Jerusalem, Nov 28 (IANS): A conflict between Israel's Culture Minister and artists using nudity in their performances is back in the spotlight with the opening of one of the countrys most important contemporary dance festivals, a media report said on Tuesday.

For the third time in a year a big Israeli arts festival - this time Jerusalem International Dance Week - has been told by officials under Culture Minister Miri Regev, that it cannot use government funds to subsidise three of the 28 performances because they involve either full or partial nudity, the Guardian report said.

Instead, the programme for the event, which attracts dance festival organisers from around the world, will carry an asterisk noting the partial nudity and the fact that they are not "supported" by the Culture Ministry.

The latest intervention follows a similar move targeting two performances involving nudity in the Israel Festival earlier this year and in the recent Curtains Up dance festival.

Among the artists whose work has been drawn into the row are Adi Shildan and Nir Vidan, co-creators and performers of The Restlessness of Winged Creatures.

The artists, who are homosexual, told the Guardian the purpose of the work was to challenge stereotypes by asking the audience to observe their bodies even as the performance deconstructed ideas of gender.

Shildan said the efforts to cut funding to performances involving nudity were part of a wider effort by Israeli conservatives to narrow the public space for discourse.

"Nudity is un-extraordinary in contemporary dance... But in Israel we are a step back from Europe.

"We are both without shirts but it is the woman's body that ‘offends'."

Ruby Edelman, the artistic co-director of Machol Shalem, the dance house involved in organising the festival, said: "When I saw the pieces I didn't notice the nudity because when I see something I am thinking whether it is good. So I was surprised. And it is always in a closed space..."