Popalinda in the Kingdom of Imagination is a dance-theater work for children, but first and foremost it is a work of the body. Adi Eytan as Popa and Shachar Dolinsky as Roberto, inspired by Mary Poppins and Bert (a wink also to the parents’ generation), create movement work that both children and adults can enjoy.Read more
Each costume piece removed reveals not only Sirkis’ body but a transformation. A new character. A reference. A provocation. A version of how a body might be read.
She is not undressing.
She is multiplying.Read more
Often it’s hard for her and Daniela to say goodbye after spending a full, fun Saturday together. At the end there’s always drama and tears; they don’t want to go home. They say they’re sisters. When they were younger, they used to say “sisterses.”
Daniela and Yaara are both only children. Alona is also an only child, and you feel her struggle as an only child facing the world, changing moods during the show, and the voice of the tree asking her to give up the leaf she considers as hers.
Next time, we mothers can remind them of that moment in the show. Not so there will be less drama, but maybe the memory of Alona parting from the leaf will help them see separation a bit differently.Read more
The greatness of a personal work, in my eyes, lies in its ability to touch even those who are far from its direct contexts. Podium does this wisely, and invited me to examine my relationship with rules, with the constant search for the firm hand and for excellence that are paired together in my imagination.Read more
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