On January 11, 2019, Ballet BC will take the stage in Tel Aviv, ignoring the over 7600 voices that have called on it to not participate in whitewashing Israeli war crimes. As they step out under the lights for that inaugural performance, will they give any thought to this permanent blot on their record, to this use of their art to hide the arrest of Palestinian kids and to cover up the shooting of a female paramedic in Gaza? Will they care how Palestinians regard this use of their privileged position? Israeli media interpreted the CanaDanse acronym as signifying that Canada Can Dance, and we concur that this festival proves that yes, Canada can dance, it can dance with apartheid, with oppression and with the denial of a whole nation’s existence and rights.

According to the Jerusalem Post: “This month, the Suzanne Dellal Center will host the first ever CanaDanse festival. The event, initiated by center artistic director Yair Vardi and Canadian Ambassador to Israel Deborah A. Lyons, will host three leading voices in Canadian dance.” Lots of “firsts” going on here, as the efforts to paint the Israeli government and its brutal policies in a more “cultured” light are in full swing. Note that the Canadian government, represented by Deborah Lyons (Ms. #wowIsrael), is identified as one of the initiating forces guiding this project. The cities of Vancouver and Montreal were also drawn into being sponsors of the festival. These levels of government have already been criticized by many groups in Canada for their sponsorship, and by the Israeli group Boycott From Within.

This is a Festival of Shame! Nothing new here for the current and previous Canadian governments, given what happened just this week in Wet’suwet’en territory; nothing new here for the Israeli government, given its 70 years of forcible depopulation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. What is new is that the fightback is growing and will not stop until justice is won and colonial violence is a thing of the past! As Ballet BC travels across Canada and the U.S. in the next 6 months, we hope supporters of Palestinian rights will send them the message that their performances in Israel did not expand the boundaries of dance, but rather contributed to the impunity of the Israeli government in continuing its war crimes against the Palestinians.