Margalit Oved

Margalit Oved was born in 1934 in Aden, Yemen.

Oved immigrated to Israel with her family in 1949 and settled in Tel Aviv. In 1950, she joined Inbal Dance Theater under Sara Levi-Tanai’s artistic direction and became its lead dancer for some 15 years. She also created several choreographies for Inbal, including, Mother of Dawn (1957) and toured around the world, including in the US, Australia, France, Britain, Italy, Holland and Nepal.

In 1965 Oved left Inbal to start a career as a freelance and went on a lecture tour in the US, where she met her future husband Melvin Marshall. In 1967 she moved to the US and began teaching in UCLA and creating for the university’s dance company. She started building her solo repertoire strongly influenced by Yemenite traditions, which included Yemenite Wedding, The Dybbuk of Aden, The Birth of a Drum, Kingdom of Spirit, and Through the Gate of Aden (1973).  In 1968, she performed in Allegra Fuller’s documentary Gestures of Sand. Later, she established her own dance company in Los Angeles for which she choreographed several pieces, including David and Goliath (1968), In the Beginning (1970), and The Birds (1986). In addition, she also created solo pieces for Ze’eva Cohen and Egyptian ballerina Magda Saleh.

Oved composed the music for most of her choreographies, using mainly various percussion instruments and her own voice, and also released a song album for Folkways Records (1976).
In 1994 Oved returned to Tel Aviv to direct Inbal, accompanied by her son Barak Marshall, future director of Inbal (since 2014). After a year, however, she retired from that position and returned to the US. Ever since then, she has often collaborated with her son, including as a musical director and sometimes also singer in his dances, such as Aunt Leah (1995), Emma Goldman’s Wedding (1997), and Rooster (2008). In 2000, Ohad Naharin invited Oved to perform in his choreography LOL, performed in Stockholm. That year, Marshall was commissioned by Batsheva to choreograph And When the Rooster Crowed the Green Bride Floated through the Village Square (2000), where his mother appeared as a guest artist.
Oved won Hadassah’s Myrtle Wreath Award (1973) and the French ADAMI Award (1998).