Music fills the air and costumed dancers take to the stage. The group flows as one while a crowd gathers to watch and learn about the culture before them. Applause echoes once the dance ends. This is the scene that has been happening almost every year at the Israel Pavilion at Heritage Festival. But this year, it will be a bit different.

Sari Uretsky-Leung of Aviv Israeli Folk Dance Association (AIFDA) and Maya Goldberg of Shiru Hashir will be collaborating for the half hour performances on Sunday, August 4 at Borden Park. In the past, they had created their own shows separately for Heritage Festival and were featured at different times on the Israel Pavilion stage.

Maya has been dancing with her group for 42 years and Sari was once her student. She approaches Israeli dance with traditional choreography and focuses on highlighting the Jewish holidays. She grew up on a kibbutz in Israel where many of the holidays were celebrated outside and in all spaces. Besides the holiday inspiration, her dances are inspired by Russian and Yemen music. 

Sari started to train in, perform and choreograph Israeli Folk dance in 1999 in Vancouver, BC. She began in Edmonton with six dancers in 2006 and has grown her program to include three performing troupes, a recreational folk-dance group and a school of Israeli dance. Her performing troupes are showcased at multicultural events in Edmonton and surrounding areas, have traveled to Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Miami, Disney World and Israel to perform. Her choreography is influenced from around the world.

They both spend countless hours working with their volunteer dancers to prepare for the Heritage Festival performances, where over 300,000 people walk through the site over the event days. This year AIFDA is incorporating a Brazilian dance that was learned during an Israeli Dance Festival in Miami.

Audiences at Heritage Festival will see quite the diversity of Israeli dance, thanks to the new show created by Sari and Maya, who both volunteer to showcase the country’s culture through this form of entertainment. It’s especially important this year to highlight Israel at the festival, says Sari.

“Part of Aviv’s message is to spread knowledge and understanding of our culture in a peaceful way. This is showing who we are as a people. We are teaching people what an amazing and beautiful country Israel is,” she says.

Maya says it’s important to volunteer for the Israel Pavilion. “Our community is the only ones who can show how nice Israel is and how we represent our country and people,” she adds.

It’s her tradition to include audiences in the performance as she teaches them moves to follow along. “Dance makes people happy. Make people happy so they join you,” she says.

“Heritage Festival is about different cultures coming together and showing other people what we are all about culturally through the dance groups, food, and music,” says Sari.

She emphasizes that the Edmonton Jewish community needs to support the pavilion more than ever this year, whether it be attending or volunteering. “We need to support Israel. We need to have a pavilion there. The only way we have a pavilion is if we have volunteers. We’re doing it because we need to have a presence. We need to show we are not afraid. There’s so much slander and many lies out there. If we can change one person’s opinion about who we are, it’s worth it.”