Inspiring connections #4

To purchase tickets – 15.6.2021

Duration: about 2.5 hours with intermission

Where Am I

Rona Kenan Following Orly Castel-Bloom
Orly Castel-Bloom’s “Dolly City” rocked Rona Kenan’s world when she first read it at the age of 12. She was immediately captivated by Dolly’s wild, desperate, gloomy and painfully hilarious voice, which has stayed with her ever since.
In an attempt to answer the constant question that hovers over Castel-Bloom’s writing – where am I? Kenan will combine reading, songs, vocal and sound collages, as she travels through the absurd worlds of three women from Castel-Bloom’s books: the narrator from “Where Am I” (1990), Lucia from “An Egyptian Novel” (2015) and Dolly from “Dolly City” (1992).
Created by Rona Kenan / Narrator: Orly Castel-Bloom

Pshutot

Ronen Izhaki Following David Perlov’s film “In Jerusalem”
In 1963, film director David Perlov made “In Jerusalem,” a lyrical documentary about the divided capital of the young state. One of the interviewees, an anonymous Orthodox woman who later became famous as the poet Zelda, caused an unintentional provocation when she stated that “In this city, every beggar could be the Messiah,” an accurate observation indeed about biblical and everyday life Jerusalem.
Perlov’s portrayal of these beggars and self-declared messiahs displeased the “Israeli Film Service” that funded the production, prompting them to demand its reshoot – a demand that was met with backlash and demonstrations. The protests reached then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who ruled that the film can return to the screens.
Jerusalemite choreographer Ronen Itzhaki contemplates the film, the scandal that surrounded it, and the revolutionary and daring figure of Zelda. He centers his work around a new group of women – potential messiahs, refugees, beggars. Using their bodies, they express the turmoil, contrasts, and blend of languages that distinguish this city, its stories and conflicts, and eventually also the appeal for balance.
Choreography: Ronen Izhaki / Dramaturgy: Tammy Izhaki / Music: Gideon Lewensohn / Mix: Roy Zu-Arets / Dancers and co-creators: Kornelia Lech, TalShalom Sack, Inbal Ronen, Viola Gasparotti, Talia Vaknine, Neta Henik, Maor Alfasi, Naama Avni / Rehearsal manager: Karin Lederman / Production manager: Hadas Kidron / Costumes: Neta Henik / Texts: Amichai Chasson

Laxity

Noa Dar Following Tamar Getter’s “Slingshot Girl”
In “Slingshot Girl,” the video work created by the artist Tamar Getter in 2004, a wounded girl slings a rock at a figure outside the frame. Taken from a Kung Fu film, the scene – which originally is only a few seconds long – was digitally manipulated and extended into an 8-minute action.
Choreographer Noa Dar was drawn to the link that Getter made between the stretched slingshot and the stretching of time. Using the elements of the event captured in the video, her solo shifts between tenseness and laxity, advance and retreat, accumulation and depletion, defense and attack, movement and stillness.
Choreographer and performer: Noa Dar / Artistic advisor and rehearsal director: Yael Venezia / Artistic consultant: Michal Samama / Costumes design: Michal Bassad / Sound design:Elad Shniderman

Lia and Else

Itzik Weingarten and Galia Fradkin Following Else Lasker-Schüler
Come to me in the night-close interlaced we’ll lie.
I’m lonely from waking and tired as I can be….
Like two rare animals we’ll love-nest, curled here in the high reeds behind the world.
Else Lasker-Schüler

The famous Jewish-German poet, novelist, and painter Else Lasker-Schüler (1869-1945) was known for her bohemian lifestyle. In 1933 she had to flee Germany, and in 1938 she arrived in Israel. She spent the last years of her life in Jerusalem, alone and heartbroken.
Lia Konig, the first lady of Israeli theater, meets Lasker-Schüler in the form of a powerful and animated doll, for an honest and open conversation about aging, art, and the longing for a homeland and loved ones now gone.
Directors: Galia Fradkin & Itzik Weingertan / performed by Lea Koenig / Puppeteer: Orit Leibovitz Novitch / ‏ Music: Eldad Lidor / Set Design: Frida Shoam ‏

Azazel

Avi Gibson Bar-El, Smartoot Group Following Igael Tumarkin’s “He Walked in the Fields”
In 1967, Igael Tumarkin created the sculpture “He Walked in the Fields” – a cynical tribute to Moshe Shamir’s novel by the same name. Tumarkin’s monstrous and grotesque metal soldier stands in contrast to Uri, the protagonist of Shamir’s book.
Who is that soldier in 2021 Israel and what transformations did the myth of the “youthful and handsome” fighting Sabra undergo over the last 70 years?
In the footsteps of Tumarkin, Avi Gibson Bar-El and Smartoot Theater Group examine what they see as a historic collapse of the heroic soldier figure and its reincarnation as a man-fighter-machine. In an intense stage action, four performers will touch on questions surrounding long walks in scorched fields and the socio-local perceptions that fortify sending sons and daughters to the killing fields.
Writing and directing: Avi Gibson Bar-El / Performers: Eilon Ferber, Isaac Chocron, Moti Rozentsvige, Sahar Azimi / Assistant director: Rinat Moskona / Rehearsals director: Lior Zakai / Space design: Zohar Shoef / Music: Nadav Barnea / Video design: Nimrod Zin / Body dramaturgy: Sahar Azimi / Artistic consultant: Amir Orian-The Room Theatre / Group’s CEO: Ofra Pinker

S-hebrew

Shir Goldberg Following Leah Goldberg’s poem “Is It True (You Will Walk in the Fields)”
In this new tongue in cheek critical work, director Shir Goldberg challenges the gender exclusion and hierarchy created by the Hebrew language – a “sex maniac”, as poet Yona Wallach puts it.
Leah Goldberg’s poem “You Will Walk in the Fields” has been with Shir Goldberg since her teenage years as the ultimate expression of a woman’s pain, pleasure and honesty. Inspired by the poem, Goldberg touches on the wish to experience female existence free from social constructs. In this new piece, she asks if while dreaming in Hebrew we automatically use the masculine conjugation, and with that unconsciously stop ourselves from creating a different reality for us as women and as a society.
Directed by Shir Goldberg / Written and performed by Efrat Arnon / Dramaturgy: Shachar Pinkas / Movement: Ariel N. Wolf / Photography: Antoli Sheinfeld / Video art: Shlomi Bertonov / Song performed by Rivka Zohar / Music: Udi Turgeman / Production: Rom Reznik

Dubbing Absence

Miriam Naeh and Nir segal Following Maskit’s “Desert Coat”
In “Dubbing Absence,” artists Miriam Naeh and Nir segal focus on the iconic “Desert Coat” designed by the Israeli fashion label Maskit.
Maskit was founded by Ruth Dayan in 1954 with the government’s support as a social project that will allow new immigrants to use their skills as a source of income, while creating a national fashion line. The immigrants’ traditional crafts were married to modernist inspired elements expressed in the prints, materials, and techniques.
Maskit’s “Desert Coat” carries complex political history, introducing questions of identity, crafts and arts. In an original video work, Naeh and Segal weave an alternative narrative for the coat, exposing the people and the mechanisms at play, and the tension between the finished product and its production process.

Creators and directors: Miriam Naeh and Nir Segal / Assistant director and Dramaturgy: Or Ben Ezra Segal / DOP: Dor Even Chen
/ Camera assistant: Tom Porat / Sound recording: Amos Zipori / Sound design: Liat Attar / Cast: Yiftach Mizrahi, Dalia Segal, Or Ben Ezra Segal, Oded Graf, Laura Fiterman, Michal Shaashoua, Nogah Davidson, Omri Ben Chitrit / Dalmatians: Jesse Dalmatian,
Rey Alfasi, D.Value Jericho Star / Acknowledgments: RawArt Gallery, Liat Dankner – Architects

Blueprint

Dan Robert Lahiani Following Clal Center designed by the architect Dan Eytan
Shortly after video artist Dan Robert Lahiani arrived at the 12th floor of the Clal Building for an osteopathic session, his personal quest for connection, home and healing became entangled with the dilapidated and crumbling building’s angsts, aches, and neglect.
In a new video work, he draws lines between the series of treatments he experienced and the building’s need for care and healing. Just like the osteopath examined his body, he examined the building – mapping it, listening to it, and identifying the aching areas. Through sculptural, performative, and poetic interventions, Lahiani looks at the building with aversion and compassion, and holds a ritual of healing of the building, of the city, and of man’s brittle facets.
Created, filmed, and edited by Dan Robert Lahiani / With: Rivka Maoz and Dan Eytan / Acknowledgments: Dan Eytan, Matan Israeli, Thomas Gonda

Two Sides of the Canvas

Agi Mishol Following Menashe Kadishman
“Around the time I received the invitation to participate in Inspiring Connections, Menashe came to me in a dream and said: Why not me? And I answered, of course Menashe, of course you.”
Poet Agi Mishol draws inspiration from her friend, the painter Menashe Kadishman, with whom she shared mutual appreciation and affection. Following Kadishman, who gave her paintings that on the other side of the canvas bear freer sketches and private musings, Mishol wrote “Two Sides of the Canvas” to explore the hidden, back side of the clean and finished poem published in a book – comments, reflections, and drafts written in red ink that ignores the black ink of the final print version.
Writing and reading: Agi Mishol / Artistic accompaniment: Tali Kark

So Much White

Shimon Bouzaglo and Matan Amsalem Inspired by artist Ron Harari
“The painter Ran Harari (1944-2020) was my best friend for 25 years, until his death, and the most meaningful man in my life. Ecce Homo, this is the man who when we first met made me, once and for all, believe and love abstract art, and this is the man who never distinguished between content and form: for him they were always one and the same.”

Following the passing of his close friend Ran Harari, poet Shimon Bouzaglo wrote a cycle of poems in the spirit Harari passed on to him – that of form following content. Inspired by Harari’s work and Bouzaglo’s poems, director Matan Amsalem presents a stage collage comprised of texts, images, music, and movement – a living diary of a man reminiscing what he had and what he did not have in his life.
Poems by Shimon Bouzaglo / Directing and musical editing: Matan Amsalem / Visual concept: Reut Shaibe / Performers: Shalev Gelber, Tal Venig, Ariel Kurt

Bodymental

Maya Zack Following Rachel the Poetess’s poem “The Messenger”
The messenger is the second poem in Rachel the Poetess’ “In Sickness” cycle. In this short poem, Rachel describes the angel of death sitting down on her bed and menacingly announcing this will be the last poem she will ever write.
Many years before her illness and untimely death, the mother of video artist Maya Zack used to recite the poem to her daughter, acting it out with theatrical intensity. After her passing, the image of the messenger gained a new, almost prophetic meaning.
In “Bodymental,” Zack explores the desire to remember and the dread of forgetting. The video traces a chain of physical and metaphysical transmission between generations of women – real and spiritual, living and dead mothers and daughters. Through images of fluids that symbolize body fluids and consciousness that pass from mother to child, she explores memory imprinted in the body and her own motherhood of twin girls.
Camera: Stanislav Levor / Editing: Amos Ponger / Original music: Ophir Leibovitch