Arkadi Zaides, a choreographer, born in Byelorussia in 1979, immigrated to Israel in 1990, currently lives and creates in Tel Aviv. Zaides holds a degree from Amsterdam Master Of Choreography program at the Theater School (NL). He danced in Bat Sheva Dance Company and in Yasmeen Godder Dance Group among others till he began his independent career in 2004.
Zaides has created works, which were presented on main stages in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. In the last 5 years Zaides’ work is focused primarily on the political and social situation in Israel/Palestine. He is one of the only Israeli choreographers who holds an artistic critical practice and debate, which puts in the frontline the local reality, and its resonance in the body of peoples who live it.
His ongoing research is intertwined with the shifting personal and political reality in his society. He has been observing physical perspectives of the moving body from positions of contextual immersion and distance.Embedded in Zaides’s work is a belief that the role of art is to challenge and inspire viewers, while simultaneously it has a larger universal role to reach out and bring together different communities and different sectors of society. Arkadi is increasingly working in diverse communities, as well as devotedly developing different platforms to encourage contemporary discourse and performance making in Israel.
For his work Zaides received numerous awards, among them: The Emile Zola Chair Award for Arts Dealing with Human Rights (2013), Landau Award from the Israel National Lottery Foundation (2012), Israel’s Ministry of Culture and Sport Prize for young artist in the field of dance (2011, 2009 and 2008), Rosenblum Award awarded annually by the city of Tel Aviv(2010) and the Kurt Jooss award for his choreography ‘Solo Colores’ (2010).