'Dancing In Jaffa' Executive Producer La Toya Jackson and Jeffre Phillips

[AliCat]

Pierre Dulaine, an internationally renowned ballroom dancer, fulfills a life-long dream when he takes his program, Dancing Classrooms, back to his city of birth, Jaffa. Over a ten-week period, Pierre teaches 10-year-old Palestinian-Israeli and Jewish- Israeli children to dance and compete together. Dancing in Jaffa explores the complex stories of three different children, who are forced to confront issues of identity, segregation and racial prejudice as they dance with their enemy. The classroom becomes a microcosm of the Middle East's struggle to work together harmoniously while still caught in the politics of the region and race. With the guidance of Pierre, the children learn to dance together and trust one another. Dancing In Jaffa offers an up-close-and-personal perspective of how the future might unfold if the art of movement and dance could triumph over the politics of history and geography.
http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/dancing-in-jaffa

Prince Jackson and Nikita Bess were there to support Aunt LaToya Jackson. Impressive!

 

[bluesky]

Interesting project! Good for La Toya. Nigel Lythgoe (If you think you can dance) is also one of the producer.







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDBkUTHykoQ

 

[barbee0715]

This looks really good-good for LaToya-a quite worthy project.

 

[AliCat]

Dancing in Jaffa: Film Review
12:26 PM PDT 4/2/2014 by Frank Scheck

The Bottom Line
This heartwarming doc illustrates the power of dance to bring people together.


You see...Michael Jackson has been doing that all his life. Here's how his trip to Israel and Palestine was back in September of 1993, during his "Dangerous" World Tour...


Behind the Headlines: Michael Jackson Visit to Israel Was Taste of Normalcy for Teens
September 23, 1993
TEL AVIV (Sep. 22)
To Israeli teen-agers, Michael Jackson’s visit here this week represented a whole lot more than a couple of rock concerts.

Long deprived of top-name entertainers — who have stayed away in the belief that Israel is a non-stop war zone — teens here have thirsted for the kind of ear-splitting concerts that their counterparts around the world take for granted.

If there is one thing Israeli youths have longed for, it is normalcy: to be able to travel wherever they want, without having to bypass countries that do not accept their passport; to be able to buy a stereo or a car at American prices without the 100 percent import tax; to have the luxury of obsessing over which college to enroll in, not which army unit to join.

And while Michael Jackson may not be anyone’s definition of normalcy, his local concerts certainly were.
Jackson was mobbed by enthusiastic Israeli fans from the moment he arrived here last Friday with a retinue of some 200 assistants, managers, bodyguards and stage hands.

Jackson devotees greeted the singer wherever he went with awe and admiration — until Saturday, when a group of fervently Orthodox Jews gave him a less-than-friendly welcome as Jackson attempted to approach the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The group, finding all the stir surrounding his appearance there unseemly, overturned tables and chairs in an effort to barricade the path of Jackson before he could reach the Wall.

Jackson ultimately turned away from the barricade to avoid a confrontation.

It was the lone sour note during his Israeli tour, which included a trip to Masada and a shopping spree in the Dizengoff Shopping Center here.

Jackson spent Monday — put aside as a day of rest between his two concerts — visiting two children’s hospitals in the Tel Aviv area: Beilinson and Assaf Harofeh.

He spent some hours visiting the bedsides of young patients in the cancer and transplant wards, seeking to cheer them up.

He was careful to divide his visits between Jewish and Arab patients.

170,000 CONCERTGOERS IN ALL

According to ticket sales and police estimates, attendance at Tuesday night’s concert in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park — estimated at 100,000 — was even bigger than that at his first appearance Sunday, when some 70,000 fans turned out.

That’s almost equal to the number who showed up at the demonstrations for and against the Palestinian autonomy plan. And while those demonstrations were free, concertgoers paid a whopping $35 and up for the privilege of seeing Jackson live.

During Jackson’s two appearances, the fans screamed and wailed, pushed and shoved to get a peek at their idol. They smoked pot and hashish.

They even drank down cans of Jackson’s sponsor, Pepsi — the very same Pepsi that for so many years adhered to the Arab boycott against Israel.

All of a sudden, Israelis, too, were the voice of a new generation.

Jackson left Israel for Turkey at midday Wednesday, after cutting short his last appointment here — a planned visit to a basic training base for women soldiers in the center of the country.

He had hoped to record a new version of his hit song “We Are the World” with the Israel Defense Force military band, which would be incorporated into a video of various versions of the song recorded at stops around the world.

But Jackson left in a hurry, complaining at being “dogged and pestered at every step” by the scores of camera crews and photographers who followed him around.

Read more: http://www.jta.org/1993/09/23/archi...was-taste-of-normalcy-for-teens#ixzz2zRC7ERPK