Inspirational shock

Rami Beer's new dance piece, '60 Hz,' is meant to stir up questions.

By HELEN KAYE
dancers 88 (photo credit: )
dancers 88
(photo credit: )
Rami Beer, artistic director of the Kibbutz Dance Company, once went to pick up some electrical components. The technician put them together, switched them on, and Beer got a sizable electrical zap that tossed him back seven meters and left him sore for three days. "Are you OK?" they anxiously asked him after he had picked himself up off the floor. "I'm fine," he said, "it's only electricity." This experience led to Beer's new work, 60 Hz, which will have its world premiere at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center on July 10 and 11. The title is also a nod to the 60 years of Israel's existence, and Beer says "I hope the work will stimulate some questions about the nature and quality of our individual and collective lives here. The movement and design world I make onstage relates to our existence in terms of the incipient and actual shocks we get as individuals and as a collective." According to the dictionary definition, a hertz is the "frequency with which an alternating current waveform rises and falls as it changes polarity," and like the tempo of our lives here, it happens fast. The solos and duets presented at last week's press conference seemed to be both a quest and an affirmation, reflecting perhaps the multifaceted, sometimes restless, quality of Israel and the Israelis. Says Beer, "there is no narrative, but there are suggestions." The piece, he continues, seeks "to touch the pulse of rhythm, the life cycle as it forms. A place, a homeland, a people. One person - 60 years." The Kibbutz Dance Company has had a busy year, so far. By the end of it, the company will have given 35 performances in 12 countries around the world, mostly representing Israel on its 60th birthday. To date, the company has appeared in Bosnia, Poland (opening the Israel in Poland season), Colombia and Italy, among other locales. On July 26, the company will dance the buoyant Kif Kefim in New York's Central Park as part of the city's Summer Stage program, and on July 30 and 31, it will perform Ecodoom at the Montreal Festival in Canada.