Performing Arts in Jerusalem

• Sparse publicity for schedules of concerts, plays, and lectures adds spice to those we find (see also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/unexpected-february-entertainment.html ). Israel Festival events at the Jerusalem Theater weren’t on the Theater’s Website, but their box office did sell tickets to the energizing concert of Naor Carmi and The Tizmoret (see http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=21032 ).
• We arrived an hour early for the 21:45 concert to find large booths set up in the plaza outside the theater entrance. One sold bright, fantastic-flower lamps. Others displayed hand-made jewelry, art from Zimbabwe, Indian clothes . In the center of the space an open-sided pavilion provided a venue for a flaminco dancer, acrobat, shadow dancers, and a stilt walker ,who also ambled out among the spectators. The crowd was as sparse as the publicity.
• All this was free.
• Inside the Rebecca Crown Auditorium a fusion of klezmer, Gypsy, Balkan, and Arab music roused us out of comfortably roomy seats.
• Afterwards we came out to find another band playing loud dance music for appreciative dancers. The fair was still going outside. Customers for the Jerusalem Theater’s cinemas and from the auditoriums that had other events that night, filled the lobby and spilled outside.
• The day's heat had radiated out through the clear sky. We walked home at midnight. Outside each full cafe on Derekh Aza (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/two-horses.html ), a security guard sat waiting to look into bags and ask, "Yesh Neshek?"

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox