Clubbing Tel Aviv Style

Last weekend I sat and watched , one after the other, the 3 installments of the documentary series "Dancing with tears in your eyes".

The wonderful expose of nightclub culture in Israel.

Apart from the nice fact that my photographs from nights at The Penguin, Kolnoa Dan and other places dominate in 2 of the installments , I really enjoyed the series.

The 2nd part reflected periods of my own clubbing days and invoked warm nostalgic feelings .
I could also feel the side effects of this culture on Israeli society as a whole.

I was surprised to discover how connected I was to the club culture.

My ,at least, weekly visits to the record shop "Fuzz" was for me a personal experience and I didn't relate to it as being an "in" place.

I went to the Underground club because it was close to where I then lived.
I never knew that it was the first New wave club in Tel -Aviv.

Yossi SuCarY (now a philosophy lecturer and writer ) gave a very interesting perspective of the scene in the 2nd part . I met him through a mutual friend and one of my first photographs was of both of them dressed up for a night out for a local magazine.

At that same time I photographed Yossi Elephant (r.i.p) and his partner Dina simply because they were around and looked cool.

So as I watched these images in their proper context appear on the screen I could see parts of my own life being played back to me.

Tamar Galbatz and Sucary's explanation of the De-riguer pose of the time ,that of dancing alone facing a wall with an air of depression,summed up the "attitude" of most participants in the clubs of the day.

To turn ones back on the sea.
(This was never a part of my life.I loved the sea and still do.)

What stood out at the start of the 90's was the intensity and urge of the need to party.To be happy.

Now that I have seen the facts of the time ,I am reminded of the pioneers and of the changes that Israel was going through.

From a culture of working the land ,and all for the good of the state ( the development of a new country,)  appeared a small group of individualists ,open to new ideas and pleasures ,willing to take risks not only on the battlefields but in the areas of Start-ups of night life in Israel.

At the same time the opposite was appearing in the move to tripping around India or moving to the Galilee, starting communes of like minded individuals seeking peace of mind as well as just plain peace.

I participated less in the last episode.I only showed up a few times at Allenby 58 at its beginning and then was busy with other things (like pregnancy and births ..)

I never even made it to Hauman 17 :)
Many times I planned to go but unfortunately never did. I did however get to photograph the club's image with Saar Friedman (creative director at Open ),including the iconic confetti shower at the end of the parties.

Babes with smudged makeup fixing themselves in the toilets and lounge lizards sprawled out on the couches and of course the guys dancing together .

I was also fascinated by the first episode on the 50s and 60s, which reminded me of my parents preparing for a night out to the clubs of Jaffa.   Stylish black and white photographs of an era.

In this episode Yoram Kaniuk (the famous Israeli author) gives some interesting insights into the society in Israel - certain aspects of eastern European decadence in contradiction to the ideals of the pioneers.

I never knew that the Romanians were such party people.He called them perverse.

Worth watching.The last 2 installments are being shown tonight and tomorrow on channel 8.