Time is an elusive concept, an abstraction, perhaps even an illusion – yet it touches every aspect of our being. In Slug, Avshalom Pollak examines time in its most physical, visceral expression – dance. Dance itself may be seen as active sculpting in time and space, defining those concepts in its presence and in its absence through movement. In some sense, dance is the embodiment of time.
Slug works with contrasts, contradictions, and a multiplicity of associations. The name itself pulls the mind in different directions: a slow moving mollusk without a shell, a bullet, a line of type cast as one piece, or used as a verb – a heavy blow. Created with the participation of the Inbal Pinto Avshalom Pollak Dance Company dancers, Slug is a densely textured work with vibrant physicality, merging dance with song and spoken word. Love, war, fear, dreams, desire, struggle, the push and pull of relationships, the tension between here and gone, I and other – all dance upon the stage. Time, after all, encompasses everything – the personal, the political, the philosophical, the past, the present and the future.
Cinematic in its look and feel, nonlinear in its form, different stories open up to the viewer through the figures onstage – it’s a narrative of thoughts and emotions, an experience intensely felt. In the grand illusion of the stage, anything and everything is possible. Time, with its relentless grip on daily life, pushing ever forward, becomes more malleable onstage – it can move in any direction, backwards or forward, at any pace. There are allusions to other times, other worlds, real and imagined. A poem by the noted Russian dissident poet Andrei Voznesensky, unexpected live renditions of songs evoking associations old and new, and the sound of that constant timekeeper, the heart, are all part of a compelling soundtrack that is an integral part of this work.
Slug will premiere this coming weekend: Thursday, May 19th at 21:00; Friday, May 20th at 14:00 and 21:00. Tickets are 120/150 NIS, to order call: 03-5105656.
Slug
Choreography, Set Design and Soundtrack: Avshalom Pollak; Costume Design: Avshalom Pollak, Maya Levi; Lighting Design: Yoann Tivoli; Performers: Jeremy Alberge, Zvi Fishzon, Ariel Gelbart, Noga Harmelin, Ofir Yannai, Marta Luiza Jankowska, Cordelia Lange, Amit Marsino, Moran Muller; Co-creator and Rehearsal Manager: Dina Ziv; Duration: 60 min. approx.
