Dr. Adiel Portugali

Dr. Adiel Portugali studies culture, society, and music in contemporary China. He is director of the Meshivei Ruach: Program for Humanities Leadership in the Community, and a lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is the founder, facilitator, and co-director of the OUT project – experiences in field survival, a method of coping with situations of uncertainty and an ever-changing reality. He was previously an artistic director and an initiator and leader of projects and collaborations at the Chinese Cultural Center in Tel Aviv and in other frameworks. Adiel is also a musician. A pioneer of the punk and noise scene in the 1990s, he was the founder and former member of the band The Elders of Safed. From 2005 to 2009 he lived in China and worked as a musician and teacher of percussion instruments, and as a cultural attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Beijing. His book Jazz in Contemporary China: Shifting Sounds, Rising Scenes was published in 2023 by Routledge.