Amos Ben-Tal

Amos Ben-Tal was born in Israel in 1979. He started dancing at the age of 13 in various schools in Israel and completed his dance training in 1997 at The National Ballet School in Toronto, Canada.

Amos then came to Holland where he danced in Nederlands Dans Theater, performing with the company for nine years between 1997and 2006. It is also at NDT where he developed his passion for choreography. The success of his piece Discontinyou, made for the annual NDT Choreographic Workshop, led to a commission to create a work for NDT1. 'Track', a work for eight dancers and text was premiered In 2005 and received rave reviews.

In 2006 Amos left NDT to dedicate himself full time to his own work. He then created and performed the duet 'Tangent' with Kenzo Kusuda, which was presented during the Cadance Festival in The Hague. In early 2007 he premiered a work named Ziggurat; a trio for dancer, actress and musician, commissioned by Korzo Productions for the program Here We Live And Now. In Ziggurat Amos once again combined the use of text, this time adding the element of live music as a main component of the work.

Amos has been involved in music from a young age and has combined this into his work; writing, recording and at times performing the music for all of his pieces. Other than choreographing, Amos fronts the alternative rock band Noblesse, where he sings and plays guitar. For Cadance 2008 Amos created We Are Not Humanity, a crossover work involving his band playing live with dancers. This full-evening production has subsequently been performed in major music venues like Melkweg and Paradiso in Amsterdam. Amos has also created music for other choreographers such as Vaclav Kunes, Lesley Telford, Anna Reti and Jerome Meyer.

Most recently Amos created a short self-danced solo for Korzo productions, The Van Manen Effect, and began collaboration with Ana Reti and Claudio Stellato under the name Palinka Collective. The first result of this collaboration was the duet Fregoli Syndrome, which premiered in September 2009 at Trafo Theater in Budapest.

At the moment Amos is working on a series of shorter, stripped-down investigative works aimed at sharpening his understanding and skills as a dance-maker.

The first step in this process was a research-residency at Archauz Choreographic Center in Aarhus, Denmark, that resulted in the study-duet ‘7 in 11’. The second step, a trio named The New Work premiered at Cadance Festival 2011.

Music for own choreographies:
2005 – “Discontinyou” Nederlands Dans Theater choreography workshop
2005- “Track” Nederlands Dans Theater 1
2006- “Celine And Amos” Winner 3rd prize choreography, Solo Tanz-Theater Festival, Stuttgart
2006- “Three Portraits” Nederlands Dans Theater choreography workshop
2007- “Chatterbox” Kunsthumaniora dance school, Antwerp
2007- “Ziggurat” – Korzo Productions
2008- “We Are Not Humanity” Korzo Productions

Music made or contributed for other choreographers:
2004- “Compass For Fools” by Jerome Meyer / Korzo Productions
2006- “Here But Gone” by Lesley Telford / Nederlands Dans Theater 1
2007- “The Other Voice” by Lesley Telford / Banff Festival Of The Arts, Canada
2007- “If” by Lesley Telford / Nederlands Dans Theater choreography workshop
2009- “Fregoli Syndrome” by Anna Reti / Workshop Foundation Budapest

Music written and recorded for own band, Noblesse:
2005- “Four Song Demo” EP
2006- “Sound The Alarm” LP
2009- “We Are Not A Demo” EP
2010- “We Are Not Humanity” LP (still in production)

Contact Information: E-mail: amosbental@gmail.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/amosbental

photo by Milena Twiehaus