Get Out! GAY Magazine – Issue 432 August 21, 2019

INTERVIEW______________
Let’s journey back to Israel. What
motivated you to come to the U.S.?
I started dancing when I was six years old
in my hometown, because I wanted to
dance like Michael Jackson. I wanted to be
a hip cool kid. I loved shaking my booty.
I’ve always had this rhythm. They used to
say when I was little and I would hear a
beat of a drum I would shake my cradle so
hard that I actually dented the wall. When
I got older there was this dance studio
in town, and my mom took me there. My
mom was in the arts too. The teacher told
her I had great potential and should start
with ballet. After my first class and hearing
the piano and being exposed to classical
music, I fell in love with it. It became one
of my obsessions to be a dancer.
Then you do ballet as well?
I’m a classically trained dancer, yes. I am a
graduate of the Royal Academy of Dance.
Then after that, every Israeli has to go
to the army. I got a scholarship from the
Ministry of Culture, and I was studying
dance there, which only a few people get
to do while in the army.
What if you are gay in the Israeli army?
It doesn’t matter. It’s a religious country,
and the acceptance is amazing. No one is
exempt from serving their country, and I
think that is a good thing, especially when
you’re a young kid coming out of high
school. At the time I didn’t see it that way,
but looking back it really prepared me for
life. It prepared me to come to America,
to be on my own with no family here. It
prepared me for the struggles and the
things that I have been through. It made
me stronger and able to stand on my own
two feet, and be a man. It taught me to
deal with life on my own without having
some kind of security blanket to run to.
How many kids out of high school get an
M-16 gun to take home and yet you don’t
hear of one mass shooting? I think order is
good for freedom. Freedom needs some
order.
That’s an interesting realization. So after
the army, how did you find yourself in
the U.S.?
I wasn’t even planning on coming to the
United States. My mom thought I should
go see what it was like, so I came here as a
tourist, and then I saw what it had to offer.
I sort of pushed myself out of my comfort
zone, and I applied to a theater program.
When I got there I saw real classical
dancers, and being exposed to all that I
realized that I had so much to work on. It
was a big reality check.