Throughout the work, the four performers repeatedly toy with the idea of transmuting thoughts into language; of expressing dance with words and vice versa; of making their inner and private dialects not only heard but understood by others — be it a dancer interpreting the choreographer’s score, a dancer reacting to a fellow dancer on stage or a dancer communicating her sensations and thoughts with the audience through words or movements.
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First Things by Michael Getman, performed with virtuosity by Ariel Gelbart, is a fascinating, deep, and multi-layered work. Fragments of textual and musical information meet a distilled choreography, and together they ask the most fundamental question: what is the human experience?Read more
In a sense, this opening image encapsulates the work as a whole, with both its strengths and its shortcomings: NONA creates a highly precise and aesthetically refined world, within which an entire ensemble operates, yet in too many moments leans on a single standout soloist.Read more
Tula Ben Ari, a singer of Yemenite and Polish descent, decided to step into the very large shoes of Ofra Haza and did so with great success in this performance.
She did not try to imitate Ofra Haza’s singing. Her voice was deep, strong, present, enveloping the entire space with its power and resonating into the fibers of the soul.Read more
This gap between the two, between Shamgar’s certainty and Shafir’s searching, creates the backbone of the performance. It is an intriguing gap, full of potential. At times, their meeting feels like a dialogue interrupted between sentence and sentence. Rather than producing conceptual unity or emotional fusion, the separateness remains clear, and as a viewer I felt it strongly.Read more
There is so much magic in simple things, especially when simplicity is born from long and demanding labor. Such is the work of Kazuyo Shionoiri and Dror Liberman Keep it up: simple and profound, shifting from moment to moment and from performance to performance, and above all, touching and lingering.Read more
Based on a True Story is a moving performance, full of tenderness and softness, and for the most part also full of compassion. It brings us into contact with states of fragility and strength, with relationships that are built and unraveled in moments, with the possibility of telling a story without speaking it in words. There is generosity of body and of heart, and a deep appreciation for the humanity that exists between the performers.Read more
The power of the work ‘4 Fantasies and a Monkey’ lies in its ability to allow and create an imagined space to wander through, even if only for a few moments. The audience is invited to walk through the forest clearing, and it does not fear crossing it, because it is faithfully guided by a multitude of images. Like Hughes’s eternal fox, ‘4 Fantasies and a Monkey’ turns the one-time moment into the eternal, and the human consciousnesses within it into a walkable, infinite space.Read more
It is clear to me even from this opening image that this time Godder is not inviting us to a party, as in “Shout Aloud,” her company’s previous show created in collaboration with the singer Dikla, which was a showcase of explosive and sensual feminine energy. Nor is she withdrawing inward with the same fragility that characterized “Practicing Empathy 3.” No, this time Godder is leading us through the gates of the underworld, deep into a universe of feminine lamentation and illusion.Read more
What if we created a similar tradition around dance and choreography, a gateway into bringing performance and creative process to life on entirely new levels of engagement following a show? An opportunity for the audience to meaningfully interact with the choreographer (perhaps the dancers as well?), as they metabolized a work? A “Dear Abby” for dance lovers to thoughtfully discourse with choreographers about their work, but life as well. The two are so intertwined in the arts.
I chose to create such an avenue of communication in response to experiencing Lior Tavori’s work 8th Day.Read more