sorted, cataloged, and digitized in 2019–2020, then deposited in 2022 with the Israeli Dance Library and Archive at Beit Ariela Public Library in Tel Aviv.[3] Its holdings document the founders’ careers, the company’s productions, and its associated institutional activity through thousands of digital files and nine archival boxes.[3] Markman died in Tel Aviv in 2022.[2]

A leadership dispute in 2013 led Yampolsky to seek a temporary court order preventing the board from removing her and proceeding with the appointment of a new artistic director.[9] The Tel Aviv Labor Court granted an injunction that postponed the board meeting and froze the appointment process pending proceedings.[9] At the time, the troupe had accumulated deficits of millions of shekels, and Markman had left the general-director position about a year earlier under a recovery plan linked to continued public funding.[9]

Association members alleged that Yampolsky had been told abruptly to leave and that the selection process lacked a public call and clear criteria.[9] Board chair Dan Ronen maintained that the company had been near closure, that a change of artistic director was necessary, and that Yampolsky had been consulted.[9] The organization said its repertoire committee had considered about ten proposals and was not required to conduct a tender.[9]