Or Nili Azulay is certainly a “hyphenate,” working regularly as a dancer, actor, and  choreographer, and having won several awards for her poetry. But the breadth of her talent only hints at her total artistry, as she has used her considerable background as the foundation for creating a synthesis of modern and traditional dance, Spanish and Middle Eastern cultural traditions, and literature and music.

Having studied both classical Spanish dance and flamenco with the renowned teacher Sylvia Duran, she eventually was invited by the influential dancer/choreographer Antonio Canales to take part in a special process of further advancing his modernist style. In 1997, she created a work that not only utilizes these influences but which offers an indication of the scope of her ambition. With The Flame and The Frost — A Dialogue For a Dancer and an Orchestra, she choreographed a solo show, in which she characterizes the various female characters referred to in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, all set, naturally, to the music of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. The work was received with great success in Israel, and she has since performed it with different orchestras around the world.

Since then, she has continued developing her art, finding new ways to fuse dance, music, and poetry. She spoke with us recently by phone regarding her artistic inspiration and her performance with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, April 28, at the Sinai Temple.

Bob Remstein: How did you first get involved in Spanish dancing?
Or Nili Azulay: Being from Israel, but with mixed Sephardic and Ashkenazic origins, I was naturally drawn to Spanish culture, but I had to find my own way, develop my own voice. As a result, I’ve choreographed works that incorporate Spanish dancing, but which are not purely Spanish. I love Spanish repertoire, but it is only part of my work.

BR: And what attracted you, specifically, to flamenco?
ONA: Initially, from seeing the film Carmen, starring choreographer Antonio Gades and directed by Carlos Saura. I was captured by the emotion of the music, and found it a wonderful chance to explore moods and emotions, other colors. Flamenco, unfortunately, has an unjustly shallow image; at best, people think it’s something very dramatic with castanets and red skirts; at worst, it’s just for nightclubs. But at its heart, it offers an opportunity to discover deep feelings.

BR: And so you can more readily create a dialogue with the musicians?
ONA: A good dancer has to be a musician in her soul, to play the music with her body. In flamenco, especially, the dancer actually creates music with the castanets and the footwork. Conductors sometimes tell me after a show, “I wish our drummers were as rhythmic as you!”

BR: How does your approach to flamenco differ from that of classical dance?
ONA: Flamenco calls for a different perspective. You see, the main protagonist in terms of flamenco is the dancer, the performer’s character, whereas in ballet or contemporary dance, the style of the movement is the primary focus.

BR: How does that apply to the pieces you’re dancing to in the April 28 concert?
ONA: Of the two, the Israel Suite is the more traditionally classical work; the other one, Yuval Ron’s Sephardic Songs of Exile, will be more colorful, rhythmical, more improvised — a bit like an encore. In the Israel Suite, every movement has a story, or at least a specific mood, from the first movement, which is very dreamy — in it, I hold a big piece of lace material that a Jewish bride would wear (like a mantilla, a Spanish shawl) — to a later movement, in which I look like a prisoner trying to find a way out (either a physical escape or an emotional one, or perhaps both), to a lullaby, in which my movements suggest birds, horses, a baby, and more.

BR: You say that Yuval Ron’s piece will be more improvised, in a sense. Will your dancing be more improvised too?
ONA: Antonio el Bailarin [Antonio the dancer], who was for Spanish dance what Martha Graham was for modern dance, used to say, “There’s no improvisation on the stage!” But he would astonish people by doing that very thing. So what did he mean? He had a very well-shaped frame; inside the frame, he would allow himself the chance to improvise from time to time. In my performance, improvisation will be there, but only to a certain extent.

BR: And the Israel Suite?
ONA: Noreen Green sent me a tape with the pieces to be performed. Some of the tunes really touched and inspired me; I realized that they were Israeli pioneer songs which had been molded into the Israel Suite. In Amos Oz’s book Black Box, one of the main characters describes her feelings when she hears these songs. The feelings Oz describes [see below] are the same ones I’ve always felt when I heard those pioneer songs. And hearing them in the Israel Suite moved me to create a dance work informed by those feelings.

“When I was a little girl, ... I fell under the spell of the old pioneer songs... .  To this day I tremble when they play In the Lands the Fathers Loved on the radio.  Or There Was a Lass in Kinneret.  Or Once Upon a Hill. As if they are reminding me from a distance of vows of loyalty. As if they are saying there is a land but we have not found it.  Some jester in disguise has crept in and seduced us into loathing what we have found. Destroying what was precious and will not return. ... Will you remember me in your prayers?  Please call out in my name that I am waiting for mercy. ... Say that we tried to receive and return love but that we have gone astray. ... Try to clarify how we are to get out. Where is the promised land?”