(Video: The Noa Dar Dance Group in Tetris, a collaboration between Noa Dar and visual artist Nati Shamia-Opher)

I first wrote about Noa Dar’s Tetris (טטריס) in “From Studios to Stages” on my own blog and have edited an excerpt of that article for this post.

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It’s no wonder that Tetris (2006) premiered at the Acco Festival for Alternative Theater, or that it won a prize there.  This collaboration between choreographer Noa Dar and visual artist Nati Shamia-Opher shapes the performance space into the most alternative set-up that I have ever witnessed, and it left its mark on my mind when I saw it last year.

I heard about Tetris soon after arriving in Israel and eagerly looked forward to seeing a staging in Tel Aviv at the Noa Dar Studio.  I was familiar with the the chosen location because I had taken several contemporary technique classes there – but when I arrived for the performance November 10, 2007, I found the studio cleverly transformed.  Tetris‘s treatment of the spectator-performer relationship in this redesigned space is so unique that I would like to describe a bit of it below:

As Tetris begins, each audience member enters the studio individually, stepping onto a stool surrounded by a small booth and sticking his or her head through hole in the top; it is as if each person is a block about to be dropped into the classic video game called “Tetris.”  Next, spectators receive their own stools, join a line of other viewers, and then – once the line is complete – they are ushered by dancers to move their stools to a grid underneath a large wooden hut with rows of holes in the roof.  All the while, two dancers maneuver underneath and on top of the structure.  Once the entire audience is seated underneath the hut, we are instructed to stand on our stools and poke our heads through the holes.  This action is accompanied by a lot of twittering: all of a sudden we are disembodied, with our necks surrounded by the cut-out holes and our heads protected by wire domes.  It is strange indeed to look around and only see heads!

Standing in the midst of the structure, with our heads poking up into what is now the “stage,” we are the ultimate spectators even as we become the objects of other audience members’ gazes.  Our role in the event grows more complex with the entrance of the performers.  The six dancers begin slowly, prowling on top of the hut, looking intently at us, sliding across the space on their bellies, and occasionally drawing so close that their body parts are directly in our faces.  We watch, and we are watched.  With our own disembodiment – and from this perspective, with our spectating eyes mere inches above the floor – the performers’ bodies assume an extraordinary power.  To see moments of intimacy, desire, and violence from this angle is something else altogether . . .

Here’s another glimpse of Noa Dar’s Tetris, performed in Acco:

(Video: The Noa Dar Dance Group in Tetris, a collaboration between Noa Dar and visual artist Nati Shamia-Opher)

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For More Information

Visit Noa Dar’s website and learn more about Tetris.  Tetris will be performed at the Noa Dar Studio in Tel Aviv on January 20, 22, and 24.  Check details on Noa Dar’s performance calendar and Dance In Israel’s Events page.  Call  03-6954440 for tickets.

Related Posts on Dance In Israel

For more about choreography which re-frames the relationship between dancers and audience members, read “Mamootot – Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide.”

*This post was made possible thanks to a Fulbright student grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

(A studio at Adama in Mizpe Ramon)

Right now I am spending my time in Hebrew ulpan rather than the dance studio, but last year I happily spent my first few months traipsing from studio to studio.  I was fortunate enough to return regularly to several teachers while funded by my Fulbright grant, including some of those mentioned in “Surveying Dance Training in Israel: A Report from the Studios.”  Over the course of the year, my impressions of technique styles and influences developed not only through my continued attendance but through conversations with my teachers.  You will get to hear from some of these artists themselves in my podcasts and in write-ups of interviews, but for now, you can read my first impressions as a newcomer to Israeli studios.

I first wrote this post on November 6, 2007 for my own blog.

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Besides attending concerts and meeting dance scholars, I am busy investigating technique classes in Tel Aviv.  I am attempting to do my initial survey in a relatively methodical manner, working my way slowly from studio to studio and taking classes labeled modern (מודרני – “moderni”), contemporary (עכשווי – “achshavi”), or release (רליס – “release”) before plunging into the world of Gaga, a technique developed by Ohad Naharin, or indulging myself with a ballet class.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to quickly summarize my own physical background as a dancer, since it certainly colors my perception of the classes I am taking here.  I trained in ballet for 12 years and had small tastes of Graham, Taylor, and Limón-flavored modern dance before abandoning my pointe shoes completely in college.  My modern dance education continued with those mainstream flavorings, and I also studied a lot of Cunningham technique in graduate school.  In the last few years, however, I have branched out and taken more release or release-influenced classes, primarily with Bebe Miller and Michael Estanich at The Ohio State University.  Thus I am familiar with a range of styles, but I am still figuring out the boundaries of release and finding our how my body operates within this framework.

Back to Israel:

In early October (2007), I took classes from Gilat Amotz (גילת עמוץ), Shimrit Kobalio (שמרית קובליו), and Shlomit Fundaminsky (שלומית פונדמינסקי) at The Group in Jaffa (הקבוצה ביפו, HaKvutza B’Yafo).  Next I took a class from Coralie Ladam (קוראלי לאדם) and another from Inbal Aloni (ענבל אלוני) at Noa Dar’s studio (סטודיו קבוצת מחול נוע דר), which is just 10 minutes away from my flat in central Tel Aviv; Shlomit Fundaminsky also teaches there.  On Sunday I took a release class with Yasmeen Godder (יסמין גודר) at her studio in Jaffa, and yesterday I went to the studios at Suzanne Dellal for a class with Niv Sheinfeld (ניב שינפלד).  The one exception to my modern-contemporary-release rule was a technique/improvisation class given by Ilanit Tadmor (אילנית תדמור) at Studio Play, in which we joined together in some particular stretches and exercises but primarily explored specific concepts through guided improvisation.

With the exception of Coralie Ladam, who moved here from France two years ago, all of the teachers I have studied with are Israeli.  Several of them are choreographers (at least Godder, Sheinfeld, Amotz, Fundaminsky), and many of the teachers perform either with their own groups or with other companies.  While some of their classes – especially Yasmeen Godder’s – were tailored to advanced dancers, others were geared specifically towards an adult population (Niv Sheinfeld’s) or a broader, mixed-level group.  Despite these differences, I was able to observe many similarities among the classes.

Whether or not the classes were explicitly labeled as or described with the term “release,” all of them seemed heavily influenced by release work (I couldn’t resist that phrasing . . . ).   With the exception of one or two classes that began with guided improvisation, most began with floorwork incorporating Bartenieff Fundamentals exercises (working in the X, warming up the head-tail connection, femoral flexion, knee drops building into gentle leg swings, etc.) and yoga (downward dog, warrior poses, etc.). (Editor’s note: I perceived many exercises as Bartenieff-related because of my own experience in the Fundamentals, which I studied in graduate school.  However, none of my teachers have talked specifically about Bartenieff as a direct influence.)

Next the classes progressed to some standing exercises: pliés; perhaps some rolling down the spine and swings; footwork; etc.  A few classes included brief traveling exercises across the floor, several featured a walk or two around the room so we could sense our bodies in the space, and all culminated in phrasework.  Shared principles included an emphasis on connectivity among body parts, a focus on ease of movement, and a general privileging of energy flow and momentum over particular shaped positions.  Upon learning that I was not fluent in Hebrew, all of the teachers gave at least part of their instructions in English, and at times they verbally referenced very familiar concepts such as head-tail or sits-bones-to-heel connections.  Some also encouraged us to assess how our bodies felt after specific exercises.

As I take more classes with each of these teachers, I am sure I will pick up on the nuances of their individual teaching and movement styles.  So far, Niv Sheinfeld’s appeared to the most differentiated from the bunch, with fewer, less overt yoga and Bartenieff references (though perhaps some references to qi gong); at times, shapes were quite important, but this positional specificity was within the context of his quirky phrasework which, like his full choreography, was imbued with clear intention.  I plan to talk to each of these teachers about their influences, styles, and preferred labels, and I hope that these conversations in English will allow me to move beyond language barriers and class population differences to more fully understand their approaches.

There are still a few studios I have yet to visit, such as Studio Naim, Bikurei Haitim, and Studio B, and there are a couple of  teachers I have not met at the venues I have frequented thus far, so my quest continues . . .

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Interested in taking dance classes in Israel?  Check out our resource page, Studying Dance in Israel, for more information.

*This post was made possible thanks to a Fulbright student grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.