{"id":51932,"date":"2020-08-19T21:38:24","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T18:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=51932"},"modified":"2020-09-07T10:46:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T07:46:03","slug":"shape-on-us-israel-festival-world-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=51932","title":{"rendered":"Shape On Us: Israel Festival World Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shape On Us\/Photo: Yoel Levy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new dance work by choreographer Sharon Fridman and Vertigo \u2013 Power of Balance, Shape On Us<\/em> will hold its world premiere at the Israel Festival 2020. Power of Balance, established in 2000 by Tali Wertheim and Hai Cohen, focuses on integrated dance with an emphasis on contact improvisation. The current project features an ensemble of nine disabled and non-disabled dancers from the Power of Balance and Vertigo Dance Company. Venturing out to the dance company’s home \u2013 the Vertigo Eco-Art Village \u2013 to view select scenes from the work, I was fascinated and profoundly moved. Shape On Us<\/em> is a wonderfully inventive, playful, lively, intensely physical and emotionally evocative work that raises myriad thoughts on disability, social conventions, aesthetics, and our discourse on disability.<\/p>\n

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Shape On Us\/Photo: Yoel Levy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There’s a lot going on here, and a lot to unpack \u2013 intellectually, and emotionally. It is an invitation to think about the ways in which our bodies move, the ways in which we experience and use our bodies; the ways in which we experience the world and relate to others, each from our individual body and consciousness. Fridman’s choreography reflects a deep exploration of movement and the possibilities inherent in our different bodies. It is a work full of movement, often with different narratives taking place in parallel. Visually striking, it’s immensely appealing, with nuances of shape and form drawing the gaze in close. It takes up space, reaching and moving through the entire performance space in all dimensions; at any given moment, the composition is riveting.<\/p>\n

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Action shot from preview of Shape On Us\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A compelling aspect of this work is the use and non-use of crutches and wheelchairs. These props are employed in different and imaginative ways throughout the work, yet always working with, and enhancing the layers of associations and meaning created in the piece. Yet even more powerful are the scenes in which dancers who usually employ crutches or a wheelchair perform choreography without those aids, exploring all the possibilities of movement and dance.<\/p>\n

Shape On Us<\/em> reflects the first-person experience of physical disability, as well as the social response to disability. In a conversation following the presentation, dancer Itamar Beck (who is also a musician<\/a>) said that some of the dance scenes echo his own experience of living in his body in the world of movement, as a person with a disability. Meital Aharoni commented on the challenge of leaving her wheelchair, saying that “It really scared me, I was leaving my comfort zone in a whirlwind\u2026I feel free in my wheelchair, and finding that freedom in open space\u2026 it took some time to fall in love with myself in that place.”<\/p>\n

Performances will take place:<\/p>\n

Israel Festival world premiere on September 8 and 9, at 20:00 at the Jerusalem Theatre. Duration: 60 minutes. The Israel Festival performance will be filmed and broadcast online. If health regulations permit, live performances will take place at the Jerusalem Theatre. Tickets for the live performance are 60 \u2013 80 NIS, tickets for online viewing are 25 NIS. Tickets may be purchased on the Israel Festival website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

September 16 & 17 \u2013 Aseret Community Center, 8 HaRimon Street, Yishuvey Gderot. Performances\u00a0 begin at 20:30, tickets are 110 NIS, and may be purchased via this link: https:\/\/gderot.smarticket.co.il\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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