The Theater Zone will host a range of performances.

As a warmup to the Improv Artists’ set at 12:30 p.m., there will be a yoga demonstration at 11:30 a.m., and at noon Russian folk dancing with Tikvah Music and Dance School students from the JCC of San Francisco.

Troy Macklin

Following the improv, at 1:50 p.m. contemporary dancers Troy Macklin and Catherine Kamrath will perform a duet they choreographed just for Israel in the Gardens. 

Macklin, an alumnus of the Juilliard School in New York City, described the duet as “quite intense” and said that he and Kamrath scripted the choreography first through improvisation. 

“In creating this duet we decided to create a movement dialogue,” he said. “One of us would start with a movement and the other one would respond. We were constantly trying to find what level the other person was on, to match that, and go beyond.”

The dance will be set to “At the Door,” a piece by composer David Karagianis that has a steady tempo and uses both classical and contemporary instruments.

Macklin has taught for the past six years at the San Ramon Valley Dance Academy, where he took lessons as a child; Kamrath was his first student when he began teaching. 

Macklin believes modern dance should be “open and free to interpretation” and he hopes that audience members come to their own understandings of the performance.

“The most important thing is for people to foster their own artistic expression,” he said. “People can create their own expression within other people’s physical expression.”