Dance Review: Curtain Up 1

Choreographers Oded Graf and Yossi Berg have successfully collaborated before and have done so again in their new "Mechanical trio in a Warm Land."

By ORA BRAFMAN
Curtain Up 1 Suzanne Dellal, Tel Aviv November 15 Both works that launched this year's Curtain Up Dance Festival were well-presented examples of stimulating contemporary dance. In "Mirror," choreographer Ronit Ziv used a mirror as a tool to shed light on behavioral processes through psychoanalytic theories. It opens with a man hanging upside down from a mirror mid-stage. As he wiggles, a hand emerges from behind and points a gun at him. Visually it is a strong, clear moment. This clarity, however, is lacking in the rest of the program. Ziv portrays entangled relationships through reflections and concealment, illusion and reality, trust and fragility. Her attention focuses on content, while her movement lexicon is mainly functional. Choreographers Oded Graf and Yossi Berg have successfully collaborated before and have done so again in their new, brilliant, cohesive creation "Mechanical trio in a Warm Land." As the name indicates, it's a trio performed by Yossi, Oded and Tali (Peretz-Laor). The dancers handle their own moves and encounters with others on stage with a background of mesmerizing music and sounds, arranged by Ohad Fishof. Each movement is dissected into smaller parts, in a "frame by frame" manner. This choice, perceived as mechanical by Berg and Graf, gives the dancers' presence a cartoon-like quality. Within this framework, their little chirped verbal reactions of "yes" or "no" are met with hearty laughter. This artistic choice gives a sense of distance and detachment to the characters, yet at the same time makes them endearing to the audience and makes "Mechanical" a pure delight.