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
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.
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
בְּאוּלָם חָשׁוּךְ נִמְצָא חֲדַר חֲקִירוֹת לָבָןבּוֹ גֶּבֶר בִּלְבוּשׁ שָׁחֹרקוֹרֵס לְתוֹךְ עֹל שִׁכְמוֹתָיוהַזְּקוּפוֹת.בּוֹחֵן.אוֹתָנוּRead more
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.
As a performance artist whose works tend to associate with theater, I find that the performances that I love most are actually dance. I took a moment to wonder why and found three excellent reasons. Here they are:
Noa Shavit’s solo performance, Ingiven, shows a silently screaming mouth move above a sinewy body to Nick Cave’s stirring lyric, “The tree don’t care what the little bird sings.” If Shavit is that little bird, are we the tree? How many little birds fly around us that we fail to hear? There is a certain silence occupyingRead more
Pain of the Soul Ingiven – Noa Shavit Be in the pain Be the pain Explore the pain Let it out I know I did Thank You Noa Pain of Live Tissue Work of Flesh: Soundtrack for Five Slammed Bodies – Annabelle Dvir Flash The moment the flesh hit the ground Hoo Aaaa ChiiiRead more
Google search “media influence on art” and you will primarily find articles on how Instagram has transformed the visual art market and how incredible it is that a smalltown girl in Idaho can virtually visit the Louvre. Few articles cover a question that I found hard to ignore over the past few days at Machol Shalem’s International Dance Week in Jerusalem: how does mass media and new technology influence our own creation processes and conceptions, specifically dance-making?
And here, from within a medium, drowsy egg
Peeks out a work that is a true pearl.
The song of human meat, pounded into the floor
And from the pain and the impact
Emerges a beautiful, delightful poem.