"Everything is moving all the time,” said CEO of the Suzanne Dellal Centre Anat Fischer-Leventon at the Tel Aviv Dance press conference last week.
This simple sentence, which encapsulates the chaos that befell the Israel public over the past several weeks, is perhaps a perfect tagline for the center’s most important annual dance festival, Tel Aviv Dance, will which open on schedule next month and will offer audiences a smorgasbord of movement.
The Centre will host twenty performances including seven premieres, film screenings, open rehearsals, and panel discussions. “These are creations that were born here, on this land and in this time,” Fischer-Leventon said. “They are proof that we are living here, not just surviving.”
Featured performances at the festival
The festival will open with a premiere by celebrated choreographer Michael Getman. “This work was created as part of the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s residency program,” explains Naomi Perlov, the center’s artistic director. Passion is a Lonely Hunter is danced by a cast of four and explores the traces left behind by actions long gone.
Yossi Berg and Oded Graf will return to Tel Aviv Dance with a new work entitled Mid-War Dance Moves. In this piece, Berg and Graf are joined by two female dancers in an attempt to use the instability of their lives as a jumping off point for a new type of fantasy. With the ground shaking under their feet, the two male dancers chose to imagine land giving way to an ocean upon which they could sail to the far reaches. “We have a desire to document the effect of what is happening on our bodies,” explained Graf.
Adi Boutrous, whose group works have garnered widespread acclaim in recent years, will premiere Camera Obscura, his first solo piece. While Berg and Graf envisioned water, Boutrous took to wheat fields, crafting a performance inspired by Winslow Homer’s civil war era painting The Veteran in a Wheat Field. Boutrous will also present an outdoor group performance entitled Fall during the festival.
Jerusalem-based choreographer Elad Shechter used the past several months to compose a type of love letter to his city called Golden 8 Gate. He asked other Jerusalem-based choreographers to donate movement phrases from their works, which Shechter then melded together into a work that shares his personal perspective on the city through text, movement, and music.
Sharon Valevski will present speech-less, a work for four dancers that was also created in the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s residency program. In this work, Valevski combines movement with recorded speeches by world leaders to imagine new possibilities for leadership.
Veteran choreographer Noa Zuk chose to work with four generations of dancers to make Destinies. The creation looks at the passing of time and its impact on our bodies. Among the youngest group of dancers in the work is Zuk’s daughter, Kima.
The seventh premiere in the festival belongs to Hani Sirkis. After years as a featured dancer in the Batsheva Dance Company, Sirkis experienced a surge of creative energy that led her into the world of drag. Under the auspices of Barbie Cute, an F to F drag character of her own invention, Sirkis established a creative language.
Over the past several years, Barbie Cute has given Sirkis a vehicle to explore her passions, which include movement, dressing up, costume design, lip sync, and performance. In Take Off, she will bring Barbie Cute and Hani together on stage for the first time. “In the piece, I take off the elements of the drag costume. It isn’t just about what comes off but what is born with each subtraction,” Sirkis said. “Each piece that is removed gives birth to a new character.”
Foreign guest artists
Two foreign artists will perform in Tel Aviv Dance. Julyen Hamilton will present KOAN – For Our Times, which has been presented extensively throughout the world. In this solo work, Hamilton reflects upon solitude and attempts to reflect his unique perspective in this moment in time.
The second foreign guest is Charly Santagado, whose solo will be shown in the 123 MIX evening, which will feature an assortment of works developed in the Centre’s 123 Program for Emerging Choreographers. Other choreographers to present in 123 MIX are Avshalom Latucha, Naomi Katz, Tamir Golan, and Hila Nachshonov.
Tel Aviv Dance will take place from August 6-16. For more information, visit telavivdance.suzannedellal.org.il/en.