The Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre was established in 1989, by the Dellal family from London, the Tel Aviv Municipality, the Tel Aviv Foundation, and the Ministry of Culture and Education, following the initiative of Ze’ev Sokolovsky ,Mr Shlomo Lahat the Mayor of Tel Aviv Yaffo and The Tel Aviv Foundation.

In the early eighties, a variety of cultural activities were initiated and sponsored in what was then known as the Neve Tzedek Theatre. This was, and still today, largely due to the dedicated and ongoing involvement of the Yerushalmy Family.

The Suzanne Dellal Centre is home for the Israeli creators who brings the experience of Israeli life to the stage. This experience focuses on Israeli identity and reveals its various faces. By using all aspects of the local culture and by exploring the past, the Israeli creator touches the whole of our social identity and acts as a mirror which reflects our own personality.

Like its surroundings, the Israeli creator is full of contradictions: he deals with pain and anger and uses his body to create and express physical force, but he is also soft, lyric and attentive as he caresses the lonely self that resides in each of us; he stays loyal to his origins and heritage but is not afraid to provoke and ridicule them; he raises many questions but supplies little answers. He is always original and exists in present time.

For over fifteen years, Israeli dance has been blooming. Originality and creativity have joined high technical skills and the results are groundbreaking. This success did not come about by chance and it is not to be taken for granted, it is the result of the investment, the creative thinking and the hard work of the Suzanne Dellal Centre that, since 1989, has been the house of Israeli dance and its creators. With the vision and help of former Mayor of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, Mr. Shlomo Lahat and the representative of the Dellal Family Foundation, Mr. Ze’ev Sokolovsky, the building of the centre in the middle of a historical yet neglected neighborhood, on the ruins of the Aliance school and in the Yechieli school building has paved the way for the much anticipated breakthrough of Israeli dance, which has been thriving ever since.

Yair Vardi, the Director of Suzanne Dellal Centre, was born at Kibbutz Kfar Blum in the upper Galilee; he is a dancer and choreographer, a member of the second generation of the Bat Sheva Dance Company. In 1977 he was awarded the Kinor David prize. He loined the Ballet Rambert in London and later he started his own group English Dance Theatre and a centre for dance Dancity in Newcastle, England. He returned to Israel after twelve years and chose to be the Director of the Suzanne Dellal Centre.