Nissan Nativ
Photo: Tomeriko
Rina Yerushalmi
Photo: Gadi Dagon
Choreographer and acting school founder named Israel Prize honorees
Rina Yerushalmi of the Itim Theatre Ensemble and acting 'trailblazer' Nissan Nativ to be awarded Israel's top cultural honor
This year’s recipients of the Israel Prize for theater have been named as director-choreographer Rina Yerushalmi and acting school founder and director Nissan Nativ, Education Minister Yuli Tamir announced Thursday.
Yerushalmi, 69, founded the Itim Theatre Ensemble in 1989 in affiliation with the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv. The ensemble's productions, under Yerushalmi's direction, were performed at prestigious international festivals and are renowned for their distinctiveness.
The theater group's most recent production, 'Mythos' (2003), opened the Lincoln Center Festival in New York and was also performed for audiences at festivals in Dublin and Zurich.
The Israel Prize committee said Yerushalmi was selected for her "groundbreaking work in the study of theatric materials and their presentation. The Itim ensemble is currently one of the few aesthetic phenomena in Israel or abroad that can be considered important."
Nativ, 86, who opened the Acting Studio in a small basement on Reines Street in Tel Aviv in 1963. Many of the studio's graduates have won Israeli Academy Awards for outstanding acting in theater, cinema and television.
"Nativ has been a part of Israeli theater as an actor, director, teacher and trailblazer for over 65 years, and his contribution was key in nurturing generations of first-class actors and directors who are talented, curious innovative and original," the Israel Prize committee said.
