"It's wonderful, what that woman managed to draw out of me," says Yair, one of the participants in a lesson given by the choreographer and teacher Anna Sokolow,
at the studio of Mia Arbatova in Tel Aviv.     Shortly before voicing this emotional response, he had received several fairly unpleasant comments from the adored teacher:
"You have a flabby face, a glazed and expressionless look. You don't have a drop of energy."     But instead of being offended, he beamed with pleasure at the end of the lesson.
Anna Sokolow was equally unmerciful with others.    "What you are doing is banal," she told another student "it is unconnected with art".  One woman student who adopted a classical pose heard her say: "that's 'motek' [Hebrew for 'cute']. I don't want  to see any 'motek' here  !"

She subjected several of students to light but vigorous slaps.  To an onlooker, the 66-year-old lady appeared to be resorting to somewhat terroristic techniques, but the participants appeared to find it an exciting experience .   In this context, one recalls the anecdote about Martha Graham, who came to Israel some years back, literally to set the dancers of the fledgling Batsheva troupe on their feet.    Graham's technique rests upon movements of contraction and relaxation.  Whosoever does not grasp the contracting movement cannot dance Graham.   It is a difficult movement to sense immediately.  It is picked up in the course of time.  One of the students, later to become one of Israel's foremost dancers,  made repeated attempts but with no great success, to perform the contracting movement.   At  a certain moment, Martha Graham got tired of this ; she walked up to the young man and unexpectedly grabbed him by the testicles. The dancer folded, and the famous lady shouted: " That's it, now you've grasped how it should be done.  At long last you understand where it's supposed to come from.  From the balls, darling, from the balls."

Anna Sokolow's dance deals with flesh-and-blood characters, rather than with Graham-style mythology.  She herself danced with Graham as far back as the twenties, and her artistic record also includes directing Broadway musicals, and choreography for television and the New York opera.
Anna Sokolow was the first to integrate elements of jazz dance into her works,
Her spiritual world is sustained by influences from stories of Franz Kafka; she is currently working on staged version of a story by him, with students from the studio of Nissan Nativ. She forged her links with Israel as far back as 1953, when she was invited to instruct the Inbal troupe which had just founded.  Since then, she has visited Israel each year.

With regard to the iron hand she exercises in her lessons, she says: "At first, the students may be slightly tense. But I believe that the more discipline there is in dance, the more there is freedom.   They will feel this wonderful freedom in good time.   Isadora Duncan's great revelation was that movement must come from within. That is what I try to convey to my pupils.  A dancer makes the same movement a million times, and each time, it's got to be a revelation.    Otherwise there's no point in repeating it countless times.  There has to be a great zest for discipline in art, likewise concentration, correct energy and dedication.    I detest dance clichés and false cuteness, and the dancers who want to dance gracefully, without being guided by any inner truth."

Mor Eden,  who took part in the lesson, adds: "The movements that Anna taught us were simple and unstylised.  She managed to extract the maximum from each movement.
Technique per se is no interest to her;  rather, it is the quest after the source of the emotion that generates the movement,
And I don't mean something external or concrete.  It can be an abstract feeling.   In her lesson, she created many combinations of movement for couples, trios and groups.
When you make a movement of contraction and sense the opposing contractions of the others, the movement takes  on  an entirely different significance.  She forced us to look into another's eyes.  At first, it was rather scary.  But the movements take on a special depth in consequence."

Anna employs music not merely for its rhythm, as is usual in the lessons of other dance teachers. Her great love for classical music is evident, in her lessons. I can't stand Wagner. But the Russians - the Russians are magnificent! " and she enthuses in fluent Russian.

In a lecture delivered the following day, she related her artistic course and ideas which have guided her dance. This was followed by a film of her creation "Dreams".
She was greatly moved by the warm response of the audiences, which watched in tense attention,   In consequence, she decided to donate all the dance films in her archives to Tel Aviv's Central Library of Dance and Music.
 

                                                                              ["Ha'Ir", June 19, 1981]