ABANDONING “BEAUTY”: A Conversation with Roni Chadash

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In the past, I need the audience’s approval and affirmation more. There is a balance between pleasing myself and pleasing the audience and it has changed from process to process. I’m trying to learn how to fulfill my own desires and I believe that if I’m able to free myself to satisfy myself, it will also satisfy the audience.Read more

Dancing for the Damaged by Ana Harmon

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The word-filled weapons drawn at dancers from choreographers (and parents, educators, etc.) can leave lasting scars, and Oz’s work seems to offer us with a much needed antidote of self-realization, feminine power and prowess. A dancer would likely find Oz’s work therapeutic as she reclaims the space and fires back, also granting Licht that same opportunity, even though she is the ‘dancer’. Read more

bODY rEMIX rEWOUND – on performing the same work fourteen years later by Kimberley De Jong

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I think the major opinion about returning to work as a dancer after maternity leave is that we become less hireable and that our bodies change for the worse. A big question employers ask is “how will these mother/dancers ever manage a tour life with children”? I understand these worries and to say I never had them would be lying. But how are we supposed to overcome certain beliefs if we believe them ourselves?Read more

The (de)Sexualized Body on Stage by Ori Lenkinski

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In the same week, I attended performances of 2019 by Batsheva Dance Company and Shira Eviatar and Hadar Ahuvia’s Possessing. As an audience member, my reflections on these shows were influenced by the juxtaposition of the two in my mind. After all, audiences always bring the past experiences into the theater, superimposing what they haveRead more

Does Finance Impact the Dances We Make? Thoughts on Curtain 2 by Ori Lenkinski

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It stands to reason that, when observing artistic works, in this case dance works, we should consider the financial stakes at hand in their creation. Whereas one artist can create something that will provide food and rent for tens of families, another will make a work that will put them in debt. Is the financial gain a factor in the work that is made?

Are artists creating small-scale work with little to no financial gain to be had actually freer to say what they want than the big dogs?Read more

DOUBLETAKE of Carnations by Ronit Ziv- צפייה חוזרת בציפורנים מאת רונית זיו

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In a repeat viewing of the legendary Carnations by Pina Bausch (my first was in Caesarea many years ago, 1991?), I observe as one views a postcard sent from relatives in a distant country. It’s beautiful there but chilly. The essential element is missing, the thing that always characterized Pina Bausch’s works. The essential, for me, is the moment in which the action on stage floods out into the audience, threatens, keeps me up at night and makes me identify with the characters/dancers and to worry about their physical emotional well-being.Read more

רְשָׁמִים עַל הַמּוֹפָע “לוֹקָאלִי” בְּבִצּוּעַ אִירִיס אֶרֶז מאת יוליה פריידין

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זֶה הֲכִי לוֹקָאלִי הַדֶּרֶךְ הַזֹּאת לסוזן דָלָל.

לֹא-קַל-לִי בִּכְלָל.

וּבֶטַח גַּם לָהֶם לֹא.

וְגַם לְאִירִיס שֶׁכְּבָר מְחַכֶּה עַל הַבָּמָה,

וּתְסַפֵּר לָנוּ בַּגּוּפָה עַל הַמְּקוֹמִיּוֹת.

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When Love Walked Out by Ori Lenkinski

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I don’t go out dancing anymore.
I used to.
There was a period when I was out dancing pretty often.
Nowadays I may find myself on a dancefloor here or there for a few minutes, at a wedding, at a festival, if the spirit truly moves me. But I don’t go out to dance.
There’s that joy, when you’re out dancing, of hearing a song that you like, singing along, seeing others belting out and watching that song charge the bodies around you.Read more

M.E.S.S. – יוליה פריידין מגיבה לשלומית פונדמינסקי

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בְּאוּלָם חָשׁוּךְ נִמְצָא חֲדַר חֲקִירוֹת לָבָןבּוֹ גֶּבֶר בִּלְבוּשׁ שָׁחֹרקוֹרֵס לְתוֹךְ עֹל שִׁכְמוֹתָיוהַזְּקוּפוֹת.בּוֹחֵן.אוֹתָנוּRead more

Ana Harmon on Self Ritual by Iris Erez

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Choreographer Iris Erez made me pause at the Israeli Museum this month when she suggested that a room full of international visitors take selfies and place their phones on the ground, out of reach. Viewers peered down to find their reflections in a mosaic of black mirrors following Iris’ 30-minute-long solo, Self Ritual, presented by Machol Shalem Dance House’s Jerusalem International Dance Week, which hosts top curators and theater programmers from around the globe for five days of dance performances around the city.

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