Yair Vardi

Yair Vardi was born in 1948 in Kfar Blum

Yair Vardi was born on 29 May 1948 in Kibbutz Kfar Blum in the Upper Galilee. He began his career as a dancer and choreographer with the Batsheva Dance Company.

In 1977 he created his first dance, a duet for Batsheva staged at the Israel Festival, and won the Kinor David Prize for it. That summer he joined Ballet Rambert in London as a soloist and danced there until 1983. In England he also started his own company, English Dance Theatre, and a dance center called Dance City in Newcastle.

After 12 years abroad he returned to Israel and became director of the Suzanne Dellal Centre from its founding. He held the post from 1989 to 2020 and created programs to present Israeli dance abroad. From 2005 to 2012 he also headed the dance school at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

He received the EMET Prize in 2009 and was made a Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters the same year. He retired from the center in 2020 and died of cancer on 25 May 2025.