Welcome to the De:frost Jerusalem Festival!
Defrost Jerusalem: an alternative arts scene comes in from the cold Text from Jerusalem.com
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When organizers got together a few months ago and came up with the name De:frost for an alternative arts festival to be held in Jerusalem next week, they probably didn't imagine that when the festival would be held, the city would be in the midst of a freak mid-winter heat wave. But the show will be going on, freeze or no freeze. The two-day festival, taking place on January 19 and 20, will be a conglomeration of the best Jerusalem has to offer in street, alternative and fringe craft, ranging from music and dance to sculpture, paintings and movies, plus a ton more.
According to Hitorerut Yerushalayim Party (Wake Up Jerusalem) co-founder Ofer Berkovitch, Jerusalem is ripe for a festival like this. "Alternative art is very significant - it's not small in Jerusalem. Tel Aviv is much more mainstream, but in Jerusalem, there are all kinds of arts," Berkovitch explains to Jerusalem.com. "It's very fitting to the culture."
Berkovitch, whose Hitorerut organization aims to represent Jerusalem's youth in the city council, played an instrumental part in putting the festival together, along with help from Hazira, the city's many and varied art schools and galleries, the Hebrew University's Student Union, the art school student union, In D Negev's planners, the GodSaveJerusalem collective, and several Jerusalem business and cultural institutions.
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What's fringe today may be The Next Big Thing tomorrow, and the festival will feature many acts and exhibitions on the cutting edge of music and art. The Biting Sheep, a live techno musical outfit with one very cool marimba will play Bass on Tuesday night, the first night of the festival. Other highlights include hot wine and street musicians for a Sidewalk Bunch park shindig in Rechavia; a performance by Umlala, whose nerd-rock earned them a place in the Global Battle of the Bands, on Thursday night at Hakatze; and various student film screenings at Hama'abada (the Lab).
On top of all that, organizers have also put together a round of "guerrilla dining," an innovative event during which Jerusalemites will open their apartments to festival goers for some down-home cooking.
The festival is an adaptation of a similar effort in Berlin, titled Poor But Sexy, that highlighted the German capital's art world. Berlin is in many ways similar to Jerusalem, with it being both a political hotbed, a world-class city and home to a burgeoning arts scene, and so bringing the festival over seemed an easy choice, according to organizers.
More details about the festival can be found on its Facebook presence, or on two Jerusalem.com event pages (one for each day of the festival). Pictured are Rebel Sun of Coolooloosh and some of the more exciting works of visual art.
(All links are in Hebrew only)
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