SHIMON BRAUN

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, DANCER, CHOREOGRAPHER, TEACHER,

ARTIST AND UNIVERSAL CITIZEN 

Born at the time and place the second world war began (Lodge, Poland; 1938), Shimon’s childhood consisted of escaping through five different countries, attending five different schools, and learning five languages to evade the Nazis. Having lived a life of strife and triumph, his vast life experience helped to mold an artistic body of work that helped shape the emergence of Jazz Dance in Israel and the United States.

      
Select highlights of Shimon’s career include performing works by Martha Graham, Donald McKayle, Glen Tetley, Robert Cohan, and Norman Morrice; and training under the instruction of the revered choreographers, Jack Cole, Luigi, JoJo Smith, Hanya Holm, and Matt Maddox in New York. His illustrious choreographic career began after being selected as the first Batsheva Dance Company member ever to be invited by the Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild to choreograph for the famed ensemble. He has collaborated with filmmakers choreographing for the feature film “Kazablan” directed by Menachem Golan (distributed by MGM), and “Jazz Plus”, an art film about his company which received accolades from the Venice Film Festival. He also choreographed “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in Israel, and performed on Broadway in the “Grand Musical of Israel”.

From the initial days of television in Israel, Shimon’s Dance Company, Jazz Plus, was a regular feature. Every weekend, the only television channel in existence premiered his dance performances with Jazz Plus for the newly formed State to see. Shimon, in turn introduced households in an uncertain political time to the profound beauty of jazz dance.

“Jazz Plus was largely responsible for saving the first days of Israeli television. In the Venice Film Festival there is just one movie found worthy to represent Israel, and that is a film by Ilan Eldad called Jazz Plus.”

-Davar Hashavua, Yorum Kaniuck, Writer, Journalist, Theatre Critic 

Invited to choreograph in the United States, he received the award as the “Best Dance Show of the Decade” in New Mexico. After its days as a counter-culture tour de force in 1970s Santa Fe, Shimon bought his unique choreography to Philadelphia and created a new dance company to perform it, called Waves. Shortly thereafter, Waves received the “Best Cultural Addition to the City” award. Waves performed to sold-out audiences in Philadelphia, London and New York as well as standing-room-only concerts in Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

Shimon has taught at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Wingate Institute, and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, in Israel. He has choreographed for the nationally syndicated show aired in 75 major markets in the U.S., “This Weeks Music.” His studio Jazz Dance Center was deemed “Best of Philadelphia” and the New York Times declared his dance company “A Phenomenon.”

An accomplished painter, Shimon's works are in featured in numerous private collections as well as the “Fine Art Judaica and Antiquities Collection of the Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles California”.

Shimon often visited Israel to teach artist classes and workshops in the Tel Aviv Dance Center Bikurey Ha'itim, Wingate Institute, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Kibbutzim College of Education, and the Jerusalem Music and Dance Academy. 

Over the last three years, Shimon has devoted his time to writing the story of Waves with his life partner and artistic collaborator Meghan. He is the proud father of three beautiful human beings whom he deems to be his greatest achievement.