Love Through Time and Space
*Photo by Natasha Shaknes
Reflections by Jenny Birger on a dance piece by Ori Lenkinski
It was a warm Friday afternoon in May 2019, and I was just out of a mind-blowing West African dance workshop. The sun outside had the perfect amount of brightness, everyone on the street was just so beautiful, the cars in traffic were honking loudly but to my ears they felt like percussion instruments. I felt blissed and blessed. In my head, words arranged themselves in a perfect line and in one moment, I had understood it all: Dancing is love through time and space. It felt very true, and very real without a hint of cynicism. Eager to share my inspiration, I posted it as an enigmatic Facebook post (“What’s on your mind, Jenny?”), with no image or credit, and closed my phone. I felt ready to meet whatever will come. In case of self-doubt, or confusion, I had the weapon to cut through the bull**it and to continue moving.
Despair and deception, love’s ugly little twins
Came a-knocking on my door, I let them in
(I let love in, Nick Cave)
Needless to say, the euphoria didn’t last long.
***
A Dance Piece by Ori Lenkinski was presented in Studio Ora in Suzanne Dellal center, which is both a performance venue (usually at night) and an active dance studio (usually during the day). Fifteen years ago, I used to come to take Gaga classes in Ora several times per week, and I loved the small yet spacious hall, with beautiful turquoise windows from which you could smell the citrus trees surrounding the center. A performance venue which is filled with blood, sweat and tears (don’t worry, they clean) felt as a very fitting choice to see a work of dance which is about (the work in) dance.
With just two nouns – dance, piece – the name is incredibly rich. Indeed, it is a dance creation built from smaller dance pieces. Some of them seemed composed specifically for this show, imagined and performed without any (prior) reference. Others felt like memories – personal memories of Ori’s dance classes and dance pieces she performed throughout her life, as well as parts of our collective memory of iconic dance works (e.g. Pina Bausch’s outstretched arms in Café Müller).
But it is also a (small) piece in the riddle of dance. What is dance? What is not dance? I imagine dance as a huge Ravensburger puzzle, consisting of each and every dance work ever created or conceived. No matter how small or big are the individual pieces, if one is missing the puzzle will never be complete.
Unlike other dance pieces, there are no illusions here. The audience is not separated from the performer by a transparent yet solid fourth wall – or, rather, this illusion is broken the moment Ori hands us her gift (you’ll have to come to know what it is). There is no illusion of a seamless flow of movement gliding through space and time, as we are facing fragments that are not afraid to become more and more fragmented. Ori does not pretend to be a mythical creature able to transcend gravity, or an abstract form in space. We hear her breathe and talk. Her narration cuts through the enigma of “dance perfection-ism” and pulls us into the melting pot of the creative process, where there is not only love but also confusion, doubt and loads of questions. Ori is looking at us looking at her looking at us, witnessing the dawn and dusk of creation. Even the illusion that there is a piece – a dance piece – that exists without the audience is gone. We are part and parcel of the show, whether we know it or not, just by being present.
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Untitled by Tsuki Garbian, Oil on Wood, 30*30, 2012
Untitled by Tsuki Garbian, Oil on Wood, 30*30, 2024
A few days later, I saw a fascinating exhibition of the painter Tsuki Garbian. In his works, Tsuki is using the vocabulary of painting to undermine the illusion of the painted image. Instead of stopping at the “perfect painting”, he is vigorously layering more and more strokes, blurring and smudging what’s underneath. The very flashlight that is illuminating the object of painting is now lighting the painting medium itself, as well as the one holding the brush. It’s not about making another more or less perfect copy of the Old Masters – but a painting that “went wrong” in the right way. Standing in front of his works, I felt the tension between the dream-land of angelic curls and pink cheeks, and the reality-land of the artist choosing to cover it with hearts. Ori’s unique voice made me hear, in a similar way, the tension between the beautiful shapes in space, and the questions rushing though her mind when performing them. A long-term relationship has its merits, and its perils.
So if you’re sitting all alone and hear a-knocking at your door
And the air is full of promises, well buddy, you’ve been warned
(I let love in, Nick Cave)
Maybe a dance piece is also a dance peace, as in – a way to make peace with Ori’s almost life-long relationship with dance. Peace and love. And here we come full circle, as dance is love through time and space.
‘a dance piece’ was presented on January 16 in Studio Ora, Suzanne Dellal Centre.
Tsuki Garbian’s works are currently exhibited in Israel Psychoanalytic Society Institute in Tel Aviv.
Born in 1984 in Kiev, lives and works in Tel Aviv. Multi-media artist, dancer, teacher. Holds a PhD in Linguistics, passionate about language and movement, the language of movement, the movement of language.