{"id":395,"date":"2009-04-21T23:05:47","date_gmt":"2009-04-22T06:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=395"},"modified":"2010-04-27T22:35:19","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T05:35:19","slug":"not-all-happy-families-are-alike-creating-rushessaudade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=395","title":{"rendered":"Not All Happy Families Are Alike: Creating Rushes\/Saudade"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m their child, \u201csaid Talia Beck of Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak, with whom she has worked since their accidental meeting in Belgium seven years ago when Beck auditioned for Wim Vandekebus and ended up becoming a dancer in the Inbal Pinto Company that was rehearsing next door. \u201cThey know how to give me what I myself don\u2019t yet know that I want,\u201d said Beck, whose first choreographic work, \u201cSaudade\u201d shares the stage this coming weekend with the Pinto\/Pollak\/Barnett collaboration \u201cRushes\u201d at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv.
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Beck\u2019s modest demeanor gives little intimation of the dancer\u2019s graceful elegance, fierce intensity and surprising comic range. Her artistic family has not only been warm and nurturing, but encouraged her to seek her own path. Pinto and Pollak did not even see \u201cSaudade\u201d until a very late stage in the creative process, enabling the introspective Beck to develop her own stage language from very private, personal materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaudade\u201d (a Portuguese word which means something beyond sadness, a longing for that which no longer exists, a desire for something which perhaps may never have existed at all) is an intimate work that explores memory itself, poetic in its allusive imagery. Simple elements evoke a sense of mystery. A large dining table and four tall chairs, five women in white dresses evocative of another era, a water basin and white feathers signal that the work exists in the realm of the symbolic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think my piece may feel very different for the Pinto\/Pollak audience,\u201d says Beck. Yet in many ways, it is a work that has emerged entirely from the company itself. The dancers are all from the company, some dancing together for several years. Beck emphasizes the collaborative aspect of her work with the dancers as they explored their own memories and integrated their presence within the work. While the imagery and movement language is distinct, there is clearly an affinity in work methods: the attention to detail and willingness to embark on a journey to an unknown creative destination bear the Pinto\/Pollak mark.<\/p>\n

The journey to \u201cSaudade\u201d was preceded by another exploration \u2013 the encounter with Robby Barnett and the Pilobolus Dance Theater which resulted in \u201cRushes\u201d. Founded in 1971, Pilobolus is known for their acrobatic physicality, creating images and situations with their bodies, slightly surreal and often humorous. The first meeting of the two companies at Barnett\u2019s invitation was a step into the unknown for both \u2013 neither had ever worked with a guest choreographer and they each have their own distinctive style. Pinto, recalling that first encounter says, \u201cIt was an experiment. We tried to understand how things work, whether it could work at all. The beginning was not simple. It took time to understand this Pilobolus body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arriving with two dancers from their own company, Beck and Andreas Merk, they spent ten days together in what Pinto describes as \u201cPilobolus village\u201d, learning one another\u2019s language. Based in Connecticut, far from the urban noise and grit that is the backdrop to the Pinto Company studios, the members of Pilobolus spend eight months of the year together, working, performing and touring. \u201cIt\u2019s a live organism,\u201d says Pinto, \u201cthe dancers are an active part of the creation, and they are the life of the place.\u201d Founder Robby Barnett has developed a distinctive language and style of work, inspired by nature and transcending physical boundaries. The dancers learn this language, as Pinto describes it, they learn to \u201cdress Pilobolus\u201d, and it becomes their own. Pinto says of her work with Pilobolus dancers, \u201cYou can throw them a ball, paper, nothing \u2013 and they go with it. They come to life through being together.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is perhaps this intimacy; the familial feeling combined with a willingness to explore embodied by both companies that enabled them to find a common bond, a way of working together to create something new in the studio. Pinto reflects on the process: \u201cEach work is a kind of search, escape, encountering myself. In collaboration I discover things that I would not have found on my own.\u201d She describes the strong connection of the Pilobolus Company to nature, her sense of the artifacts in Barnett\u2019s house as representing that bond through \u201cimages of nature that are connected to the body. A tree branch that might look like an arm\u2026they see the body as a wonder of nature, and they are like children looking at this wonder, in awe and amazement. I also feel a little bit like a child who is looking for a box of surprises that I can open and enter within. A kind of attic\u2026you enter, each time discovering another niche that you have not yet explored.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRushes\u201d, the work that resulted from the Pinto\/Pollak\/Barnett collaboration, was first performed by the Pilobolus Company, who appeared with it in Israel as well. Currently performed by the Inbal Pinto Company, its acrobatic physicality presents the male dancers with physical challenges that Beck says \u201cthey are enjoying very much.\u201d Describing the differences in movement language between the companies, Beck says, \u201cwe work from details that come together to create a world, they work according to a particular line. We are interested in the individuals and they have one flow of movement created by five people.\u201d The dialogue between the two companies is evident in the work, and it is intriguing to see the Pinto dancers move in a way that is recognizably Pilobolus, yet Pinto\/Pollak.<\/p>\n

While the Inbal Pinto Company performs \u201cRushes\u201d in Tel Aviv, Avshalom Pollak is back in Connecticut, creating a new work with the Pilobolus dancers. The process of dialogue and discovery is ongoing, with both companies learning and being inspired by one another. Each project presents its own new adventure \u2013 in the current process, Pinto and Pollak are creating together on different continents as Pinto is in her ninth month of pregnancy and cannot travel. As she says, \u201cIt\u2019s a little hallucinatory to do this over the internet. I am somewhat outside and looking from a distance.\u201d Yet this different perspective enables her to view the process itself, and observe Pollak\u2019s work with the dancers as he conveys the way that the Pinto Company engages with the work on an individual, emotional level. Pinto says, \u201cIt [the difference between the companies] falls exactly on the place of emotion \u2013 to understand that its enough that I stand right here and experience this feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Image credit: Gadi Dagon
\nPerformances:<\/p>\n

Thursday, April 23 at 21:00
\nFriday, April 24 at 14:00 and 22:00
\nSaturday, April 25 at 21:00<\/p>\n

Suzanne Dellal Center
\n5 Yehieli St. Neve Tzedek
\nTel Aviv
\nTickets: 03-5105656
\nwww.suzannedellal.org.il<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m their child, \u201csaid Talia Beck of Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak, with whom she has worked since their accidental meeting in Belgium seven years ago<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}