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Rina Nikova and the Yemenite Group: Between East and West, North and South
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2013
Abstract
Rina Nikova, a Jewish dancer, ballet master, and choreographer, was born in Russia around 1898 and died in Israel in 1974. Nikova established her Yemenite Singing Ballet in 1932. She trained her dancers—young Jewish emigrates from Yemen—with classical ballet technique augmented with various local and migrating influences. She gathered firsthand information on folk dances, music, and costumes by visiting Arab towns and villages and communities of Oriental Jews. Nikova combined those influences into an original creation that was to become a cornerstone of nation-building in Israel.
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References
Notes
1. The paper is based on my Ph.D. dissertation, written at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I was Nikova's pupil in the end of her long career.
2. The documents, written in Hebrew and in nearly every European language, were found mostly in Nikova's personal archive, located at the Jerusalem Historical Archive. I wish to thank the staff of the archive and the late Mr. Radu Klapper of the Tel Aviv Dance Library for their kind help.
3. Eugenia Eduardova and her husband Joseph D. Lewitan, dance critic and founder of Der Tanz, were also émigrés from Russia. The political situation in Europe in the 1930s and during the Second World War resulted in their moving from Germany to France, then to Casablanca, and finally to the United States.
4. Until the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, under the British mandate Palestine was the regions political name in English and Arabic, while the official Hebrew name was “Palestine (E[retz] I[srael]).”
5. Nikova's Diary, 1959–1963, Jerusalem Historical Archive 449/13,Translated from Russian to Hebrew by Irena Vernik and to English by Sari Elron.
6. Program from November 1926 for a performance in Jerusalem, Jerusalem Historical archive 445/3.
7. Dr. Wolfgang von Weisl, “They Dance in Tel Aviv, Correspondent Describes Impression of Palestine Ballet—A Protestant Minister's Reaction to Modern Palestine's Art,” taken from an unknown newspaper, 1927, Jerusalem Historical Archive, 445/3.
8. Ibid.
9. Blumenfeld, Leon, “Dance Pioneering in the Palestine,” Dance Magazine (March 1929): 57–59.Google Scholar
10. Nikova's ensemble was called many names, for example, Palestine Singing Ballet, Nikova's Yemenite Ensemble, Rina Nikova's Palestine Singing Ballet, Biblical and Oriental Ballet from Palestine, and Biblical and Oriental Ballet by Rina Nikova.
11. Yemen is located at the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Local Yemenite Jewish traditions have traced the earliest settlement of Jews in this region back to the time of King Solomon (ca. 1000 BC).
12. Jerusalem Historical Archive 446/1.
13. Psalm 137 reads “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.”
14. From programs found at the Jerusalem Historical Archive, 449/1.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Jerusalem Historical Archive, 446/3.