Inheriting on an Embodied Level: Deconstructing Zionism through Dance with Hadar Ahuvia
Join Hadar Cohen in conversation with Hadar Ahuvia: dancer, choreographer and ritual facilitator. Hadar Ahuvia shares of her journey to dance as a politicized art form that helped her deconstruct the Zionism living in her body. She explains how Israeli folk dancing was intentionally choreographed from various ethnic dances and how this modern cultural creation was intertwined with the militaristic settling of Palestine pre-1948. As a dancer who is now in Rabbinical school, Hadar Ahuvia lets us into her process of building a spiritual relationship to Judaism without Zionism at the center and how she’s built connection to her ancestors through Eastern European Jewish practice and music.
Hadar Ahuvia is a performer, choreographer, ritual facilitator, music leader, and educator who foregrounds the body in political, social and spiritual practice. She works with movement and voice and to suture across generations and create spaces for transformation. Her essay “Joy Vey” on choreographing a diasporist identity beyond Zionism is featured in the Oxford Handbook of Jewishness and Dance. Her years long research and deconstruction of Zionist folk dance have culminated in a cycle of performances tracing how Jewish Israeli identity is choreographed and transmitted, earned her a Bessie nomination for Outstanding Breakout Choreographer, a Dance Magazine “25 to Watch” in 2019, and is the subject of a documentary by Tatyana Tenenbaum, Everything You Have Is Yours. Ahuvia has performed and shared her research across the US/Turtle Island and internationally. She is a rabbinical student, organizes with Rabbis for Ceasefire, leads kabbalat Shabbat 3rd Fridays at Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn, and is working on a new cycle of performances that embody the distinctive sonic gestures of easterners European/ Ashkenazi davening.
To learn more about Hadar Ahuvia's work, visit:
https://www.instagram.com/primaahuvian
https://www.dctvny.org/s/firehousecinema/series-and-events/icymi-2025/everything-you-have-is-yours
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This podcast is facilitated by Hadar Cohen.
Hadar Cohen is an Arab Jewish scholar, mystic and artist. She teaches spirituality and Jewish mysticism at Malchut, a spiritual skill building school teaching direct experience of God. Hadar is a Jewish mystic who builds decolonial frameworks to worship God. Hadar is an artist weaving the spiritual with the political through the artistic mediums of performance, movement, writing, weaving, sound, and ritual.
To learn more about Hadar, visit hadarcohen.me //@hadarcohen32
To study at her mystical school, check out malchut.one.
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Hadar's Web is a podcast featuring community conversations on spirituality, healing, justice, and art. Available on Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast and more. Check it out at malchut.one.
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