Dance In Israel

International Exposure 2012: Showcasing Israeli Dance

Deborah Friedes Galili — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 09:16:36 +0000

Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s Black Fairytale. Photo by Sharlota Hammer.

It’s time for an annual ritual in the world of Israeli concert dance: International Exposure. From December 5-10, arts presenters and journalists from around the globe will view a substantial amount of the dance productions created in Israel over the last year. This is International Exposure 2012 by the numbers: in its 18th year, the 6-day festival will showcase 39 choreographers in 27 performances for over 100 guests from abroad.

Beyond these impressive numbers, several Israeli choreographers are marking major milestones at this event. Noa Wertheim and Adi Sha’al are celebrating 20 years of their Vertigo Dance Company, Rina Schenfeld is celebrating half a century of creativity, and Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar – who in recent seasons created repertory for Batsheva Dance Company and major international companies – are introducing their new troupe, L-E-V, to the world.

Below is a schedule of International Exposure 2012. While there are also private studio showings in addition to these listings, most of the performances mentioned are open to the public, with tickets available at the Suzanne Dellal Centre and Tmuna Theater’s box offices (Suzanne Dellal: 03-5105656; Tmuna: 03-5611211). And if you’re not in Israel, you can still get a glimpse of the International Exposure lineup by viewing the video trailers.

Wednesday, December 5

After an opening celebration, guests of International Exposure will enjoy a program celebrating Vertigo Dance Company’s 20th anniversary in Suzanne Dellal’s main theater at 20:00. The first evening will be capped off at 22:00 with Shelly Alalouf’s Megida in Yerushalmi Hall.

Thursday, December 6

The second day of International Exposure starts at 10:00 at Suzanne Dellal with the Be’ersheva-based Kamea Dance Company in Status, choreographed by artistic director Tamir Ginz.

Video: Kamea Dance Company in Tamir Ginz’s Status

Guests will then travel across Tel Aviv to Tmuna Theatre for the afternoon. The programming begins at noon with Dafi Altabeb’s Sensitivity to Heat.

Video: Dafi Dance Group in Dafi Altabeb’s Sensitivity to Heat

After a short lecture about Israeli dance by dance scholar Gaby Aldor, the afternoon continues with a mixed bill including excerpts from Renana Raz’s YouMake, Remake series, Michael Getman’s Face to Face, and Idan Cohen’s 3 pieced swan, op. 1.

Video: Renana Raz introduces YouMake Remake

Video: Michael Getman’s Face to Face

Video: Idan Cohen’s 3 pieced swan, op. 1

Back at Suzanne Dellal, Tamar Borer presents BOHU, a collaboration with Tamar Lamm, in the Yerushalmi Hall at 17:00.

Video: Tamar Borer’s BOHU

In Suzanne Dellal’s main theater, the Orly Portal Dance Company will perform Portal’s Rabia at 19:00. Then Vertigo Dance Company will offer artistic director Noa Wertheim’s Birth of the Phoenix outside on the theater’s plaza.

Video: Vertigo Dance Company in Noa Wertheim’s Birth of the Phoenix

The second day closes with Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s Black Fairytale at 22:30 in the main theater.

Video: Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s Black Fairytale

Friday, December 7

Friday kicks off at 10:00 with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company performing artistic director Rami Be’er’s If At All in the Suzanne Dellal Hall.

Video: Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Rami Be’er’s If At All

After meeting Rina Schenfeld, who is currently celebrating 50 years of achievement in dance with photography and video exhibition, guests will continue to the intimate Inbal Theatre for C.A.T.A.M.O.N.’s performance of Elad Shachter’s Trilogy.

Video: C.A.T.A.M.O.N. in Elad Shechter’s Trilogy

At Tmuna Theatre at 14:00, Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor present their reconstruction of Two Room Apartment, originally choreographed by Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror in 1987.

Video: Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor in their reconstruction of Two Room Apartment

Returning to Suzanne Dellal, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar unveil their new company – L.E.V. Live Entertainment Vultures – in House. A shorter version of House was premiered in December 2011 by Batsheva Dance Company.

Video: Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar present L-E-V in House

In the Inbal Theatre at 19:00, the Moving Hold Group presents Year of the Hare, with choreography by Efrat Rubin and animation by Osi Wald. The program also features Ella Ben-Aharon and Edo Ceder’s Pericardium.

Video: Moving Hold Group in Year of the Hare

Video: Ella Ben-Aharon and Edo Ceder’s Pericardium

Studio Varda will host a showing of Land Research by Arkadi Zaides and his collaborators.

Video: Land Research by Arkadi Zaides and collaborators

At 22:00 in Suzanne Dellal Hall, the Holon-based Fresco Dance Group will perform artistic director Yoram Karmi’s Cerebrus.

Video: Fresco Dance Company in Yoram Karmi’s Cerebrus

Finally, at 23:00, guests will be able to screen the new film Let’s Dance in Yerushalmi Hall.

Saturday, December 8

The morning begins at Suzanne Dellal with mixed bills featuring selected works from the annual Curtain Up festival. The first program at 10:00 includes Dana Ruttenberg’s Armed, Eldad Ben Sasson’s Strange Attractor, and Noa Shadur’s We do not torture people.

Video: Dana Ruttenberg’s Armed

Video: Noa Shadur’s We do not torture people

The second program includes two works from Curtain Up – Gili Navot’s May Contain Nuts and Roy Assaf’s The Hill – along with Talia Paz and Mike Winter’s performance of Nigel Charnock’s Haunted by the Future.

Video: Gili Navot’s May Contain Nuts

Video: Roy Assaf’s The Hill

Video: Talia Paz and Mike Winter in Nigel Charnock’s Haunted by the Future

Next, FENIX Dance Company and the National Youth Theater present Offer Zaks and Marria Barrios’s Anne Frank in the Inbal Theatre at 15:00.

Video: FENIX Dance Company in Maria Barrios and Offer Zaks’s Anne Frank

The Jerusalem-based Kolben Dance Company performs Amir Kolben’s Kmehin at 17:00 in Suzanne Dellal Hall.

Video: Kolben Dance Company in Amir Kolben’s Kmehin

Some guests will travel to Yasmeen Godder’s studio in Jaffa to view a work in progress by the choreographer. Then the festival continues at Inbal Theatre at 20:00 with Rotem Tashach’s Paved Life.

Video: Rotem Tashach’s Paved Life

Rounding out Saturday’s programming at the Suzanne Dellal Hall at 22:00 is Maria Kong Dancers Company in Talia Landa’s Open Source.

Video: Maria Kong Dancers Company in Talia Landa’s Open Source

Sunday, December 9

Some guests will tour Jerusalem during the day. In the evening, the Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company presents Goldfish at the Yerushalmi Hall at 19:00.

Video: Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company in Goldfish

After a farewell reception, the festival closes at Suzanne Dellal at 21:00 with the Batsheva Ensemble in Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance.

Video: Batsheva Ensemble in Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance

Monday, December 10

While the festivities in Tel Aviv are over, some guests will travel to Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror’s Hangar Adama in Mizpe Ramon. There, they will see selections from the Other Dance Project, a festival for young choreographers produced by the Suzanne Dellal Centre this past summer. The program will include Tvika Izikias and Shiri Kapueno Kvanz’s Tarab, Hanania Szwarts’s No flesh will dwell, Nadav Tzelner’s Anything goes, and Dorit Guy and Zeev Yelinik’s Pic@move. The Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror Dance Company will also present Up Chi Down Chi.

Video: Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal Dance Company in Up Chi Down Chi

The Revival of “Two Room Apartment” – An Interview with Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:43:22 +0000

It is a truism that dance is the most ephemeral of art forms. When a dance performance is over, there is no concrete art object left behind for posterity; instead, the dance lives on in the minds of the viewers and the bodies of the performers. Yet these traces are fragile and temporary in nature. Once a dance is no longer in active repertory, it is in danger of being lost forever.

Working against the inevitable passage of time, dance professionals have long engaged in the act of reconstruction to bring new life to older dances that have disappeared from the stage. The formidable process of re-creating and re-embodying a dance raises a slew of questions. What is the essence of the dance? What sources do you consult, and when there are multiple versions of the dance – whether in the form of notated scores or videos or memories of previous performers – what rendition do you privilege? What is your goal in reconstructing this work? How do you respect the past while recognizing that this work must now live and resonate in the present? What contemporary relevance do you find in this dance? How do you bring yourself to roles originated by dancers who lived and trained in a different time with different norms?

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor faced these and other questions as they embarked on their reconstruction of Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror’s iconic Two Room Apartment (1987). With little precedent in the sphere of Israeli concert dance, the couple forged ahead into unknown territory and emerged with an innovative production that lays bare the complexities of their project. Prior to the work’s premiere, Niv and Oren sat down with me to discuss their process.

Oren Laor and Niv Sheinfeld in Two Room Apartment. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Q: How did this project start? Do you have anything you want to say about why you chose Two Room Apartment?

Oren: For quite some time we’ve had a desire to create a duet for ourselves, to meet each other on stage. Then we thought, “What, do we go into the studio now and talk about our relationship and try to create something out of it?” It didn’t feel right. We wanted a text that was premade, something that we can mold and play with. It might seem like a paradox, but we felt that choosing material that is not ours will enable us to get close and find each other. We thought the duet [Two Room Apartment] would be a good piece to dive into because of what it enables.

Niv: I even see it as a play, some kind of score that we can refer to, and we can give it our own twists, ideas, and interpretations. For me there is also a personal attachment to Nir [Ben Gal] and Liat [Dror] – I started my dancing career as a dancer in their company between ’92 and ’97.

In terms of Israeli dance, this work had been very significant. After this, the whole dance scene in Israel changed. This work was presented dozens of times, all over the world. It had a relatively long life span, and it triggered a lot of interest.

Oren: I want to add another perspective. I think there are many similarities between Nir and Liat’s artistic statement in this duet and what Niv and I are seeking in our own creations. I think we share the same kind of vision and desire of what we want to give to our audience. We’re trying to reduce, to be more minimalistic as a means to peel off layers that will expose the core. Not to show how tons of money can be poured onto the stage, not to present immortal gods on stage, but the other way around: we are mortal, what you are witnessing is temporary, and it is present only here and only now. We seek simplicity, and this duet was very simple and humble to begin with.

Oren Laor and Niv Sheinfeld in Two Room Apartment. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Q: Niv, going back to what you touched on regarding your performing career with Nir and Liat, how is it for you to dance Two Room Apartment now? How does it connect physically with what you had done with Nir and Liat in their company?

Niv: Some basic principles in terms of plié, release, falling to the floor, free movement, energetic movement, and psychological behavior in movement – these are all things that I grew up on in their company, and so it felt very natural to get into this work, which is based on those elements. I felt at home in terms of the movement.

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor in Two Room Apartment. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Q: Had you seen Nir and Liat perform Two Room Apartment live?

Niv: Yes. I saw it before I joined their company, and Oren saw them on stage three years ago when they did it at the Gvanim [Shades of Dance] in 2009. But they only did the first ten minutes of the work and that’s it.

Oren: It really blew me away. They were, of course, not young anymore, not in shape anymore – still, it was so fascinating to watch the simplicity and humbleness of them doing these repetitions of what seem to be everyday gestures. I felt, “Wow! This is so new; this kind of thing is still missing so much from our stages.”

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor in Two Room Apartment. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Q: Let’s talk about the process you have been going through in bringing this work to the stage today.

Oren: We went to the dance library in Beit Ariela, and we took all the material about Two Room Apartment from that time: interviews with Nir and Liat, reviews, reflections on the work. It was important for us to gather as much information as we could about what Nir and Liat thought the piece was about and what the critics thought the piece was about.

Niv: There was also this book that we bought – Preservation Politics – that looks into past reconstructions of dance works. We wanted to learn more about how other artists dealt with reenactments that they did. Then we went to meet Nir and Liat in the desert, to conclude this legitimacy that they gave us in recreating the work the way we want. They told us to feel free to change whatever we want in the recreation. They were generous and they trusted us; we are very thankful to them for that. We also asked them, “What do you think this duet is about?” Liat said, “For me, it’s about two people: when are they alone, when are they together. That’s the basic thing.”

Oren: “Solitude versus togetherness.” I liked that they didn’t speak about the dancing. They spoke about the idea behind it – not that the dance should be so-and-so and the movement should be so-and-so, but about the issues that stir the action onstage from underneath.

Niv: After that, we took the video, and we started working from the video. We had two versions on video. The first version was from 1987 from Shades of Dance. That video was edited, which meant we sometimes had problems learning the material because we couldn’t see all of the body. And then we had one other version that I had found. It was one of their last performances of Two Room Apartment. It’s from 1996 in Berlin at the Podewil. We took a lot from the ’96 version because they had updated small things in it.

I think the main thing for us during the process was to find the key to our own apartment. The process raised many questions for us, and we kept some of them onstage as part of the performance. So there is actually this tension throughout the work between artistically processed material and raw, in-between moments of reflection on what we just did.

Oren: It was really important for us to avoid – by all means – putting a dinosaur onstage just to show how beautiful it was. This is not the aim of bringing it back. After running the work several times exactly like Nir and Liat performed it, we realized that it was not going to work. It was going to be a dinosaur; it was going to be a museum to this work. We had to do something to infuse it with our own awareness: if we’re doing this, we are going to do it our way. This was the second phase of the process – liberating ourselves from the image of Nir and Liat performing the duet, and exploring our own language inside the basic structure.

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor in Two Room Apartment. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Q: How are you, Niv and Oren, similar onstage in this work to Nir and Liat, and how are you different? How are you being yourselves in this? Where are there similarities, and where do you diverge from who they are in the piece?

Oren: Two months before the premiere of the work, after having copied all the material from the video and running it several times in the studio, we confronted a crisis. The movement was not ours, the nuances were not ours, the behavior was not ours – it was all theirs. We couldn’t tell whether we were being ourselves or representing Nir and Liat. It was elusive. But it was not only the question of who we are but also questions of artistic choices; some of the choices made in 1987 are not convincing for us today anymore.

So we decided to open up the work for improvisation in the studio. We took the liberty to cut material; to change and re-arrange material; to play with musicality, intensity, and speed; and to insert our own variations on Nir and Liat’s material. We also allowed ourselves to talk during the work if we felt we needed it. Scene by scene, we injected our own sensibilities and our own sense of authenticity into the work.

For example, in the original version there was a seduction scene in which Liat walks over to Nir and starts undressing him in an erotic way, leaving him in his underwear and shoes before walking away. We, on the other hand, had a totally different approach to this scene. We sought emotional, non-sexual intimacy in that moment, so we re-directed the scene. I strip to complete nudity in front of Niv and then climb into his arms like a child seeking comfort and protection, and Niv carries me and moves slowly, as if he is putting me to sleep. This scene became such an intimate scene for us that we couldn’t even leave the original soundtrack untouched; we needed to bring something that we will deeply relate to, something that is “our” music. So we decided to use Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

Niv: The fact that we are two men on stage – and they are a man and a woman – is by itself a major difference. Elements such as energetic output, nuances, balance, and tenderness all yield to a different set of expression and behavior when it comes to two men with high testosterone levels. The original work reflected on the issue of gender by looking into the eternal battle of the sexes; we, on the other hand, reflect on the issue of gender by looking into the relationship of two people of the same gender.
We also decided to have the public sit around the stage and not in front of it. We wanted to share our intimacy with the audience, and the proximity to the stage allows them to watch every detail and every nuance.

I would say that generally the process developed in three stages. First we had to re-write the text of the work in our bodies, and when we finished that stage, we were a representation of the text that Nir and Liat wrote. We were being “them.” In the second phase we decided to improvise, change, and allow talking while we move or in between movement sequences. We could speak about everything and ask any question that ran in our minds. This situation enabled two layers: one was their score and the second was our reflection. In the third phase we fused these two elements into what today came to be our version of Two Room Apartment.

Performance Information

Two Room Apartment will next be performed at Tmuna Theater in Tel Aviv on December 7, 2012 at 14:30 and 20:30. For tickets call 03-5611211.

Machol Shalem Dance House & the Suzanne Dellal Centre Present a Tribute to the Late UK Dancer and Director, Nigel Charnock

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:58:39 +0000

This is a guest post by Meredith Nadler.

In commemoration of the maverick and unforgettable performing artist, Nigel Charnock.

Nigel Charnock. Photo by Hugo Glendinning.

The international dance world is greatly saddened by the loss of one of its most gifted and original artists as well as its most maverick and controversial performers with the untimely death of choreographer, dancer and director, Nigel Charnock. In 1986, together with Lloyd Newson, he founded the DV8 Physical Theater whose works over the next 25 years would revolutionize what we thought of as dance and theater. His pieces, especially his solos, deeply touched, inspired and often outraged audiences. The Arts Council of England hailed him as “a national treasure” while he was branded by London Metro newspaper as the “bad boy of physical theater.” In 2011 he came to Israel at the invitation of dancer Talia Paz and the Machol Shalem Production House of Jerusalem to create 2 new works here in Israel, a duet and group piece. In mid-June, after completing the duet and back in the UK hard at work on his project 10 Men, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. On August 1st at St. Christopher’s Hospice in South London, Nigel Charnock lost his battle with the disease at the age of 52.

Nigel Charnock’s Haunted by the Future. Photo by Tomer Appelbaum.

As a tribute to this great man, on August 22nd the Suzanne Dellal Centre and BI-Arts of the British Council presented Nigel Charnock’s final piece, Haunted by the Future, completed only months before his death. This posthumous premiere of his last new work left no one unmoved as it ran, and at times literally through the audience, the gamut of emotions – from tenderness to sheer rage. “Love versus Sex and Art versus Life” describes well this duet combining dance, theater and comedy and that brought the audience face to face with a couple at war, and yes – sometimes even in love. Michael Winter and Talia Paz, two seasoned and exceptional performers, tested to the limit their desires, needs and the illusions they have about being a couple. Love’s pitfalls and man’s vulnerability and egoism were narrated to hilarious effect through a succinct narration of Pop music favorites, from Motown classics like the 1964 Supremes’ “Baby Love” right through an array of anthems from the 80′s and 90′s. Charnock’s Haunted… is in fact a high strung masterpiece, where the sinews of the pair’s relationship are pulled taut and not a moment goes by that extremes of brutality and fragility towards each other aren’t vying for dominance. The two repeatedly withdrew to opposite sides of the stage, where chairs, water bottles and towels awaited them, as if in a boxing match, only to begin sparring again after they had regained a semblance of composure and the courage to continue the fight. Michael Winter, with his verbal virtuosity and biting, comic flair, had the audience reeling as he deflowered the topical assumptions of a man’s role, duties and even his own virility. Modern day coupledom, that is in this piece meaning the expectations, ambitions and animosity that the opposite sex has in respect to one another, is put on display with a frankness and an absurdity that both enthralled and disquieted us.

Nigel Charnock. Photo by Hugo Glendinning.

The duet Haunted by the Future was followed by a special screening of Charnock’s One Dixon Road, an improvisational solo performed in Jerusalem last year in which Jerusalem itself is caught in brutal clarity by video artists Sascha Engel and Youval Landsberg. The video reveals in stark relief the volatile panorama of a city submersed in the tension of its religious and sectarian polarities. Fleeting glimpses of the city awash in saturated colors frame for the viewer a most extraordinary landscape and people. Images known around the world are interspersed with everyday scenes that are compelling in both their ritualistic fever and urban mundaneness. True to form, Charnock’s solo relates this reality in a tour de force of spoken word and dance, served up in a satiric manner of a man who declares emphatically that there is no God. Religion, framed by him as a bamboozle, a sham, no more than a car salesman pitch aimed to the susceptible, is put on display as a forgery of love and faith. In his trademark improvisational style, he segues at breakneck speed from the holy, to the personal, to a comical dissection of the most familiar elements of dance, theater, cabaret and stardom.

Ofra Idel’s Force Majeure. Photo by Hamutal Vechtel.

The evening’s program also included two more duets by Israeli choreographers. Force Majeure, choreographed by Ofra Idel and performed by herself and Danielle Shoufra, tantalizes the audience with a stirring intimacy in which the two women play out a relationship characterized by teasing, compassion and violence. Both possessing powerful presences, they physically test one another to the point of frequent discomfort as they struggle with each other along a journey of separations, reunions and final farewells. Danielle Shoufra’s quest for self control, her belabored breathing, convulsions and repeated need for resuscitation, mark this piece with a lingering note of death and grief. With a rough and visceral movement language, the two grapple with each other and some unforeseen doom. Accompanying music is an eclectic mix which includes Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue and the Tarantella punctuated by a crystal clear soundscape of rattling chains and a brittle laughter that teeters between hysteria and mockery. Its rawness seems to push the performers to extremes and sometimes even over the edge, in moments that invoke confessions and narrowly aborted suicidal acts. This piece is dedicated to the memory of Tamir Natan, childhood friend of the choreographer, who died in a road accident in La Paz, Bolivia when she was just 21. Further performances of this work will be in Tanzania at the Visa2Dance Festival in October and at the Akko Dance Center later this year. A short film by Betina Fainstein and Lior Har Lev about this piece will be presented as part of a TV series on Jerusalem artists for Channel 8.

Nadar Rosano’s Off-line. Photo by Kfir Bolotin.

The other Israeli work was Nadar Rosano’s Off-line, in which Nadar Rosano and Adi Wineberg dance a duet that resembles a duel of sorts between man and woman, with an almost constant drumming pace set by the two sidestepping in synchronized fashion throughout much of the piece. A series of choreographic recapitulations of well defined movement phrases emphasizes a routine which grows tenser with each repetition. Control and a consuming drive to maintain it denotes an irreparable imbalance of power between the two dancers, with Adi Wineberg seeking flight and freedom with swift, deft movements but resolved to return and hold her own against her male counterpart. Music by Japanese ambient electronic artists Chichei Hatakeyama and Kouhei Matsungama serves as a backdrop of continuity which emphasizes the restlessness of their power struggle. The hypnotic melodies and insistent rhythms that permeate the piece act as an atmospheric anchor, pinning down one under the dominance of the other. This piece can next be seen on September 29-30 in Nicosia, Cypress and in March of next year at the Zurich Tanzhaus.

Meredith Nadler is a Berlin based writer, critic, artist and choreographer. For more about her work, see YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6I_4QBNd0I and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyFRyfpGbY8

Testing Tools 2012 at the Shenkin Garden and Beit Tami, August 7-9

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:08:42 +0000

This is a guest post by Meredith Nadler.

“Testing Tools – Festival of Art in the Making,” an experimental arts festival in its ninth edition this year, offered audiences an intimate view of both visual and performing arts from a wide array of genres, styles and mediums. The festival, which featured over 20 theater and dance pieces and over 40 works of visual art, utilized every possible space – including playground, bathrooms and even elevator. Although impressed by the sheer volume of activity, after understanding that the festival provided no remuneration to the over 100 participating artists, I was hesitant to set my expectations too high concerning the professionalism of the work programmed. However, I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality and innovation of many of the pieces I saw.

Untitled Mural by Yael Balaban and Hadas Reshef. Photo by Yuri Divinsky.

Gil Alon, artist director of the festival, explained, “We wanted to focus on the artists’ creative process. Works that were curated tend not to be finished pieces, but rather works in progress which have been substantially developed and are presented here in their later stages of creation.” Curator Carmit Blumensohn selected works that often took the form of a veritable laboratory, evident in the site specific installation Metabolism by Nivi Alroy and Hila Amran. Or whose actual content clearly evoked genesis and transformation, such as with artist Uri Shapira, who used stop motion and time lapse techniques to create ever-changing landscapes akin to cellular regeneration. Then there was the real life action-painting that took shape over the course of the festival outside at the entrance of the Shenkin Garden by Yael Balaban and Hadas Reshef. Juxtaposing their divergent styles – the former subdued, meditative and precise, the other, a riot of color and cartoon-like proportions – the crowds could watch their mural unfold before their eyes as the two artists worked throughout the festival’s three days non-stop, pausing only for artistic contributions of kids armed with markers and by Tel Aviv’s Mayor himself.

Carrying Him Circling Her. Duet by Sharon Attinson and Ofer Bymel. Photo by Yuri Divinsky.

Carrying Him Circling Her. Duet by Avigail Sfez and Elad Bardes. Photo by Yuri Divinsky.

Dance pieces highlighting the mercurial relationship between dancer and musician, such as the pair of duets, Carrying Him Circling Her, by Sharon Attiinson and Ofer Bymel, and Avigail Sfez and Elad Bardes, laid bare for the audience the constant but ever shifting relationship between the two mediums, music and dance. Their live improvisations underscored the interplay of temperaments and competing desires between artists at play and work, with the latter duet putting in stark relief the co-dependence inherent in two artists who are often at odds with each other, struggling to voice each own’s creativity.

Silence by Orian Michaeli and Adi Shaul. Photo by Anat Merav.

Silence by Orian Michaeli and Adi Shaul, another duet between dancer and musician, relied on the interchanging social dynamics of formal and informal relationships. Adi Shaul’s experimental and quirky live musical mix and dancer Orian Michaeli’s sense of comic vulgarity and deadpan humor made for one of the funniest pieces of the festival. And yet another duo, the performance Clarity by Eden Wiseman and Ovi Dvir, relied heavily on one another to build a palpable tension between themselves and the unforgiving element of glass being crushed and shattered. Impermanence and vivid acts of destruction punctuated this short piece with violence and a raw sexuality.

Clarity by Eden Wiseman and Ovi Dvir. Photo by Liron Narunsky.

Finally the festival’s dance offer was tempered and brought full circle by the piece BE-3, inspired by Tai Chi and choreographed by Michal Huber-Rotschild with dancers/creators Mirit Bergman, Dana Hamburger, Tal Haran and vocals by Tal Haran. It explored the delicate underpinning between three generations of women. Slow movements and well crafted choreography highlighted the eternal constellation between the three women symbolizing daughter, mother and grandmother. Their tenderness and the sincerity of their unveiled compassion for and vulnerability to each other made for an unsettling reminder of how rare these qualities are revealed in the egoism and cynicism of today’s world and contemporary art in general.

BE-3 by Michal Huber-Rotschild. Photo by Danny Berman.

Moving on to the theater works presented at this festival, the motif of the subtly and finespun power present in the relationship between women, Tova Birnnbuam’s and Rachel Gets Salomons’ That Which Is Not One metamorphosed in the two women spinning both wool and tales in several languages. A distinct counterpoint of strength and restraint between the two women and the actual wool that spread out in all directions interconnecting them with the space, gave the piece a genuine feeling of antiquity and Jewish continuity. This coupled with the absurdity and playfulness of the piece’s storytelling, mixing modern day and biblical references, made for a delightful performance.

That Which Is Not One by Tova Birnbaum and Rachel Gets Salomon. Photo by Yuri Divinsky.

The play Contemporary Heart by director Avraham Simhi, who built by hand the circus-like stage set of impressive scale in the garden of Beit Tami, employed a large cast which herded and cajoled the audience, both physically and in chorus, into being avid spectators of a duel between good and evil. A severe, social satire on modern day materialism replete with a moral heroine, the comedic interruptions of a singular colorful incantation of the Furies, Greek goddesses of retribution, and the final and complete dissolution of the play’s fourth wall. It held the audience captive in a fast and furious play staged and performed with great skill in the grand tradition of Brechtian Epic Theater.

Contemporary Heart by Dir. Avraham Simhi. Photo by Yuri Divinsky.

Meredith Nadler is a Berlin based writer, critic, artist and choreographer. For more about her work, see YouTube videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6I_4QBNd0I and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyFRyfpGbY8.

My book (Contemporary Dance in Israel) has been published!

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:51:24 +0000

If you have wondered why I have written less on this website lately, it is in large part because I have been pouring much of my time into several other large-scale projects. Last year, I wrote a book – and today, I am happy to announce that Contemporary Dance in Israel has been published by Asociación Cultural Danza Getxo!

While there are other books about the history of dance in Israel as well as journals and anthologies featuring articles about the country’s contemporary dance, this is the first book in English fully devoted to one of the world’s most vibrant contemporary dance scenes. Composed of short sections about choreographers, companies, festivals, theaters, and other organizations, the book introduces newcomers to Israeli contemporary dance and enables readers familiar with the field to learn more about leading artists and institutions.

You can learn more about my book on a new website designed as a multimedia companion to Contemporary Dance in Israel. There you can find short videos of works discussed in the book as well as links to the websites of choreographers, companies, festivals, theaters, and other organizations. And of course, if you want to read the book itself (and I hope you will do so!), you can buy the English version of Contemporary Dance in Israel at the following links:

Paperback printed version, through bubok.co.uk

Paperback printed version, through libreriayorick.com (the website is in Spanish, but the book itself is in English. Note: this site is currently out of stock)

PDF version (compatible with iPad, e-readers, and computers), through bubok.co.uk

PDF version (compatible with iPad, e-readers, and computers), through bubok.es (the website is in Spanish, but the PDF is in English)

Kindle version, through Amazon.com (the Kindle version is also available on other countries’ Amazon stores)

I am very excited about publishing my first book, and I would love to hear any thoughts you have about it either in comments on this blog post or through e-mail and Facebook messages. If you would like to like to help me by spreading the word to other dance fans on Facebook or through e-mail, I would greatly appreciate it! And if you are interested in hearing me lecture about my research, please use the form below to contact me.

Batsheva Dance Company: Ohad Naharin & Tabaimo’s “Furo”

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:42:53 +0000

Video: Excerpts of Ohad Naharin & Tabaim’s Furo, performed by the Batsheva Dance Company.

Nearly four years ago, I saw Furo – a collaboration between choreographer Ohad Naharin and video artist Tabaimo – when it was performed at Tel Aviv’s port. Now Furo is back at Batsheva Dance Company’s Studio Varda in the Suzanne Dellal Centre from March 15-26.

Furo fascinated me in 2008, spurring me to write two posts at the time: one after attending the press conference and one after watching the performance on the day of its Tel Aviv premiere. Both of my reflections are below, and ticket information for the current run of Furo is at the end of the article.

* * *

Batsheva Dance Company in Furo. Photograph by Gadi Dagon.

The text below was originally published as “Moving Forward with Ohad Naharin’s ‘Furo’” on The Winger on May 14, 2008.

A question was asked in Hebrew, restated in English, and then translated into Japanese. This was part of the scene at yesterday’s press conference for Furo, a collaboration between Ohad Naharin and the Japanese video artist Tabaimo.

In the last two decades, Israeli choreographers – led by Naharin – have pushed the boundaries of their art form along with their foreign counterparts. Furo continues this move forward. Globalization, collaboration, installation, technology, and video art are some of the hot words right now, and every one of these terms can be used in a discussion about Furo.

The seed for the production began in New York City, where Naharin saw an exhibition of Tabaimo’s Japanese Bathhouse, and the collaboration between the Israeli choreographer and the Japanese video artist was initially shown in Stockholm. Now the installation – with Tabaimo’s video projected onto three screens which shape a stage space dotted with yellow buckets and flanked by two dancers standing on boxes with rotating platforms – is in Tel Aviv.

Over the next few weeks, audiences will flock to the city’s port to see the work, which loops continuously for several hours nearly every day. Viewers can filter in and out as they like; meanwhile, pairs of Batsheva dancers trade off performing duty partway through each loop (one full cycle is 45 minutes). I got to preview the work at the press conference and can’t wait to go back to see it with a regular audience on Friday. I have a feeling I’ll stay for a few cycles . . .

* * *

Batsheva Dance Company in Furo. Photograph by Gadi Dagon.

After viewing Furo at the Tel Aviv Port in 2008, I wrote some more musings about the work and how it alters performance conventions. This text was initially included in “Two Views of Batsheva: Ohad Naharin’s Furo and MAX,” which was published on The Winger on May 17, 2008.

Friday was the opening of Ohad Naharin’s Furo, and I made it back to the port for its first few loops (yes, I was hooked – I stayed for 2.5 cycles before tearing myself away). Besides wanting to view the work itself again, I wanted to see how the installation functioned with a real audience.

As dance-goers, we’re accustomed to being ushered in together prior to the performance, which has a single fixed beginning. We watch, we clap during the curtain calls, and we get up together to exit at the end. We share an experience within a defined period of time.

With Furo, though, people are issued tickets with a general two-hour time frame. They enter whenever they arrive in that time block, and then they leave whenever they like. Consequently, there’s a nearly constant trickle of people in and out of the installation.

It takes quite a coordinated effort on the part of the staff to ensure that this movement does not disrupt the performance, and I observed with interest how several strategically placed ushers reminded audience members to turn off their phones and guided viewers to empty spots in the darkened space. Some fellow viewers stayed for a few cycles, while others chose to leave after they saw all the material (I heard a few whispers of, “We’ve seen this before!”). Although each pair of performers maintains a clear-cut start and finish, each audience member has a different beginning and end. It’s still a shared experience – but it’s much more fluid.

Batsheva Dance Company in Furo. Photograph by Gadi Dagon.

Performance Information for Furo in Studio Varda, March 15-26, 2012

Tickets (80 NIS or 70 NIS with student/senior/Tel Aviv resident discounts) are available at Batsheva Dance Company’s website and the company’s box office (03-5104037). On each day of performances, there are three sessions, with each ticket issued for a 1.5 hour period during which you can arrive.

The View from Here

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:21:43 +0000

George Staib on the banks of the Jordan River.

This is a guest post by George Staib.

It was late in the spring of 2011 when I found myself on the banks of the Jordan River, discussing dance with an Israeli friend of mine, with whom I had shared a stage in Atlanta, GA. The new environment, the reconnection, and the gentle vigor of the words flowed as effortlessly as the river itself. Marked with a bit of sadness, that moment encapsulated my Tel Aviv dance experience, which was coming to a close. It was my intention to be submerged in a dance community that shouted boldly and succinctly from across an ocean, which I did. I did this for five weeks, met open arms, and have been changed forever.

My fascination with Israeli modern dance crept up on me. It was a performance of Deca Dance by the New York based company, Cedar Lake, which drew my attention to Israel, namely to Ohad Naharin. Prior, my wife had seen Naharin’s Mamootot, and though I had no first-hand experience of the work, her words were vivid, and I sat transfixed listening to the account she had given of Batsheva’s performance in Brooklyn. With the wonders of YouTube, I found that the images that presented themselves on my screen were varied, distinct, chilling, and captivating. I fell into an abyss of curiosity, admiration, and overwhelming addiction to what I was seeing. Modern dance, to me, had been reinvented. Rather it returned to what I believe its original intention was: communication.

The people I encountered on a daily basis, either through Iris Erez’s classes, Gaga classes, or contact workshops seemed to be fundamentally driven by the need/desire/want to communicate.; to share an experience in all its open-ended glory, in all its universality. The artists’ experience became my experience, and within each class I found myself being asked to show what I was feeling, reveal what I was sensing, and to not be shy. If ever a phrase resonated with profound impact, it would be that one. Don’t be shy. It was my mantra in Tel Aviv and was affirmed with each new acquaintance and friend asking me to do the same. There was a liberation of the dancer I had tucked away, and a re-introduction to the self. All through movement; all through communication.

Countless articles have been written on the power of Gaga and while I found my sentiments echoed those of other enthusiasts, what was not as easy to discover was what Israelis thought of their own adaptations of modern dance. Many friends I made in Tel Aviv seemed genuinely shocked that I would choose Israel to focus my attention on dance. Many were awestruck that Israel was creating a frenzy in the United States, and all smiled politely with a sense of humility that is rare. I witnessed that there was no shyness on stage, no apologetic movement, no need to move away from movement. Movement was the vehicle, and while many dance-makers in the U.S. seem to use movement as a decoration for text, Israelis use movement to take the place of words that could never be as powerful as an honest gesture, a sincere dance.

Within the countless performances I took in while in Tel Aviv, from Batsheva, to Yasmeen Godder, to Yossi Berg and Oded Graf, to KCDC, to Iris Erez, and many, many others, I saw no need to qualify, no need to have all the answers and certainly no shyness. I marveled at the thoughtfulness of the work, the remarkable skill of the dancers (be they released, Gaga-ed, or other;) and the undeniable connection to the audience. The communications, the exchanges, were worth more than gold. I felt like part of the experience and at the same time, was a spectator. I loved not having all the answers and being invited to make my own answers to the mysterious questions being asked on stage. The open-ended communication and dancer-to-audience dialogue continued long after the curtain closed.

The landscape of dance in Israel is broad and rich and lives in a culture that must continuously endure threats and instability. Thankfully, beauty hasn’t suffered. The warmth of those offering their homes, the generosity of the teachers, the inclination towards communication, and the pretention-free, forward-thinking artists I encountered, never allowed complacency to enter their studios, their dances, their lives. I recognized that what some might perceive as forward momentum is actually a by-product of the way life is led in Israel. There is continuous celebration; there is reverence for the past. Tel Aviv moves forward by stating its presence, by boldly commanding an art form through the form. Dances in Israel really dance. They speak louder than words and rely upon movement to tell a story. Actors act, painters paint, and in Israel, choreographers choreograph, and dancers dance. They move with the impetus of sublime images, they create with an awareness of those who will watch, and they unknowingly made me feel like a citizen of a community that communicates.

George Staib’s Name Day. Photograph by Dustin Chambers.

George Staib, through the generosity of Emory University, spent five weeks in Tel Aviv studying Gaga and being an enthusiastic audience member at Suzanne Dellal. He is the artistic director of Staibdance and is a dance teacher at Emory University, in Atlanta, GA. He looks forward to a return visit to Tel Aviv in June, 2012.

You can see George’s blog, maintained while in Tel Aviv, at the following address: movingtowardshome.wordpress.com

Batsheva Dance Company’s Mixed Bill: Yasmeen Godder and Sharon Eyal & Gai Bachar

Deborah Friedes Galili — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:46:26 +0000

Video: Batsheva Dance Company in Yasmeen Godder’s The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act

On first thought, Batsheva Dance Company’s new mixed bill seems an unusual choice of programming. House (titled “Ha’avoda shel hofesh” in Hebrew) by Sharon Eyal and Gai Bachar is a natural pick, since Eyal has served as the troupe’s house choreographer since 2005. The first half of the evening, however, belongs to someone from decidedly outside of the Batsheva fold: Yasmeen Godder. Godder is not a complete stranger to Batsheva, having created Green Fields on the Ensemble in 2000, but her The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act is the first work by anyone other than Ohad Naharin or Eyal to be performed by Batsheva in several years. Beyond the novelty of a guest choreographer working with the company, the combination of these particular artists initially seems to be an odd coupling. Were I to make a family tree of contemporary dance in Israel, Godder’s branch would be far away from that of Eyal and Bachar. Indeed, aesthetically, these creators occupy nearly opposite ends on the art form’s spectrum.

Yet watching the performance at Suzanne Dellal on January 4, this pairing started to make sense.

For all their stylistic differences, Godder and the team of Eyal and Bachar do have one key trait in common: they are artists who are audacious and provocative, in the best senses of those words. Rather than play it safe, these creators unabashedly delve into the realms of the twisted, the disturbing, and even the grotesque in their repertory. Rarely have I heard anyone deliver a lukewarm review of either Godder’s or Eyal’s work; indeed, it’s practically impossible to not react strongly to their choreography.

Yasmeen Godder’s The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act. Photograph by Gadi Dagon.

Batsheva’s mixed bill of Godder’s The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act and Eyal and Bachar’s House may not be an aesthetically cohesive evening. But it’s savvy programming, for each dance has the capacity to leave a significant impact on the audience – and together, these electrifying works outline the range of contemporary dance in Israel today.

Sharon Eyal and Gai Bachar’s House. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Batsheva’s new program continues at Suzanne Dellal in Tel Aviv through January 7 and returns from January 18-20. Additional performances are scheduled later in the season; for more details, please visit Batsheva’s website.

Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance, edited by Judith Brin Ingber

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:31:43 +0000

Image courtesy of Judith Brin Ingber.

I have been eagerly awaiting the release of Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance ever since writer and editor Judith Brin Ingber first sent me a table of contents. When I finally met her in person last year at the Modern Jewish Experience through the Lens of Dance conference at The Ohio State University, she whetted my appetite for the anthology even more with her slide show of images from the book. And now, having carefully read through my copy of this sizable volume, published this past summer by Wayne State University Press, I can vouch that this book was well worth the wait. For those of us who study the field – and for those who wish to know more about the subject – Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance is an invaluable resource.

Besides a few of Brin Ingber’s own writings, this anthology includes an extraordinarily diverse array of writers: Sara Levi-Tanai, Felix Fibich with Judith Brin Ingber, Janice Ross, Nina S. Spiegel, Josh Perelman, Ayalah Goren-Kadman, Dawn Lille, Shalom Staub, Giora Manor, Zvi Friedhaber, Barbara Sparti, Yehuda Hyman, Jill Gellerman, Dina Roginsky, Elke Kaschl, Naomi M. Jackson, and Gaby Aldor. Some of these authors are themselves dancers and choreographers who offer their first-person insights, while others approach their topics from a scholarly point of view. This breadth of voices is one of the book’s greatest strengths, engaging the reader anew with the start of each article.

Moreover, with writings by such a substantial number of authors who boast different areas of expertise, Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance provides perspectives on a remarkably wide range of subject matter. Articles on Jewish dancing masters in Renaissance Italy, Israeli folk dance as practiced in Israel and New York City, Hasidic dance, Yemenite dance, Kurdish dance, Ethiopian dance, ballet, contemporary dance, and more all find their place in this book. Spanning history and geography, and encompassing dance performed both onstage and off, the anthology portrays a broad yet nuanced vision of how Jews have danced and continue to dance.

In keeping with the title of the book, Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance features not only texts but also a wealth of images. 182 illustrations illuminate the authors’ points. You can view some of the images and hear Brin Ingber’s explanations in the video produced by the Jewish Daily Forward below.

Images of Jewish & Israeli Dance from Jewish Daily Forward on Vimeo.

Since the publication of Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance, Brin Ingber has embarked on a series of book signings and lectures, and her travels have now brought her to Israel. On Sunday, December 18, she will speak at the Dance Library of Israel at 8:00 p.m. Entrance is free, but due to limited seating, reservations should be made by e-mailing danceba@mail.tel-aviv.gov.il

International Exposure 2011: The Year in Israeli Dance

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:59:25 +0000

Renana Raz’s The Diplomats. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

As 2011 draws to a close, it’s natural to reflect on the year that has passed – and for those of us who follow Israeli contemporary dance, International Exposure offers the perfect opportunity for reflecting on the works created here in the last twelve months. From November 30-December 4, International Exposure 2011 will present much of the past year’s bounty to an audience of presenters and journalists from around the globe. Most of the festival focuses on Israeli contemporary dance, but a few other genres including flamenco and belly dance will also be represented.

While the festival will include a number of studio showings just for guests of International Exposure, a number of programs have tickets available for purchase through the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s box office (03-5105656). Here’s a video preview of the festival, with an emphasis on the shows that are open to the public.

Wednesday, November 30

After finishing registration, guests of International Exposure will be treated to a performance by Orly Portal and the Andalusian Orchestra in Studio Varda. At 8:00 p.m. in the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s main theater, Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak will offer their brand new work, Bombyx Mori. The first night will finish in Yerushalmi Hall with Maria Kong Dancers Company in a program called Kong’s Night, featuring works by Leo Lerus, Anderson Braz, and Artour Astman.

Video: Maria Kong, trailer for Kong’s Night

Thursday, December 1

The second day of International Exposure starts with a performance of Yoram Karmi’s Jungle Book by Fresco Dance Group at the Holon Theater, followed by the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company’s performance of Rami Be’er’s Ben Kodesh Le’Hol at Suzanne Dellal at noon.

Video: Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company

Yoni Soutchy’s Ben, one of two winners in the biennial Shades of Dance competition, will be performed along with Anat Grigorio’s Eternal Mission in the more intimate Yerushalmi Hall at 2:00 p.m.

Video: Yoni Soutchy’s Ben

Some guests will head to Tamar Borer’s studio for a showing of her work, YAMUNA.

Video: Tamar Borer’s YAMUNA

Everyone will reconvene at 6:00 p.m. in the main theater at Suzanne Dellal for Roy Assaf’s 6 Years Later and Noa Zuk’s Speaker, two dances from this year’s Curtain Up.

Video: Roy Assaf’s 6 Years Later . . .

Video: Noa Zuk’s Speaker

A mixed bill in the main theater at 9:00 p.m. will include Dafi Altabeb’s High Expectations, Dana Ruttenberg’s Poly, and Rachel Erdos’s Why We Tell.

Video: Dafi Altabeb’s High Expectations

Sahar Azimi and Tamara Erde’s Cell in a Human Scale will be presented in Studio Varda at 10:30 p.m.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzOvt4ktueo

Video: Sahar Azimi and Tamara Erde’s Cell in a Human Scale

Friday, December 2

The third day of the festival begins at 10:00 a.m. at Suzanne Dellal with Vertigo Dance Company in Noa Wertheim‘s Null.

Video: Vertigo Dance Company in Noa Wertheim’s Null

Yasmeen Godder will present Storm End Come at the Nahmani Theater at 1:00 p.m.

Yasmeen Godder’s Storm End Come. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Back at Suzanne Dellal at 4:30 p.m., Ido Tadmor offers Three Rooms. And after a Shabbat reception, Suzanne Dellal will show its latest production: a mixed bill featuring Renana Raz‘s The Diplomats and Barak Marshall‘s Wonderland.

Video: Renana Raz’s The Diplomats

Video: Barak Marshall’s Wonderland

Saturday, December 3

Saturday kicks off at 10:00 a.m. in Suzanne Dellal with COMPAS Dance Company, a flamenco troupe, in Pavo Real.

Video: COMPAS in Pavo Real

At noon in the Inbal Theater, Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor present Ship of Fools, which premiered in this past year’s Israel Festival.

Video: Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Ship of Fools

Across the courtyard in Yerushalmi Hall, Ronit Ziv offers With Subtitles at 2:00 p.m.

Video: Ronit Ziv’s With Subtitles

At 3:30 p.m., the main theater will feature a mixed bill with Idan Cohen’s Mad Siren, Lee Meir’s Translation Included (one of the winners of the Shades of Dance competition), and the Be’ersheva-based Kamea Dance Company in Uri Ivgi’s Four Legs.

Video: Idan Cohen’s Mad Siren

Video: Lee Meir’s Translation Included

Over in the Inbal Theater at 18:00, Tami Dance Company will perform La by Nimrod Freed with Israel Brait. This work premiered during the Israel Festival in Jerusalem.

Video: Nimrod Freed’s Tami Dance Company in La

Idan Sharabi’s Rak Tamid will be performed in Studio Varda at 8:00 p.m.

Video: Idan Sharabi’s Rak Tamid

Saturday’s programming will end with the Jerusalem-based Kolben Dance Company in Amir Kolben’s Babel in the main theater at 10:00 p.m.

Video: Amir Kolben’s Babel

Sunday, December 4

After a tour to Jerusalem, International Exposure 2011 will come to a close in Suzanne Dellal’s main theater with a 9:00 p.m. performance of Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin’s Sadeh21, which premiered in the Israel Festival.

Video: Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin’s Sadeh 21

Batsheva Dance Company 2011-2012: The Year Ahead

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:40:31 +0000

Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin’s Sadeh21. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Last week, Batsheva Dance Company unveiled its 2011-2012 season at a press conference in Studio Varda. And what a season it will be!

On December 30, the troupe will premiere two new works, one by Sharon Eyal and Gai Bachar and the other by Yasmeen Godder. At the end of March, the junior Batsheva Ensemble will debut another new work by Sharon Eyal and Gai Bachar along with a restaging of Ohad Naharin’s classic Tabula Rasa (1986), which has not been shown in Israel since 2004. Tel Aviv audiences will also be treated to performances of Eyal’s Bill and Naharin’s Sadeh21, Hora, MAX, Shalosh, Kamuyot, Deca Dance, and Furo, created in collaboration with the Japanese video artist Tabaimo and last staged in Israel in 2008. Both the main company and the ensemble will travel around Israel, appearing in other cities and throughout the periphery; the troupes will also journey abroad, with several performances in Europe in November and December and a North American tour in February and March. By the time the season ends, the two companies will have given a combined total of well over two hundred performances.

The press conference kicked off with a peek at an installation that the main company will perform at the Fondation Beyeler, a museum in Basel, on November 23 and 24. In the museum, the audience will sit around the space and can come and go as they please; in the press conference, we too sat around the perimeter of the space and remained riveted during the brief showing. As company member Guy Shomroni DJ’ed, the rest of the dancers filtered in and out of the center, quoting snippets from across Naharin’s repertory. Here and there duets formed spontaneously and unison took shape organically. Phrases from different works created unusual juxtapositions, while occasionally more and more dancers gathered to build a section from a single work.

Although I was invited to this press conference as a dance writer, I attended it along with the other 29 dancers who are studying Ohad Naharin’s movement language in the inaugural year of the Gaga Teacher Training Program – and in the midst of my total immersion in Gaga, my viewing was undoubtedly colored by my recent experiences in the studio. I couldn’t help but notice the Batsheva dancers slip in and out of phrases we have been learning in our repertory classes, like the quiet unison from Kamuyot (based on Mamootot) and a short, speedy solo from Sadeh21.

While a thrill surged through my body as I recognized these movements, I was even more fascinated by the dancers’ mastery of Naharin’s movement language. Trained for years in Gaga, these dancers move fluently in Naharin’s idiom, and their knowledge of his recent repertory is encyclopedic. Like writers cleverly engaging in wordplay, these dancers rummaged freely through Naharin’s vocabulary and deployed witty plays on movement.

I continued to mull over the Batsheva dancers’ relationship to Gaga as the press conference continued on to previews of the new work by Sharon Eyal and Gai Bachar as well as that of Yasmeen Godder. Sharon Eyal, herself steeped in Gaga as a former member of Batsheva and as the company’s current house choreographer, has developed a unique voice that nevertheless is a cousin to Naharin’s language. Having worked with Eyal on previous productions, the dancers moved in her creation as if speaking one of their native tongues. And even though Yasmeen Godder’s language is further removed on the family tree of contemporary dance, the five Batsheva dancers in her new work adapted admirably to her vocabulary. This mixed bill is one to look forward to, for it showcases the range of this company’s extraordinary dancers in works by some of this country’s most exciting choreographers.

Curtain Up 2011: A Festival of Dance Premieres

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:11:11 +0000

In Her Own Words by Rachel Erdos. Photo by Yaniv Cohen.

Founded in 1989, Curtain Up (Haramat Masach in Hebrew) has become a centerpiece of Israel’s contemporary dance calendar. In many ways, the core of this yearly platform has remained the same over the decades: up-and-coming choreographers who operate outside of the country’s major companies receive financial and artistic support to present new works on a series of mixed bills in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Yet in its most recent editions, Curtain Up has added another layer: cultivating artistic directors who are themselves choreographers. Last year, four alumni of the festival – Tamar Borer, Sahar Azimi, Ronit Ziv, and Renana Raz – were each charged with curating an evening. This year, Borer, Azimi, and Ziv are returning as artistic directors, applying the lessons they learned in 2010 to Curtain Up 2011, which runs from November 3-12.

Curtain Up’s three programs will each be performed twice at the Suzanne Dellal Centre and once at the Jerusalem Theatre. In cooperation with the Choreographers Association and Tarbut L’Yisrael, the works created for Curtain Up will also be performed in Israel’s northern and southern regions, enabling these younger choreographers to gain further exposure.

So just what is on the bill for Curtain Up this year? Here is a video preview of the three programs:

Curtain 1

Artistic Director: Tamar Borer
Choreographers: Iris Erez, Maya Brinner, Maya Weinberg
Performances at the Suzanne Dellal Centre: November 3 and 12 at 21:00
Performances at the Jerusalem Theatre: November 10 at 20:30

Video: Shuttered by Iris Erez

Video: Forest by Maya Brinner

Video: Some Fish (swim up the river to die) by Maya Weinberg

Curtain 2

Artistic Director: Sahar Azimi
Choreographers: Doron Raz, Roy Assaf, Gili Navot, Noa Zuk
Performances at the Suzanne Dellal Centre: November 4 at 22:00 and November 10 at 21:00
Performances at the Jerusalem Theatre: November 8 at 20:30

Video: Valentia by Doron Raz

Video: 6 Years Later by Roy Assaf

Video: Subject to Change by Gili Navot

Video: Speaker by Noa Zuk

Curtain 3

Artistic Director: Ronit Ziv
Choreographers: Hillel Kogan, Rachel Erdos, Osnat Kelner
Performances at the Suzanne Dellal Centre: November 5 at 21:00 and November 11 at 22:00
Performances at the Jerusalem Theatre: November 9 at 20:30

Video: Obscene Gesture by Hillel Kogan

Video: In Her Own Words by Rachel Erdos

Video: The sad little, unappreciative, Pisces, Jesus man by Osnat Kelner

More Information

Tickets for Curtain Up performances are 60 NIS. For tickets to Curtain Up at Suzanne Dellal, call 03-5105656. For tickets to Curtain Up at the Jerusalem Theatre, call 02-5605755.

Shades of Dance 2011 Video Preview

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 08:00:16 +0000

Lilach Livne’s Monday Larissa. Photo by Lilach Livne.

After months of work, sixteen up-and-coming choreographers are ready to unveil their creations in the 2011 Shades of Dance competition at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv. Whether you’re wondering which programs to attend or live afar and wish you could see the latest work coming out of Israel, here’s a video preview that will give you a glimpse of this year’s lineup.

Tickets for Shades of Dance performances are available at 03-5105656 or online at the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s website.

Program Alef

September 7 at 20:00
September 9 at 20:00

Video: Gil C. Harush’s TAKANA

Video: Smadar Goshen’s Urbania

Video: Sharon Vaisvaser’s 42 Inch

Program Bet

September 8 at 20:00
September 10 at 22:30

Video: Idan Yoav’s Almost Human

Video: Lee Meir’s Translation in the Body of the Text

Video: Yuval Goldstein’s Expensive Shit

Program Bet also includes Ran Ben Dror’s Agasi Pallas.

Program Gimel

September 7 at 17:30
September 8 at 22:30
September 9 at 12:00

Video: Meytal Blanaru’s Aurora

Video: Moran Yitzhaki Abergel’s Over Me

Video: Lilach Livne’s Monday Larissa

Program Daled

September 7 at 22:30
September 8 at 17:30
September 9 at 14:30

Video: Yoni Soutchy’s Ben

Video: Merav Cohen’s And When the Beast Returned

Video: Amit Zamir’s Buba (Doll)

Program Hey

September 9 at 22:30
September 10 at 17:30 and 20:00

Video: Liron Ozeri’s Caravan

Video: Ido Batash’s Bread and Circuses Blood

Video: Artour Astman’s Foosho

A sixteen-question response to Jan Fabre’s Preparatio Mortis

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:34:18 +0000

Video: Jan Fabre’s Preparatio Mortis

A sixteen-question response to Jan Fabre’s Preparatio Mortis

Guest article by Ori Josephine Lenkinski

How much did those flowers cost?
Where does one buy that amount of flowers?
Who laid them out like that?
How long did it take to arrange them?
Was the organ music in the beginning recorded or live?
How many minutes did we sit in the dark listening to it?
What was the significance of the date on the tomb?
Does the dancer enjoy performing this solo?
Does she have a wound on her knee or is it a stray petal?
How many butterflies were inside the vivarium on stage?
How many butterflies were purchased before the show versus the number that made it to the stage?
How many butterfly deaths have there been since the premier of this piece?
Where does one buy butterflies?
Is it legal?
Did more of the butterflies take flight during rehearsals or other performances?
What went wrong during this performance?

For those who have not seen this performance, it is a one-hour solo, danced by Annabelle Chambon. The piece begins with several minutes of darkness, enhanced in creepiness by epic organ music. When the lights come up, thousands of perfectly laid out flowers are revealed, surrounding a cube-like structure in the center of the stage. This, too, is covered in gorgeously arranged flowers. Slowly, something begins to move inside the structure. It is Chambon, dressed in a lacy, black undergarments. As the piece unfolds, Chambon writhes around the stage, destroying the glorious floral designs. Towards the end of the work, Chambon unveils the structure, which is a tomb, marked with a date. She enters the tomb, nude, contorting her body as some twenty butterflies swarm around her.

A Conversation with the Bulgarian Choreographer Ivo Dimchev

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:02:39 +0000

Guest article by Ori Josephine Lenkinski.

Date: August 13
Time: 10:41 PM
Location: outside of the Schauspielhaus in Vienna, after the performance of A Talk by Sudermann and Soderberg.

Ori: Your performance last night was amazing. (Performance of X-On, a quartet involving sculptures by Franz West).

Ivo (with slight disdain): Really? What was amazing about it?

Ori (caught off guard): Well… it was very committed. All four of you were very committed in your performance.

Ivo: I found these girls (Sudermann and Soderberg) much more committed.

Ori: Really? Well, it was also very well put together.

Ivo: Oh. I didn’t think so at all. (It was the premier performance of X-On). So, anything that is well organized you find amazing?

Ori (jeez!): No. But I did very much enjoy your piece.

Ivo: And did you not find it overly bourgeois?

Ori: I thought that the nod to bourgeois was intentional. Was it not?

Ivo: It was.

Ori: Is it not difficult to draw your own blood on stage?

Ivo: No.

Ori: Really?

Ivo: I do it all the time. In my solo, Lili Handel, I do it and I performed that piece over three hundred times. I sell the blood afterwards.

Ori: For how much?

Ivo: Well, it’s an auction.

Ori: And how much is the most you’ve gotten for it?

Ivo (pleased with himself): 50 Euros.

Ori (not sure if that’s a lot): That’s a lot.

Ivo: It’s a work of art.

Ori: And is it Lili Handel’s blood or Ivo Dimchev’s?

Ivo (obviously this is a ridiculous question): It’s Lili Handel’s.

An interruption distracts Ivo Dimchev. Ori tiptoes away towards a group of fellow danceWEBbers.

Shades of Dance 2011: 16 New Choreographers at Suzanne Dellal

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:45:31 +0000

Liron Ozeri’s Caravan. Photo by Kobi Ben Sasson.

As Idit Herman stepped up to the podium in Yerushalmi Hall at the Suzanne Dellal Centre for the press conference announcing Shades of Dance (Gvanim Bemachol) 2011, she reflected on how meaningful this moment was for her. Herman – who co-founded Tel Aviv’s adventurous Clipa Theater with Dmitry Tyulpanov – first received widespread acclaim as a creator in 1997 at Shades of Dance, a biennial platform for new choreographers. Winning the top prize at the 1997 competition helped launch Herman and Tyulpanov’s career; indeed, the award enabled the partners to embark on their next project, and the momentum that built from that initial success progressed until Clipa became a well-known player in the country’s art scene. Now Herman has come full circle, returning to Shades of Dance as artistic director and helping the next generation of choreographers get their start.

Shades of Dance, which takes place every two years and is now in its sixteenth edition, has undergone numerous changes since its inception in 1984. The inaugural event was held in Ramla as a celebration of independent choreographers, boasting both concerts and workshops. Moving to the Duhl Auditorium in Tel Aviv in 1987, the second Shades of Dance bore a closer resemblance to today’s platform with a competition structure inviting new choreographers to vie for a prize. Shades of Dance found a long-term home at Suzanne Dellal in 1990, and here, it has been led by a string of artistic directors from Ellida Geyra to Naomi Perlov to Hanoch Ben Dror to Herman. In some years, the choreographers were organized into bills based on themes, while in other years the programs had no titles. Some editions of the festival included additional shows featuring works by choreographers still in high school. Occasionally, more than one top prize was awarded, while in 2007 and 2009, Shades of Dance was not organized as a competition. Amidst all this variation, the constant has been an emphasis on showcasing a broad spectrum of work by new artists who are, more often than not, as yet unknown to the larger public.

Idan Yoav’s Almost Human. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

This year’s Shades of Dance, to be held from September 7-10, will certainly fulfill this aim. From the 90 aspiring choreographers who applied, Herman selected 16 artists whom she believed were “the bravest among them, who wanted to go all the way.” These choreographers went through an intensive process, sometimes consulting with the artistic director about how to clearly bring out their works’ content and craft their visual design. Herman has arranged the resulting dances into five programs according to theme, and noting the great push that the first prize once gave her and Tyulpanov, she is reinstating the competition model so that an award contributed by an anonymous donor may propel the most promising of these young voices to even greater heights.

The five different programs of Shades of Dance 2011 are as follows:

Sharon Vaisvaser’s 42 Inch. Photo by Araleh.

Program Aleph: Pure Dance highlights virtuoso movement in Gil Carlos Harush’s TAKANA, Smadar Goshen’s Urbania, and Sharon Vaisvaser’s 42 Inch. Program Aleph will be performed on September 7 at 20:00 and September 9 at 20:00 in Dellal Hall.

Ran Ben Dror’s Agassi Pallas. Photo by Sarah Ben Dror.

Program Bet: Dream Big features work by four creators whom Herman described as “daring artists with chutzpah.” The program includes Idan Yoav’s Almost Human, Ran Ben Dror’s Agassi Pallas, Lee Meir’s Translation in the Body of the Text, and Yuval Goldstein’s Expensive Shit. Program Bet will be performed on September 8 at 20:00 and September 10 at 22:30 in Dellal Hall.

Meytal Blanaru’s Aurora. Photo by Julie Betrad.

Program Gimel: The Future is Now centers on work that Herman calls “futuristic dance” with refreshingly unfamiliar movement. The bill is composed of Meytal Blanaru’s Aurora, Moran Yitzhaki Abergel’s Over me, and Lilach Livne’s Monday Larissa. Program Gimel will be performed on September 7 at 17:30, September 8 at 22:30, and September 9 at 12:00 in Yerushalmi Hall.

Yoni Soutchy’s Ben. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Program Daled: Forbidden Fruit has been dubbed “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll” by Herman and includes Yoni Soutchy’s Ben, Merav Cohen’s And When the Beast Returned, and Amit Zamir’s Buba (Doll). Program Daled will be performed on September 7 at 22:30, September 8 at 17:30, and September 9 at 14:30 in Yerushalmi Hall.

Artour Astman’s Foosho. Photo by Alexander Sherbakof.

Program Hey: Rare Animal showcases artists who, according to Herman, “researched the physical border between human and animal” and boast “rare physical abilities, almost beyond human.” The bill features Liron Ozeri’s Caravan, Ido Batash’s Bread and Circuses Blood, and Artour Astman’s Foosho. Program Hey will be performed September 9 at 22:30 and September 10 at both 17:30 and 20:00 in Yerushalmi Hall.

A closing ceremony will take place on September 10 at 23:30.

Tickets are available at 03-5105656 or online at the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s website.

Harnessing the Dark Energy

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:06:30 +0000

This is the second guest post by Ori Josephine Lenkinski, who is writing from Impulstanz in Vienna.

“I want to change the world using the tools of choreography,” said Marten Spangberg. Seated outside in the center of the Impulstanz compound, surrounded by the loyal attendants of his prolifically titled workshop Exorcism: The Dark Energy, Spangberg talked at length about his educational ideology, the MA program he runs in Stockholm and just about anything that came into his incredibly well informed mind.

I decided to attend Spangberg’s impromptu additional workshop after having heard many strange rumors about his thoughts, opinions and methods from fellow danceWEBbers who participated in his first and only officially planned workshop here entitled Geo Trauma. Then, I witnessed his opening speech at a book release party for his blog-turned-manifesto Spangbergianism and felt that he may perhaps have some questions I can try to answer in the next ten years. For more about this or about him, visit www.martenspangberg.org.

As far as I have managed to understand this week, what The Spang, as we call him, is getting at when he talks about this elusive dark energy is the willingness one has to take a stand. “Take a position,” he says over and over again. If I am reading his message correctly, he is saying that we don’t have to be open and positive all the time. This notion, for me, this week, in this very neo-liberal, artsy-fartsy environment is a heavenly breath of fresh air, or perhaps fresh cynicism or the lack thereof. It doesn’t matter exactly, only that it is fresh and well put.

It is now the end of my third week here in Vienna. Performances viewed: 28.

For the past four days I have been taking part in Keith Hennessey’s workshop Turbulence: A Dance About the Economy. Tomorrow night we will perform the product of five days of hard work put in by thirty dance practitioners for the greater Impulstanz audience. Many questions have been raised about what we will do during our one hour show, most of which have yet to be answered in any concrete way. It will be an improvisation with a few set notions. One thing I know is that there will be extreme behavior on stage, the likes of which I will only be able to explain after the fact.

It has come to my attention, certainly in response to the goings-on in Hennessey’s very unconventional workshop, that it is more precarious a position these days to be an audience member than to be on the stage. As dance artists, we ask so much of our viewer. We ask them to come to the theater instead of eating a lovely meal or watching reality television. We solicit their money for tickets and refreshments. We demand of them to be shocked when we urinate on stage or run around making guttural noises for fifty-five minutes, never approaching anything that looks remotely like a dance move, because a big part of the reason we are doing any of these actions is to surprise our watchers out of their comfort zone. We want to show that we are really committed, really serious and terribly willing to go to the far edges of our own boundaries to make our point, whatever that point may be. Then, we expect that they will not be appalled or disheartened by our unladylike behavior and understand how absolutely necessary it was to our piece. We hope that they will walk out of the theater and say to one another, “What great composition! Brave statement! Bravo,” and continue to dutifully follow us on facebook and obviously come to our next event. And even if our audience completes this entire set of requirements, we will still complain about them to our friends back stage. We say that they are square, conformist or, the worst of all, rich. How is it that the artist has become the spectator to the audience?

Outside of Israel: A View of Impulstanz

Deborah Friedes Galili — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:18:25 +0000

Hello Dance in Israel readers.

For those of you whom I have yet to meet, I will begin my guest blogging with a short introduction.

I am Ori Josephine Lenkinski, dancer turned dance writer and perhaps, with a little inspiration and honing of skill, writer with no disclaimers.

I am currently in Vienna, Austria taking part in a very special program called DanceWEB, which is a five-week residency for sixty some dance practitioners as part of Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival. For over ten years I dreamed of one day sitting exactly where I am at this moment and, low and behold, when I least expected it, the festival gods smiled upon me. From over one thousand applications received, mine was first passed into a preliminary round of three hundred then finally selected. I applied for this position online, in an extensive process that included many personal statements, recommendations from my employers and peers, photos and performance footage.

Impulstanz is undoubtedly a serious contender for Europe’s largest annual dance event. If you are not familiar with the festival, check out the website (www.impulstanz.com).

As a danceWEBber, I am treated to a free pass to all classes and performances. The last ten days since my pre-sunrise departure from Ben Gurion Airport have been the most intense in my life. We work from the morning till the evening, then rush off to see shows.

Upon arrival I discovered that I am here representing my oldest passport, which was issued by the Canadian government, and not my home country, which is Israel.

I have been living in Tel Aviv for four years, in which time I have become deeply entrenched in the local dance community as both a performer and a writer for the Jerusalem Post.

I moved to Israel because I fell in love with the dance aesthetic I saw during several visits to the country. I maintain that the work coming out of our small land is clever, engaging and distinctly Israeli. Having spent the last chunk of time learning the local scene by heart, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to check out what is happening in dance in central Europe.

This week I attended workshops with Ko Murobushi (Butoh master), Claudia La Rocco (dance critic for the New York Times and poet), New York based dancer/choreographer Trajal Harral and Paris based dancer/choreographer DD Dorvillier.

As for performances, so far I have taken in:

Jhoom a large-scale, open-air Bollywood spectacle by Indian choreographer Terrence Lewis, a new work by Edouard Locke for Montreal’s Lalala Human Steps, Viefalt by Nicole Piesl, Perparatio Mortis and Prometheus by Jan Fabre, Unturtled #1 and #4 by Isabelle Schad and Laurent Goldring, Elena’s Aria by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker for Rosas Dance Company, Splendid Isolation by Valerie Oberleithner, Spaces and Bones by Melanie Maar, Youdream by Superamas and Some Faves [WildWalk] by Ivo Dimchev.

In reflecting on this marathon of viewing, I can begin to point out a few trends present in the dance world right now. One is nudity, but that is hardly new. The other is politics. Though none of these pieces were explicitly political, it seems that the almighty Impulstanz programmers had commentary in mind when handpicking their playbill for this year’s festival. I suspect that this is an ongoing interest for them. Overall, the discourse here, and especially within the danceWEB program, is largely commentative. We are encouraged not to accept any performance as it is presented but to consider and question all of the decisions that brought about said piece.

Another undeniable trend is the lack of movement in new dance pieces. Sure, Lalala Human Steps presented a neo-classical opus rife with pirouettes and high legs, but the rest of the lot seemed to have a distinct disdain for what we call dancing. It would appear that the young dance makers of today have exchanged physical virtuosity, and by this I mean dashing jumps and displays of flexibility for bare breasts and pedestrian gestures.

Although many of the shows I watched left me longing for costumed dancers moving to music, there is a more important statement being made by the programmers here: dance and choreography are not one in the same.

Beyond that, I don’t know how to make sense of all the information I have taken in this week, both in the studio and in the theater. More to come . . .

Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s “Animal Lost”

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 07:26:40 +0000

Video: Trailer for Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s Animal Lost, with the original cast

“It started from the fact that we wanted to have more shows in Israel,” Yossi Berg remarks of the decision to create a second cast for Animal Lost. Berg and his partner, Oded Graf, premiered the work in Copenhagen with an international cast in 2010, and the full-length production has since made a splash with performances at prestigious venues ranging from the American Dance Festival to Montpellier Danse in France. Yet juggling the schedules of the standout cast members, who work as freelance artists throughout Europe, proved a formidable impediment for mounting regular shows in the choreographers’ home country. Recounts Berg, “We would like to keep running the piece on a regular basis in Israel, because it’s quite new and it doesn’t make sense that we are invited all over the world and we are performing all over the world but not here, which is our base. This is how we started the idea of making another cast.”

Now Israeli audiences who have heard the buzz from abroad will get their chance to catch the wildly popular production with locally-based dancers as part of the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s Macholohet (SummerDance) festival on July 29-30. Two of the dancers joining Berg and Graf on the Inbal Hall’s intimate stage are Israelis Ofir Yudilevitch and Ayala Frenkel. Completing Animal Lost’s second cast – and keeping the mix international in flavor – are Olivia Court Mesa and Rosalind Noctor, more recent additions to Tel Aviv’s contemporary dance scene. The new group has a different balance of gender and nationality than the original cast, but ultimately, Berg and Graf believed that these individuals could form the dynamic, cohesive ensemble that drives the dance theater production. “We felt that all these four people have very beautiful energies, and from our experiences, it’s very important to work not only with artists but with people who are very nice and have their unique personalities,” reflects Berg.

Animal Lost by Yossi Berg and Oded Graf. Photo by Christoffer Askman.

While developing Animal Lost with the original ensemble, which continues to perform abroad, Berg recalls, “We dealt a lot with stereotypes and clichés. There’s some truth in this, but also, at the same time, it can be nothing, it can be nonsense. And this gap is interesting.” Restaging the work on the new cast has enabled Berg and Graf to dig further into the subject, to pose questions anew and to discover novel perspectives with this different group of performers. Berg acknowledges that resetting Animal Lost spurred him to search inside himself to find what he wanted to pass on to the dancers, a process that will no doubt enrich his own interpretation of the work.

Audiences returning to the piece may also notice some slight changes, since the co-creators strove to make the dance fit for the local ensemble. Yet the structure has remained the same, and so too has much of the text in which performers proclaim their nationalities, religions, occupations, and hobbies. With some of the declarations based on those made by the original dancers, the tensions between fiction and truth or expectation and reality are heightened, adding an additional layer to this cast’s exploration of cultural stereotypes. Noting that “some things were true and some things were not” in the first cast’s text as well, Berg explains, “We work a lot with this line of how you reach this place that you present it as if it’s true. . . . Some things have the potential of being truth, and these are the places that are important for us to present as reliable, because here we touch the deep place of the subject that we are dealing with.” As the dancers remove their masks on stage this weekend, they will reveal faces that are fresh to Animal Lost, but even in their debut, they are likely to go beneath the surface and probe the production’s theme to its core.

More Information

The new cast of Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s Animal Lost will perform at the Suzanne Dellal Centre on Friday, July 29 and Saturday, July 30 at 20:30. Tickets are available at 03-5105656.

Related Websites

Yossi Berg and Oded Graf

World Dance: Machol Olam 2011

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:59:49 +0000

Video: Trailer for World Dance

This summer, dance from Israel has been crisscrossing the globe with tours and performances at major festivals. In recent weeks, with the five-day Contemporary Israeli Dance Week as part of LaMaMa Moves! in New York City and an extraordinary number of appearances by Israeli artists at the Montpellier Dance Festival in France, Israeli dance has triumphantly showcased its strengths on the world’s stages. Now, from July 11-28, Israel’s stages are about to get a dose of the world’s best dance in a brand-new festival called Machol Olam – World Dance.

Presented by the Suzanne Dellal Centre at the Wohl Amphitheater in Ganei Yehoshua, World Dance offers local dance fans an array of styles. While Israeli contemporary dance makes an appearance on the celebratory opening night with an excerpt from Barak Marshall’s Rooster, and The Project (a joint production of Suzanne Dellal and the Israeli Opera) will perform Jacopo Godani’s Light Years, by and large, the amphitheater’s stage is ceded to those artists who draw on ballet and flamenco forms.

Drew Jacoby and Rubinald Frank. Photo by Amitava Sarkar.

Indeed, it is the other component of the opening night’s mixed bill – the powerhouse dancers Drew Jacoby and Rubinald Pronk – who more aptly reflect the festival’s stylistic thrust. Jacoby, a native of Idaho, and Pronk, who originally hails from Holland, met while members of Complexions Contemporary Ballet in New York City. Realizing they had similar artistic ideas, they left the comfort of the company in 2007 for a more adventurous existence as freelance dancers; ever since, they have toured the world in works by a range of choreographers who have capitalized on the pair’s virtuosity and stunning stage presence. For their first performance in Israel, Jacoby and Pronk will perform three duets: an excerpt from Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s One, Leo Mujic’s B Sonata, and Lightfoot Leon’s Sofly As I Leave You.

Video: Compas in Pavo Real

On July 13, the festvial continues with Pave Real, a co-production between Michal Natan’s COMPAS: The Israeli Flamenco Dance Company and Spanish flamenco dancer Miguel Angel Espino. Live flamenco and Argentine tango music helps create the mood for the work, which is set in a dance club in the 1930s.

Video: The Israel Ballet in Don Quixote

Hewing closely to Marius Petipa’s original choreography as revised by Aleksander Gorsky, the Israel Ballet’s spirited production of Don Quixote is scheduled for July 16. Valeria Martynyuk, a member of the famed Mariinsky Ballet since 2004, will dance the lead role of Kitri.

Video: Victor Ullate Ballet

World Dance contains a mini-festival, Madridanza, which kicks off with the Victor Ullate Ballet – Comunidad de Madrid on July 18-19. Since 1988, the company has been an integral part of Madrid’s dance scene, but this is the first time the troupe is appearing in Israel. Ullate and Eduardo Lao provide the choreography for El Arte de la Danza, a production that displays the strengths of the company’s dancers.

Video: Compania Flamenca Jose Porcel

Enlivening Madridanza on July 23-24 is Ballet Flamenco José Porcel. The company will present Moralejas with choreography by Porcel, Rocio Molina, Isabel Bayon, Alfonso Losa, and Ruben Olmo.

Madridanza also boasts a Spanish Gala celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of mutual diplomatic relations between Spain and Israel. Held on July 21, the concert will feature Porcel, dancers from Victor Ullate Ballet, Michal Natan and Miguel Angel Espino, Silvia Duran, and Gentian Doda and Dimo Kirilov in duets by Doda and Nacho Duato as well as the Ladino singing of Galit Giat.

After Madridanza finishes, World Dance continues with ballet luminaries from both sides of the Atlantic. Tom Gold Dance – run by the former New York City Ballet soloist – presents a mixed bill on July 26. Members of NYCB will perform George Balanchine’s Who Cares, Jerome Robbins’s In the Night, Petipa’s white swan pas de deux from Swan Lake, and Gold’s Tango. The entire extravaganza draws to a close on July 28 with soloists and dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet under the direction of Bruno Bouché in Incidence Choreographique. The program includes a new work by Nicholas Paul, the premiere of Arantxa Sagardoy’s Timeless, José Martinez’s Overture, an excerpt from William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated and Bouché’s Bless, which was created in July 2010 at Suzanne Dellal. Ballet connoisseurs outside of Tel Aviv can catch the dancers from NYCB at the Herzliya Performing Arts Centre or the dancers from Paris Opera at Haifa’s Rappaport Hall on the evening of July 30.

For more information, view World Dance’s page on the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s website. Tickets to performances at the Wohl Amphitheater are available through Suzanne Dellal’s box office: 03-5105656.

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*This post was made possible thanks to a Fulbright student grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

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