Devorah Bertonov (1915-2010) was a dancer and choreographer, and the recipient of the 1991 Israel Dance Prize. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, her father – actor Yehoshua Bertonov, was a founding member of Habima National Theatre.
Bertonov was raised and educated in Moscow where she studied (and later, also performed) ballet at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. In 1929 she moved to Palestine and shortly thereafter, went off to further her classical dance training in London, Berlin, and New York where she appeared in a production of The Dybbuk, making a lasting impression with her solo routine in the beggars’ dance scene.
In 1952 she made the dance arthouse short, A Khasene in Shtetl (‘a wedding in the town’), which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. In the sixties, she set up a dance studio at her home in the Greater Tel Aviv suburb of Holon and from thereon out, devoted herself primarily to dance teaching and studies.
Bertonov had guest roles in a number of films including Amazing Grace (Amos Guttman, 1992), The Flying Camel (Rami Na’aman, 1994), and Love at Second Sight (Michal Bat-Adam, 1998). In 2003, documentary filmmaking duo Noit and Dan Geva made Autumn Leaves – a film about her life and work.
