Dr. Lior Avizoor

Dr. Lior Avizoor (artistic director) is a dancer, teacher, curator, and researcher in the field of dance. Upon graduating from the Thelma Yellin High School of Arts, she moved to Amsterdam, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, danced with 
independent choreographers, and taught for several years. During this period, Avizoor received various scholarships as a dancer, including from the America–Israel Cultural Foundation and the Hanny Veldkamp Fund in the Netherlands.

With her return to Israel, she turned to research and theory and enrolled in the Tel Aviv University Faculty of the Arts, where she completed a master’s degree (with honors) as well as a doctoral degree, dedicating her dissertation to dance ontology.

Over the last decade, Avizoor’s work has focused on expanding the discourse and thought surrounding the art of dance, drawing connecting threads between dance and other cultural fields. Among others, she was the artistic director of the Room Dances Festival alongside Amos Hetz (2012–2015); co-editor of the Maakaf online journal for performing arts in collaboration with Ran Brown (2010–2017); and curator of the Kontrapunkt Dance Series at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2014–2017).

Avizoor teaches theory and practice on various platforms and accompanies dance and performance works as a dramaturge and artistic consultant. She has also been a member of various committees, among them Sal Tarbut Artzi (a government culture-education enrichment program, 2021–2014) and the Ministry of Culture Dance Division (2014–2019).

In 2019, she was invited by Ohad Naharin to take part in the foundation of the Batsheva Dance Company School and to serve as its director. In 2022, Avizoor took on the role of the Batsheva Dance Company artistic director.