“A man who moves mountains, began by carrying small stones” / Confucius

Minister of Education Yoav Kish:

“Hello Shlomo, I am very happy to meet you, and I have good news for you. I admit that I did not know your background, but today I know that you are the one who led the entire field of folk dance in the State of Israel, both as a professional dancer and as a choreographer and artistic director.

Sometimes there are people who do things and they are not seen…I want to tell you that you won the Israel Prize in the field of theater, dance and opera.”

Shlomo: (excited by the conversation) “Wow!”

Minister of Education (continues):

“Folk dance is indeed a niche that not everyone knows, but I now understand how much you are a pillar of this work, and I wanted to say thank you very much and that we will meet on Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) when you will receive the award.”

Shlomo (in a trembling voice):

“I’m so excited…you wouldn’t believe how much! First of all, I think this is the most important thing that has happened to the field of folk dance in Israel, the fact that you are giving it recognition. People have done so much all these years, investing in the field and giving their souls.

I’m so excited, and I thank you on behalf of all the dancers in Israel, the dance leaders and everyone who has contributed to Israeli dance.”

Minister of Education:

“So you actually represent them with all your work over the many years, and this is truly a field that, on the one hand, is a very essential and strong part of the life of the person who participates in it, and I’m glad that there is an opportunity to give the appreciation to you and to the field of Israeli folk dance, which holds a very significant place in our culture.”

Shlomo:

“Thank you so very much! I thank you from the bottom of my heart and from the depths of my soul!”

——————

Shlomo Maman was born in 1953 to parents of Moroccan and Tunisian origin, and grew up in a small neighborhood in Tiberias, the eldest of nine brothers and sisters.

Shlomo:

Friday evening arrived at the Maman household. “Shabbat Shalom,” they would greet each other as they came to sit at the Sabbath table. Shlomo’s father, of blessed memory, would stand at the head of the long table and recite the blessing:

“On the sixth day, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their host: and on the seventh day God finished His work which He had made. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made… Blessed are You, O Lord, the sanctifier of the Sabbath”, and everyone would respond: “Amen!”

Shlomo:

My father would hold a full glass of wine in one hand, and sometimes between sentences, the drops of wine would drip from the glass and fall onto the white, shiny Sabbath tablecloth, through the fingers of my father’s long, praying hands. With his other hand, my father would adjust the white satin kippah on his head, so that it wouldn’t fall off.

My father knew a lot of prayers by heart. In my estimation, he knew so much about every conceivable subject, but he was exceptionally wise in the Torah. He knew how to recite entire verses and interpret them, and from that interpretation, my father would impart to us the moral lessons that would serve us in all areas of our lives. His life wisdom was tremendous, and I loved listening to his words.

Every Friday evening, between courses of the meal, my father would challenge us with riddles from the Torah, asking us questions, asking us for interpretations. I loved it very much. And there was always a kind of competition between us brothers, who would be the first to know the answer to his complex and witty riddles.

After the blessing of the One who brings forth bread from the earth, my father would break the challah and throw pieces of it to each of us, and my mother would immediately go to the kitchen and bring the tiny salad bowls to the table. The Moroccan salads that my mother made were a delicacy for every mouth. After placing all the salads along the long table, she went to bring out the fish. The fish in Tiberias are not like the fish in Tel Aviv, Hadera or Ashdod. The fish in Tiberias have a commitment.

One Shabbat morning, I returned from the synagogue with my father and all my brothers. We would always return together, as one unified unit. I was a 13-year-old boy. We arrived home and, as was our custom, we sat down to eat a rich Shabbat meal, the whole family together. My mother worked every week on the Shabbat delicacies while we prayed in the synagogue.

“Shlomo! Hapoel Tiberias is playing at the stadium in a little while, do you want us to go to the game together?” my father asked.

“Now?” I asked in surprise. “Yes”, he replied “we will walk there”. And so it was.

We were a traditional family and did not drive on Shabbat. That Shabbat, my father and I walked down towards the lower city and continued uphill towards the stadium. We went in to watch the game. When the game ended, at the end of Shabbat, on our way home, we entered the “Histadrut Hapoalim” building. There, in front of our eyes, we saw a very small stage, specially designed for performances for residents who were registered as members of the Histadrut in the city. My father worked at Kibbutz Gesher, and therefore he was also one of those members.

On this stage, a pair of dancers, a man and a woman, performed a dance the likes of which I had never seen before. At first, the soloist of the group stood alone on the stage, moving all parts of his body at once. He was slim, flexible, and determined in his sinuous movements. It seemed that his arms and legs were stretched much further than their natural position, right to the limit of his ability. He turned his body, but his gaze remained focused straight ahead. I was sure that he was staring at me, and he continued engaging in his performance.

He moved in a circular motion, like a slippery snake, twisting and crawling slowly until it reaches its prey. I felt in my body how this dance touched me. I shivered all over, but at this point I still didn’t understand anything. I only knew that these were moments I had never experienced before. Wonderful moments of discovery. And this dancer, who must have dedicated his life to such endless stages, continued to enchant me with his circular movements on that ordinary Shabbat after the football game…

The music in the space played Yemenite tones, and in the air the Hebrew letters Ḥet and Ayin flew in perfect harmony. There were also musicians who drummed their palms on large, hollow tins and produced metallic sounds from a distant and innocent land.

So it was on that Shabbat that I knew what my soul desired. I discovered that I, too, wanted to dance.

Thus began my life’s journey, this great journey that I continue to travel. I hold a stick in one hand and a large, full sack on my other shoulder. I pick up the very same sack every morning and set off. Inside I have my family, which is the most important thing to me; inside I also have all the people I have brought into my heart over the years, people I love and trust to be by my side even on my most challenging days, and I have this small, shining spark, thanks to which I exist. This is the spark of dance. The gift I received from above. My soul speaks from this spark, bringing out all the movements in me, my ideas, and all those dreams that I still want to fulfill.

Every morning it is just me, my stick and my sack.

When I reached the ninth grade, my parents enrolled me in a high school yeshiva called: “Pirchei Aharon”, an Ashkenazi high school yeshiva, which was located in Kiryat Shmuel in Haifa. It was a high-level religious boarding school.

I studied at that religious yeshiva for only one year, and a defining event happened to me as part of my studies – an event that, in retrospect, played such an important role in my life. One day, a Torah scroll was brought into the yeshiva. It was no small matter. The excitement surrounding the event was immense. Dozens of tiny hands of yeshiva students held the bottom of the large, round Torah scroll. It had a cover made of real silver, and it was entirely wrapped in a blue velvet covering like the color of the sea. The cover featured artistic silver decorations in ancient biblical script. Inside the shiny blue velvet cover, a parchment scroll was placed, on which a scribe wrote the chapters of the Torah.

The introduction of a Torah scroll was an important event. The music was loud, and the drums were beating in our hearts in a steady rhythm. I started dancing with everyone around the scroll – dancing in a circle, with everyone performing the same movements.

Suddenly, while we were dancing, the head of the yeshiva, a decent Haredi rabbi, turned to me, looked at me and said: “Dance, Jew, dance!”

I was surprised by his words and did not understand why he was addressing me like that, because I was already in the motion of dancing…

I replied: “But Honored Rabbi, I am dancing…” But my words did not satisfy him, and he continued: “No, no, dance Hora! It’s the Hora that you have to dance!”

I have not forgotten the sentence the head of the yeshiva told me, and it came back to me later. In those moments with him, I felt he was a messenger for me. His few words influenced me, and later endowed my life with tremendous meaning.

When I was 16 and arrived in Tiberias, a folk dance session opened in the neighborhood where I grew up under the guidance of Shlomo Marzan z”l, and I joined. That’s where I first met Shlomo, an instructor and choreographer. At that time, I danced every day at a different dance session.

When I turned 18, I enlisted in the paratroopers. It was the time of the Yom Kippur War, and the situation in Israel was not good. As a paratrooper, I participated in the operation in Lebanon and fought in Metula and the Golan Heights. Upon completing my military service, I founded my first dance group, “Lehakat Kinneret – the Kinneret Troupe.” I used a grant I received from the army. It was a group with a lot of innocence. We danced in the public shelter in my neighborhood in Shikun Aleph in Tiberias. That’s how I actually began my journey as a choreographer for dance troupes (lehakot).

When I finished my military service and went on my release leave, I met Shlomo Marzan at the central bus station in Tel Aviv; he was the same dance instructor and choreographer I had danced with at the age of 16. Shlomo Marzan was happy to see me there at the station and asked:

“Maman, what are you doing these days?”

“I was just released from military service. What are you doing these days?” I asked him back.

“I just got back from a workshop with Lehakat Inbal (the Inbal Dance Company),” he continued.

I heard what he said and really liked the idea. I immediately told him that I was also interested, and he gave me all the information about the place. A few days later I went there.

Inbal held its rehearsals on Yefet Street in Jaffa. I remember arriving at an old Jaffa building next to the big clock. I entered the building, went up the stairs to the second floor and waited at the entrance to the studio. I arrived earlier than everyone else, because I came from Tiberias and didn’t want to be late.

Suddenly a young woman dressed as a dancer arrived, waited with me outside the studio and said to me: “Hello…”

“Hello” I answered her politely. “Did you come to learn?” she continued. “No! I didn’t come to learn. I know everything. I dance every evening at dance sessions in Tiberias and the surrounding area,” I replied with great arrogance. She looked at me in amazement and said, “There’s always something to learn, don’t you know that?”

I later realized that this was the instructor, Ilana Cohen, who later became the artistic director of the Inbal Company.

So, at the age of 22, I was accepted into Lehakat Inbal, under the artistic direction of Sara Levi-Tanai, z”l. With Lehakat Inbal, I went on a six-month tour throughout South America and learned so many things with them that I only thought I knew before…

After the period during which I danced with Inbal, I joined Lehakat Karmon – the Karmon Dance Company – with its different and unique style, and we performed many performances at the “Olympia” Hall in Paris.

Yonatan Karmon and I bonded pretty quickly. I loved Karmon’s dance style and the dances he created. When Yonatan founded the Karmiel Festival, he approached me because I had a lot of dance troupes in Israel, and he wanted to incorporate them into the festival. Yonatan wanted me to collaborate with him on the festival, and even though I was very busy with many dance troupes, I happily accepted his offer. It was a great honor for me. I quickly became his right-hand man during all the years he ran the festival, from 1988 until his retirement in 1999.

In the following years, Shlomo created new dances for folk dance sessions. The mentor who accompanied him was the creator and choreographer Yoav Ashriel, z’l who taught him the theory of fluidity and simplicity in folk dance.

In this field too, Shlomo was gifted with his own unique fingerprint (and footprint). Shlomo has a dance style that incorporates everything he absorbed as a child in the neighborhood where he grew up in Tiberias, what he learned in the Torah schools, the piyyutim from the synagogue that are expressed in his movements, as well as the Yemenite style he received and learned in the Inbal Company and the unique style from the Karmon Company. All of these together created something different, movements that had not been seen before among dancers and dance leaders in the field. The first dance he choreographed was called: “Tov Lalechet Badrachim – It is Good to Walk on the Paths”.

With the arranger, Nancy Brandes, Shlomo recorded playbacks for other folk dances that he choreographed, as well as musical medleys for the dance troupes he founded. Later, he worked with other first-rate arrangers such as: Amikam Kimelman, Kevin Assi D’Cruz, Moshe Danino, Eitan Elbaz, Uri Khodorov, Dan Zipori, Haim Asner, Shmulik Neufeld and many others.

Shlomo:

As time went by, I became even more professional as a choreographer, both in the many dance troupes (lehakot) I established throughout Israel and in several countries around the world, and in folk dances. I created dances and staging positions for singers at various song festivals. In Israel, for example, I provided choreography for the song: “HaPerach Begani – The Flower in My Garden” performed by the late Zohar Argov at the Mizrahi Song Festival.

I performed as a dancer with Lucy Maman, my ex-wife, alongside Chava Alberstein, who sang in the artistic portion at the Israeli Song Festival, and I created choreographies for dance groups that performed at many festivals later on.

Lucy Maman worked with me over the years, both in dance sessions and with dance troupes (lehakot). Later, our daughter, Lital, accompanied me in the lehakot as an instructor and rehearsal director.

I was the artistic director at the Arab Song Festival, which took place in the city of Haifa and was broadcast on Channel One.

I created choreographies for the main show on Independence Day Eve at the “Hatzerim” Air Force Base and in many other Independence Day performances over the years in Israel.

Over the years, Shlomo has worked in many cultural fields simultaneously: in the media (television, radio, many performances), in the many dance troupes he managed, and the many dances he created for the benefit of the world of folk dance.

Shlomo served as chairman of the Folk Dance Instructors’ Organization for five years, served as a member of the Council for Culture upon the appointment of the Minister of Education and Culture, Mr. Yitzhak Navon, z”l, and today he is “closing the circle” and currently serves as a member of the Council for Culture and chairman of the Israeli Folk Dance Department. Shlomo served as the right-hand man of Yonatan Karmon, z”l, from the initial establishment of the Karmiel Festival in 1988 until Karmon’s retirement.

In 2000, a year after Karmon’s retirement, Maman took the reins and managed the Karmiel Festival with a capable hand, with Liat Katz-Farhan at his side and serving as his right hand at all times. Additionally, he has been managing the “Rokdim Aviv Bi’Rechovot – Dancing the Spring in Rehovot” Festival with her for 13 years now.

Many thousands of people from all over the country, Jews from around the world, choreographers, singers and many dance groups, flooded the city of Karmiel from one morning to the next for three full and continuous days of endless celebrations. The city of Karmiel rejoiced and was filled with joy every year, and was filled with many performances by dance troupes, top-rate singers, diverse dance sessions, colorful market stalls and more… all under the baton of Shlomo Maman.

Even during the Covid period, when many good artists found themselves unemployed, Shlomo did not rest on his laurels and always worked and wanted to keep dance alive and well. Shlomo held online festivals: “Hora Or”, “B’Eretz Ahavati”, “Nirkodeloyada” and “Chag Gadol La’yeladim”. All of this was done with the best dance companies in Israel, including online dance sessions.

In 2021, “Shlomo Maman’s Project” began – the production of an album of remakes and new songs, written by the best writers and composers in Israel, specially adapted for folk dances created by Shlomo and performed by singer Yehoram Gaon. The project includes new arrangements and performances by musical arranger Moshe Danino.

Shlomo choreographed over 300 dances, many of which have become inalienable assets and are still danced to this day in dance sessions all over the country and the world. Shlomo’s dances express the Israeli roots from the pioneer days, the Jewish faith, the stories of the Bible and the Jewish tradition at whose knees he grew up, alongside innovative dances that express the spirit of the times in which we live: https://tinyurl.com/4ttkj3c4

Shlomo Maman has created hundreds of choreographies for dance troupes for “Efrochim” (very young children), young troupes, adult troupes and age-30+ troupes. Among his famous choreographies are “Chedvat Neurim”, “Collage Yisraeli”, “Paamei Hamizrah “, “Rachel”, “Casablanca”, ” Yam Tichoni”, “Machol Hashnayim”, “Sufat Machol”, “Fiddler on the Roof”, “Bein HaShmashot”, “Mechol Hakerem”, “Mechakot”, “Hora He’achzut”, “Omed Basha’ar”, “Tachtzov”, and many other excellent choreographies.

He also artistically directed and created choreographies for the dance troupe “Oranim” in London, founded “Shemesh Karmiel”, the dance company of the Jewish community in Turkey, created choreographies for large and professional companies in the world, such as the company “Night of the Sultan of Turkey” and the company “Mazowsze”, the national [folk] company of Poland.

Shlomo created choreographies for two shows that took place on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem for the celebrations of Israel’s independence, and was the artistic director of the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, which were held at the Tel Aviv Sportek – a huge show of dance companies, in collaboration with the best Israeli artists and themed dance sessions in areas designated for this purpose throughout the Sportek.

Shlomo managed and directed the Independence Day evenings at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv from 2010 to 2021.

In 2017, Education Minister Naftali Bennett awarded Shlomo the “Ministry of Education and Culture Award” for creators in the fields of Jewish culture in the name of the late Uri Orbach – in the field of dance for his contribution to Israeli dance.

Shlomo: The moments of creation are the most wonderful moments for me. I live for them. I really love the fact that I manage to overcome pressures in the studio, and I know how to get the best out of them. While working with the dancers in the studio, I notice how the movements suddenly connect with the melody and everything becomes one entity.

During these minutes when I create, the dancers look at me with wondrous silence, because they know that I must not be disturbed when I am concentrating, because I may forget the structure and the idea I had thought of. I feel the need to prove to them and especially to myself that I know to create. I have a desire and passion just like a child who wants others to be proud of him. Every time anew. Of course, there are also times when it doesn’t work out exactly as I wanted or imagined in my head, but I don’t give up and do it again and again and accept the fact that things can be dynamic.

When I get inspired and start creating in the studio, I see a sequence of moving “images” in my imagination. I need silence in the studio and ask for it from the dancers so that my mental and creative sequence is not interrupted. When I finish creating, I teach the dancers the choreography on the spot, and only then do I go back and start polishing all the images I built. That’s how I love to create.

All these gifts that I received in my life – the gifts of creativity, music, and dance, I gleaned from my home roots. From my parents and the tradition at whose knees I grew up, and that was my greatest joy.

Every Shabbat evening, on Sabbaths and holidays, I visited the synagogue, along with my father and all my brothers. My father really loved the piyyutim, and we would sing them with him in synagogue.

After my Bar Mitzvah, I put on tefillin every morning. Since then, I have only missed putting on tefillin a few times. I love putting on tefillin. I see it as a deep and therapeutic action. This action has been with me throughout my years and I feel that it enters deep into my soul. Putting on tefillin has become a daily routine for me, but while it is a routine, and precisely because of this, all the most profound and complex thoughts arise within me and flood [my consciousness], going from the internal to the external and bringing a new spirit to me. Every morning anew. In these moments of prayer, I have time to think.

When I wake up, I wash my face. I wake up from many dreams that I have that I have not yet fulfilled. I cleanse myself of unnecessary noises of everyday life, harsh words that people sometimes say, and I direct my body and soul to a new day with lots of action, creation and imagination. The water flows in the bathroom sink, and with it also come the ideas that are born within me.

I hold the small face towel, dab it on my face, lift my head up and whisper the short and important prayer of the morning service: “I thank you, living and eternal King, for giving me back my soul in mercy. Great is your faithfulness.”

Every day that I say this prayer, I mean it. I mean every word in this verse. After that, I put on tefillin and pray the morning prayer.

This is how I was raised in my parents’ home. Tradition was and still is an important part of my life. That’s where I grew up and it is from that very tradition that I bring my works to the stage.

It’s a part of me; it’s in my soul.

After all the creative years that have been, and hopefully will be in the future, I don’t feel like I’ve finished my work. Every day that I wake up in the morning, I feel productive. I wake up and initiate meetings with different people, create dances, especially in the middle of the night, and live the art that is in me.

The great prize that I will receive this year is not just mine. That’s how I see it. It represents all creators, choreographers, and dancers. I am proud and happy to have been born into a family that imparted all of the elements to me, by virtue of which I have reached this milestone.