{"id":8445,"date":"2010-11-17T02:03:24","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T09:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=8445"},"modified":"2010-11-20T22:41:16","modified_gmt":"2010-11-21T05:41:16","slug":"curtain-up-2010-interview-with-dana-ruttenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=8445","title":{"rendered":"Curtain Up 2010: Interview with Dana Ruttenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/em><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ofir Yudilevitch and Uri Shafir in Dana Ruttenberg's Private I's - Curtain Up 2010\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Private I\u2019s<\/em>, a new work by Dana Ruttenberg, performed by Uri Shafir and Ofir Yudilevitch, will premiere at the Curtain Up Festival on November 27, 2010 at the Suzanne Dellal Centre.\u00a0 Music is a central element in Ruttenberg\u2019s choreography, from Kontrapunkt<\/em> (2008) \u2013 a trio for dancer, pianist and grand piano, to NABA<\/em> (2009), a dance performance with several soundtracks in which the audience, equipped with audio guides, can select the score. In Private I\u2019s<\/em>, the musicians will come onstage to perform live, with a soundtrack composed by Noam Inbar (Oy Division and Habiluyim), and performed by Inbar and Adam Scheflan.<\/p>\n

Exploring masculinity and its images, Private I\u2019s<\/em> will have a strong male presence with the two musicians joining the two dancers onstage. \u201cWe made the musicians part of the action,\u201d says Ruttenberg, \u201cthey are like a pair of narrators who create the story. They influence the timing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruttenberg, who is currently studying for an MFA in Dance in a joint program of the American Dance Festival and Hollins University, first began working on the piece while in Virginia. One of her inspirations was a song by Arik Lavie and Sasha Argov: Lama Tzavat et Einayich<\/em> (Hebrew: why did you paint your eyes?). \u201cI don\u2019t know how it got into my iPOD,\u201d said Ruttenberg, \u201cI heard it for two months while I was in the US.\u201d Immersed in the intellectual atmosphere of an academic program, Ruttenberg recalls, \u201cBecause I was thinking so much, I wanted to move and went into the studio with Arik Lavie in a loop. My body was in a different place, in Virginia, experiencing openness, freedom, loneliness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning to Israel with the beginnings of an idea, she says, \u201cI didn\u2019t know how the movement would look on men.\u201d Private I\u2019s<\/em> originates in Ruttenberg\u2019s \u201cdesire to look at places where we are still animals.\u201d She says, \u201cChoreography has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, even sex. Our lives are choreographed, little girls know what it means to be feminine; gender is choreographed.\u201d\u00a0 In this work, Ruttenberg seeks those rare moments of spontaneity, saying that she finds they appear in extreme situations \u201cwhen you are afraid or have to fight\u2026those moments when you are suddenly yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ofir Yudilevitch and Uri Shafir\/Photo: Gadi Dagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to Ruttenberg, the finished work is \u201cvery much based on the dancers,\u201d whom she describes as \u201cbrave and curious\u201d saying, \u201cI can think about masculinity but the way they wear it is interesting – the situation of their body and how it moves, the history\u2026they each have their own history.\u201d Uri Shafir was with the Bat Sheva ensemble and gaga, the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin is an integral part of his body\u2019s \u201chistory\u201d, Ofir Yudilevitch has been involved in capoiera for many years and danced with Arkadi Zaides, reflecting other ways of working with the body.<\/p>\n

Ruttenberg merges the instinctual with the intellectual, saying that often \u201cI go with my instincts and then I understand why I do a certain thing. Images and emotions come to me \u2013 like when we dream and later we give them meaning, but these images come for a reason. My work process is to be open to these images. In the end, it all comes together.\u201d Arriving from Virginia with a song and the first draft of Private I\u2019s<\/em>, Ruttenberg began an intensive work process with Shafir and Yudilevitch. \u201cWhen we first entered the studio it was like a handshake,\u201d she says, \u201cgetting to know one another, how my hand meets theirs. Each one received a notebook and disk on key and we each kept a journal of the process. We sometimes had writing sessions during rehearsals or read things we had written at home. I worked with associations from things like YouTube clips \u2013 YouTube generates associations in the same way that our minds do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the presentation for Curtain Up, held at the Suzanne Dellal Centre on November 8, 2010, Shafir and Yudilevitch performed a short section from the dance, attired in evening dress. When asked about the costume, Ruttenberg explained, \u201cThe costumes were originally inspired by James Bond \u2013 it\u2019s a kind of masculine pose. I grew up on James Bond, even though it doesn\u2019t \u201cfit\u201d Israel: we don\u2019t drink Martinis here, men don\u2019t wear tuxedos.\u201d Although this is the costume that appears in the photographs, the costumes for the finished work, designed by Hagit Abir, will be different. Describing the final version of the costumes as more \u201copened up to different expressions of masculinity, connecting to associations of Superman, but also more primal, passionate\u201d Ruttenberg adds that \u201cat some point in the performance the costumes are transformed, they somehow come apart and are transformed.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Bond is only one of the different perspectives on masculinity and male heroes in Private I\u2019s, a work which reflects not only the male, but also, inevitably, the female perspective of the choreographer. This multiplicity of perspectives is embodied in the Hebrew version of the work\u2019s title: Ishonim<\/em>, a word which means the pupil of the eye, relating both to private eye\/James Bond, to the theme of the gaze and observation, and also the word for man in Hebrew \u201cish\u201d \u2013 to which \u201cishonim\u201d is a diminutive, literally meaning \u201clittle men\u201d.<\/p>\n

Looking at the concept of heroes, Ruttenberg says that the \u201cSuperman narrative is a paradigm for superheroes. There is a narrative, the hero works from internal motives.\u00a0 In Judaism \u2013 who is a hero, he who conquers his yetzer.\u201d [the word means passions or instincts in Hebrew, the quote is from Pirkei Avot 4:1 \u2013 \u201cBen Zoma taught: Who is a hero? He who controls his passions.\u201d] The same principle holds for Superman, as Ruttenberg says, \u201cSuperman can\u2019t always be with Lois Lane.\u201d Within the context of dance, this creates an interesting tension, as Ruttenberg says, \u201cIn dance, a hero is someone who begins to connect to passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Private I\u2019s<\/em> will be performed in Curtain 3 of the Curtain Up 2010 dance festival. Renana Raz is the artistic director of Curtain 3 and it will include new works by Ruttenberg, Maya Brinner and Gilli Navot.<\/p>\n

Performances will take place at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv on November 27 and December 1, 2010 at 21:00, and at the Jerusalem Theatre on November 29, 2010 at 20:00.<\/p>\n

AYELET DEKEL<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Private I\u2019s, a new work by Dana Ruttenberg, performed by Uri Shafir and Ofir Yudilevitch, will premiere at the Curtain Up Festival on November 27, 2010 at the Suzanne Dellal Centre.\u00a0 Music is a central element in Ruttenberg\u2019s choreography, from Kontrapunkt (2008) \u2013 a trio for dancer, pianist and grand piano, to NABA […]<\/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-8445","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\/8445","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=8445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}