Deborah Friedes Galili is an independent dancer and dance scholar based in Tel Aviv. She holds a BA in dance history from Brown University and an MFA in dance from The Ohio State University.
In 2007-2008, Deborah researched Israeli contemporary dance thanks to a Fulbright grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance (JAMD). Throughout her Fulbright year, she blogged on The Winger and podcasted interviews with Israeli dance professionals on Israel Seen. After moving to Tel Aviv in 2008, she founded the online magazine Dance In Israel. Her writing has subsequently been published in Dance Magazine, the Forward, and The Jerusalem Post.
Deborah’s book, Contemporary Dance in Israel, was published in both English and Spanish by Asociación Cultural Danza Getxo in 2012. In 2013, her article about issues of reconstruction in Israeli contemporary dance was published in the anthology Dance on Its Own Terms: Histories and Methodologies (Oxford University Press). Her article “Gaga: Moving beyond Technique with Ohad Naharin in the Twenty-First Century” was published in the peer-reviewed journal Dance Chronicle in 2015.
Deborah also lectures about Israeli contemporary dance. She is currently teaching a survey course about dance in Israel for DanceJerusalem, a study abroad program initiated by the JAMD and Hebrew University’s Rothberg International School. A graduate of the inaugural Gaga Teacher Training Program (2011-2012), Deborah teaches Gaga, Ohad Naharin’s movement language. She also works in Tel Aviv as head of foreign affairs for Gaga.