Rina Schenfeld in Angels.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Earlier this summer, I published a guest post by Gdalit Neuman about Rina Schenfeld’s Angels.  Neuman, a dancer in Schenfeld’s company, gave an inside look at the making of this new work, and a few weeks ago, I got to provide a different perspective for the Jerusalem Post.  This article was originally published in the newspaper as “In The Arms of an Angel” on August 3, 2009.

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In the Arms of an Angel

“A new dance is like cooking. You have to put in a little bit of salt, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of everything,” reflects Rina Schenfeld about her choreographic process.

Schenfeld first made a name for herself as a powerhouse dancer with the Batsheva Dance Company from its inception in 1964 until 1979.   But from a young age, she was already fascinated by choreography.  Prior to studying at the prestigious Juilliard School, an 18-year-old Schenfeld created a prize-winning solo for herself.  She went on to choreograph many dances for Batsheva, eventually retiring from the company in order to further pursue her own work.

Over decades of choreographic exploration, Schenfeld experimented with objects, fabric, video and a range of music.   Now, she remarks, these elements are “all combining together in the cooking of a new evening.”

Rina Schenfeld Dance Theatre in Angels.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

After a yearlong process, Schenfeld is presenting her latest work, Angels, this week at the Suzanne Dellal’s SummerDance2009 festival and the Karmiel Dance Festival.  Inventive costumes by Inbal Liblich, a video by Yuval Cohen featuring photographs from Schenfeld’s childhood and family, and a variety of props fill the stage with heavenly and earthly visions.  The dance’s eclectic, ear-catching score includes music by Laurie Anderson, Nina Simone, Hadara Levin and Arvo Part.

The urge to create Angels struck Schenfeld after a successful run of Dance Me to the End of Love, which was set to the songs of Leonard Cohen.  That evening-length dance had been a departure for Schenfeld, who was accustomed to working with longer musical compositions rather than a series of four-minute songs.  She decided to keep this new structure for her next piece and found inspiration in Anderson’s music.  At the same time, Schenfeld recounts of her process, “movement came out without connection to the music.  And later on, it [started] to build itself.”

Indeed, Angels unfolded organically as the choreographer joined members of the Rina Schenfeld Dance Theater in her studio. The other dancers, most of whom had collaborated with Schenfeld before, responded creatively to her prompts for improvisation.  When Schenfeld brought tall metal poles into rehearsal, she remembers, “My dancers and I, we were absolutely hypnotized by the idea to climb and do acrobatics . . . They couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t stop either!”

Perched high above the stage on these poles and wearing magnificent wings designed by Liblich, the dancers achieve a striking resemblance to angels.

Yet Angels isn’t simply a dance about heavenly beings.  Schenfeld explains, “It’s not only angels from up above, from the sky. Angels can be people.”

This is one of the essential ideas in a touching duet between Schenfeld and Hemi Goldin which forms the centerpiece of the full-length work.

Rina Schenfeld and Hemi Goldin in Angels. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Of Goldin, a 26-year-old dancer and aspiring lawyer, Schenfeld says, “Hemi is a real angel who came to my studio about two years ago, and he gives me a lot of inspiration. The fact that he’s here with me, it changed my work, because for many years – 20 years, maybe more – I didn’t do a dance about relationship and love . . . But now, when Hemi came and also something changed within me, I decided I want to talk about duets and relationships and love between ’she’ and ‘he.’”

Schenfeld notes that these figures of a man and a woman can also be symbolic rather than literal, and the relationships which she explores can extend beyond romance. While a lot of young choreographers often focus on the turbulence in relationships, Schenfeld asserts, “The way I do it is I think from another angle, because of my age and my experience.”

And in her touching duet with Goldin, the layered relationship between the two often shifts, with each dancer serving as the other’s angel. It’s a theme that surfaces throughout the dance in the pairings of other dancers – and in life. “Sometimes you are my angel,” reflects Schenfeld, “and sometimes I am your angel.”

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Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Rina Schenfeld Dance Theatre: About “Angels”
• Maholohet: SummerDance2009 at Suzanne Dellal Center
• More on Maholohet: A Hot Summer of Dance Continues

Rina Schenfeld in her new work, Angels.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

This article is a guest post by Gdalit Neuman.  Enjoy!

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About Angels

By Gdalit Neuman

Tel Aviv native Rina Schenfeld is one of Israel’s most celebrated artists.  After studying at the world famous Julliard School in New York in her early twenties, Rina returned home and became a founding member and principal dancer of the Batsheva Dance Company from 1963-1979.  There she danced historic roles in works by none other than Martha Graham, Glenn Tetley, and John Cranko, to great acclaim.

After leaving Batsheva, Schenfeld embarked on a highly successful international career as principal dancer and choreographer of her own company, Rina Schenfeld Dance Theatre, which is based in Tel Aviv.  She is the recipient of countless distinguished international awards and in 1997 was honored with the Na’amat  lifetime achievement award in the realm of dance.  The New York Times hailed Schenfeld as “one of the most important artists of our generation.”

Now Rina Schenfeld has done it again. After the tremendous success of her last work Dance Me to the End of Love (ריקדי לקצה האהבה), she will present her latest full length evening entitled Angels (מה לך מלאך?) at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv on June 23rd.  Angels is a journey into this first lady of dance’s wild and wonderful imagination.  Using songs by Laurie Anderson as inspiration, Schenfeld paints a colorful canvas of images, movement, sound and screen that tempt the pallet and are sure to satisfy.  Images of suspended angels, darkness and light, the Garden of Eden, and past and present speckle the stage.

Rina Schenfeld’s Angels.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

The first half of Angels, featuring Schenfeld herself alongside company dancer Hemi Goldin, takes us on a whimsical journey of Hansel and Gretel, among other things, and culminates with a dramatic and tender duet to Nina Simone’s “Wild is the Wind.”  The company then joins Schenfeld and Goldin in the second half of the evening, where our story continues.  As in Dance Me to the End of Love, here too Schenfeld uses video to draw the audience intimately closer to her world.  A highlight is old family photographs that tell not only her story, but each and every one of ours as well.

As a dancer in the company, I had the great delight of seeing Angels develop from its bare bones to a living, breathing organism that is recreated but never replicated twice on stage.  Rina’s mastery of creating, composing, and editing but never dictating during this process allowed for a plethora of ideas to come to life, blossom, and bloom.  For all of us who were active collaborators in the creation of the new production, Angels signifies a unique and ongoing journey of self-discovery, relationships and ideas.

Credits for Rina Schenfeld’s Angels

Dancer/Choreographer: Rina Schenfeld
Dancers/collaborators: Gali Aizenman, Hemi Goldin, Tamar Weisman, Gdalit Neuman, Joanna Offer, Lilach Raz, Shimrit Sha’ar, Aviv Chalfon
Video: Yuval Cohen
Stills: Gadi Dagon
Costumes: Inbal Liblich
Music: Laurie Anderson, Nina Simone, Hadara Levin, Arvo Part

More Information

Angels will premiere on June 23 at 9 p.m. at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv.  It will also be performed at the Karmiel Dance Festival on August 5.  Angels returns to Suzanne Dellal during the Machol Lohet Festival on August 12-13.

Rina Schenfeld Dance Theatre also hosts open dance classes for the public (beginner to advanced levels) where Schenfeld herself teaches.  For more information, please call 03-6046745.

About the Author

Gdalit Neuman is a company member of Rina Schenfeld Dance Theatre.  She is a writer, teacher, choreographer and lover of all things that move.

Related Links

• Suzanne Dellal Center

(Video: Vertigo Dance Company in Noa Wertheim’s White Noise)

There is no rest for the weary.  In Israel, Saturday is Shabbat, the day of rest – but International Exposure is not letting us sleep in this morning.  The schedule looks good, though, so I’m not too upset!

Today we start at 11:00 a.m. with Vertigo Dance Company in Noa Wertheim’s full-length White Noise.  Then we’ll leave Suzanne Dellal and head across Tel Aviv to Tmuna Theater.  At this smaller space, we’ll see part of Tamar Borer’s butoh-influenced Bardo as well as Noa Shadur’s Hunting Rabbits in the North.

After a reception in the evening, we finish our day with a mixed bill: Rina Schenfeld’s Dance Me to the End of Love; Tirza Sapir’s High Tide, Low Tide (performed by Rikudnetto/DanceNet Group); Idan Cohen’s Joy Ride; and excerpts from Yoram Karmi’s Pulcinella (performed by the Fresco Dance Company).

Here are two more glimpses of what we’ll see in the last concert of the day:

(Video: Idan Cohen’s A Year in a Fish Life)

(Video: Fresco Dance Company in Yoram Karmi’s Pulcinella)

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• “Vertigo Dance Company: Art, Environment, Community”

*Podcast with Noa Wertheim coming soon!

Links to Choreographers and Companies

• Tamar Borer
• Idan Cohen
• Fresco Dance Company
• Rikudnetto/Dance Net
• Noa Shadur
• Rina Shenfeld
• Vertigo Dance Company

Other Useful Links

• Dance In Israel’s International Exposure coverage – full series
• Dance In Israel’s Links page – links to companies, choreographers, and more
  
• Suzanne Dellal Center
• Tmuna Theater