Centro de Danza y Teatro de Suzanne Dellal
The Suzanne Dellal Center for Dance and Theater (כז סוזן דלל למחול ולתיאטרון ) is a center for dance in Israel, located in Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv.
The Suzanne Dellal Center was established in 1989 with a grant from the Dellal Family Foundation, based in London, England, commemorating their daughter, Suzanne, who died at a young age. Additional support for the establishment of the center came from the municipality of Tel Aviv, the Tel Aviv Foundation, and the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Education who are still primary funders of the institution.
The Center presents a year-round calendar of Israeli and international contemporary dance companies as well as festivals that highlight regionally specific companies and dance styles, such as flamenco, classical Indian dance, and traditional and contemporary dance from China. Resident companies include the Batsheva Dance Company, Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollack Dance Company, and Orna Porat Children's Theater.
The Suzanne Dellal Center's campus consists of four performance spaces. The Suzanne Dellal Hall is the primary performance space with a capacity of 386 seats. Yerushalmi Hall contains 224 seats. The Inbal Theatre, home of Inbal Dance Theater has a capacity of 150. Varda Studio, the main rehearsal space for the Batsheva Dance Company, is also used for performances.
The center contains several additional rehearsal studios, a fine-dining restaurant and a casual café that surround the wide plazas. During the summer, the center hosts outdoor events and performances throughout the center's grounds.
The grounds on which the Suzanne Dellal Center sits was the site of the first education center built outside of the walls of Jaffa in the neighborhood of Neve Tzedek, one of the first established communities of newly-founded Tel Aviv.
The Yechiely Girls School was built in 1908 at the initiative of Hovevei Zion. On the eve of World War I, it had 450 fifty pupils in ten classrooms. Opposite the Yechiely Girl's School stood the Alliance School, which was also built in 1908. The façade of the original building was preserved and renovated into the Suzanne Dellal Hall. In 1913, the Seminar Lewinsky, a teacher seminary, was founded nearby and its activities continued at that location until 1939.