The need to categorize is a part of the human system. Compartmentalizing
ideas helps us to keep information in check, giving order to what is often an
overwhelming existence. For artists, the audience’s n eed to understand where
their work fits into the larger picture of culture often presents problems. For
example, for years, film director M. Night Shyamalan ( The Sixth Sense ) was
marketed as a maker of horror movies, a fact that deterred many moviegoers from
seeing his films. After investigating the problem, Shyamalan’s people replaced
the word “horror” with “fantasy,” opening the director’s works up to a whole new
demographic.
Increasingly now, during performances, people lean over to
ask each other what category the show they are seeing falls into. “Is this
dance? Is it performance art? Theater? Mime?” As artists widen their areas of
collaboration, live performance becomes less easily identifiable as one thing or
another, often causing confusion for the viewer. For this purpose, the Tmuna
Theater in southern Tel Aviv established the A-genre Festival, which takes place
this weekend.
The festival began five years ago as a platform for
creators from many different facets of the performance world to find a stage
that wouldn’t require of them to define themselves as one thing. Ever since the
first festival, A-genre has been a beacon to theater directors who want to try
out integrating dance into their work, clowns who are dabbling with video art
and choreographers who want to take on pantomime. The freedom provided by the
programmers of the festival has allowed for a type of endless opportunity,
bringing out unique works of art that stand alone in the cultural milieu of the
country.
This year, curator Yair Vardi asked the artists involved to take
on the question of what is mainstream. As a performance space, Tmuna is clearly
identified with the fringe scene. However, Vardi explains, this fact
should not be taken for granted. After all, without the mainstream, there
would be no fringe and visa versa. The two streams of culture are dependent on
each other and could not exist in a bubble.
More than 30 artists will
perform throughout the three days of the festival in a variety of spaces at
Tmuna. The events will kick off with The Hidden Tenant, Please Come Back
Ceremony by Itamar Alkalay, Ronit Rolland and Tal Siano. This performance tells
the tale of Unicorn, a New York squatter with a particularly unusual life
story. Video, music, dance and text will be used to invoke the spirit of
Unicorn and, hopefully, to bring his energy to the stage.
Choreographer
Ronit Ziv will present her newest work, Left of Center, a retrospective of 20
years of dancing on Israeli stages. Ziv’s piece is a solo and will offer a rare
glimpse into the inner life of one of Tel Aviv’s veteran fringe dance makers and
performers.
For their new piece, 15 Minutes, Amit Hadari and Uri Frost
began with a quote by Andy Warhol. “In the future,” said Warhol in what became a
household phrase, “everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.” Perhaps Warhol
foresaw the invention of reality television. In 15 Minutes, Hadari stands on
stage alone, grappling with the notion that her time has come.
In his own
words, Guy Gutman’s piece From the West to the Moon is a meeting between
“myself, Levinsky Park, the moon and Frank Sinatra.” In this work,
seasoned playwright and director Gutman calls into question the progression of
Israeli society by looking at the Sudanese population in south Tel Aviv. In
making this work, Gutman teamed up with the Levinsky Park Library, a house for
books in more than 16 languages and a community center for the
neighborhood.
German label Essay Recordings will present their inaugural
endeavor, Jewrhythmics, an evening of Yiddish disco music. Orchestrated
by Ilya Dimitriev and Joe Fleisch, this performance aims to affirm that the
Yiddish language is not dying. Rather, it is alive and kicking to a
synthesizer.
The A-genre Festival will take place from March 7-9. For
more information, visit www.tmu-na.org.il
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