KADMAN (formerly Kaufman), GURIT

KADMAN (formerly Kaufman), GURIT (1897–1987), Israeli folk-dance teacher. Gurit Kadman, who was born in Leipzig, Germany, settled in Ereẓ Israel in 1920 and for 18 years taught dancing and gymnastics in schools and kibbutzim. Through her initiative, the first folk-dance festival was held in kibbutz daliyyah in 1944 and the folk-dancing movement grew in popularity under her aegis, demonstrating the evolution, under various influences, toward a national style. She was awarded the Israel Prize in 1981 for dance. In her book, Am Roked (1968; The New Folkdances of Israel, 1968), she maintained that subtle changes had taken place over the decades; some of the dance movements introduced by early immigrants from Poland, Romania, Russia, and Yemen were becoming more restrained and Oriental, and in some of the later creations she detected an Eastern Mediterranean quality reminiscent of Greek and Bulgarian characteristics. (Yohanan Boehm)