“A Missing Temple Appears”A Symposium Honoring and Featuring David (Dudi) Maayan
For over forty years, Dudi Maayan has been a pioneering, disruptive, and formative voice in the performance scene in Israel. From Akko to Shlomi, to Vienna and back, remained a wellspring of abundant and inspiring creation. Across life and art, he is one of the clearest and most profound guides to performance in Israel and beyond. In his radical and iconic works, art becomes a daring space of memory and recollection, blending truth with fiction, pleasure with pain, and trauma with beauty.
Diver Festival dedicates this exploration to Maayan’s work at a time when we are being shaken to our core, and when the fundamental questions of art-making are more urgent than ever, demanding syntax, meaning, and direction. Throughout its history, Diver has remained committed to performing across generations, seeking out parents and teachers through whom a living tradition takes shape. We will gather to present Maayan’s work not merely as a historical archive, but as a living and active thought about the world within us, and being within it.
With the participation of (in alphabetical order): Claudia Dulitchi, Ido Feder, Angelika Kisser-Maayan, Yonatan Levy, Firas Ruby, Pablo Salzman, Nir Shauloff, Prof. Naftaly Shem-Tov, Karin Shtang, Grace Shushner, Dr. Natalie Turgeman, Smadar Yaaron, Prof. Dorit Yerushalmi
With the support of Habait Theater
Participation is free of charge and requires advance registration.
Register here
Dudi Maayan is an Israeli theatre director based in Austria, and one of the founders of the Acco Theatre Center and the Shlomi Center for Alternative Theatre. He served as the artistic director of the Acco Festival, and in 2000 co-founded the Shlomi Center for Alternative Theatre together with Neta Plotzky and Pablo Salzman, where he also served as co-artistic director. Over the years, Maayan has taught at Tel Aviv University, the University of Haifa, the University of Vienna, and the Bruckner University in Linz. During his work in Linz, he created The Academy of the Impossible, following the city’s selection as the European Capital of Culture in 2009. In 2018, he was appointed artistic director of the Smartut Group, founded by Honi HaMe’agel. Alongside his artistic and educational work, he has continued to lead masterclasses and creative workshops in various institutions, including the Haifa Studio Theatre, the Western Galilee Academic College, the Yadit Theatre, and the Kama multidisciplinary center at Sha’ar HaAmakim.
