Dance Review: Curtain Up 4

Hillel Kogan came onstage with a scream and maintained his high energy to the end.

By ORA BRAFMAN
Curtain Up 4 Tomer Sharabi, Hillel Kogan, Maya Stern Suzanne Dellal December 6 For years, Tomer Sharabi and Maya Stern danced and created a line of decent duets based on subtle dance-theater esthetics and contact-improvisation technique. Their works were sensitive, composed, but never groundbreaking. The pair felt that now was the time to split and expand, using the Curtain Up framework to present the results; Sharabi did Monk with three male dancers and one female, and Stern did Black Sea for three female dancers and one male. There is a similarity in the way both approach choreographic structure and the perception of the dancing body. Both think in terms of duets when considering spatial compositions. Stern's work is undemanding and often one dimensional, with blatant emotionalism. Sharabi's was more layered, with a broader range of movement and as sensitive as usual. Unfortunately, neither made the major leap that could have changed their status among independent choreographers. Sandwiched between them was the wild card - Hillel Kogan - who came onstage with a scream and maintained his high energy to the end. Kogan gave a one-act turbo show called Everything, and indeed it contained it all: an anarchistic outlook on dance, national history, society and culture, all blended into hilarious farce. Kogan is a captivating dancer with huge stage personality - and expressive vigor to match. His hyperactive show leaped easily from Russian folk moves to Oriental shimmy, from pre-independence ethos enforced by a Shoshana Damari song to Tibetan monk chants. This bird of a different feather, with a soul of a subversive dissident, had us rolling in the aisles.