Dance Review: Shades of Dance

This year's edition was edited exceptionally well and contained 10 choreographies in three programs, exposing a number of promising talents.

By ORA BRAFMAN
dance review 88 (photo credit: )
dance review 88
(photo credit: )
Gvanim Bemachol 2009 (Shades of Dance) Suzanne Dellal Tel Aviv March 19 The Gvanim Bemachol framework was launched 20 years ago to give a leg up to young choreographers by providing a professional stage to showcase their work. This year's edition was edited exceptionally well and contained 10 choreographies in three programs, exposing a number of promising talents. Three duets stood out; the male duet Lu Carmella by Ron Amit and Mor Shani, which opened the series, depicted a budding relationship that starts with sniffing, goes through metaphoric muscle flexing and puppy-style fondling, using highly imaginative, fragmented motives along with finely tuned execution. The duet that sealed the evening, We Are Going Back by Shaked Dagan, used similar body language, but dancers Adam Ben-Zvi and Idan Forges managed to infuse their encounters with subtle humor that grew as the work went on. Both used long unison sections, and so did Tami and Ronen Itzhaki. The couple deployed original lexicon and introduced domestic life in a way that was most touching, clever and funny. Its complexity lay not in the technique, but in the subtext, and turned out to be one of the more delightful works of Gvanim. The most ambitious of all was Michael Miller's In the Speed of Light for eight members of the Sigma Ensemble. Since it was longer than most, it came across as better layered than some eight-to-10 minute works that had nowhere to go. Miller's talent has been unfolding in the past couple of seasons and this work was a good reason to look forward to his full-length work next month. Vanishing Point by Or Marin is also worth mentioning for its delightful aerial work, cleverly designed and beautifully danced by Or and her sister Stav. None of the three solo works managed to soar choreographically or reveal a dancer that could hold the stage by himself, and consequently they were probably the weaker links in this long chain of dance pieces.