Dance review: Vertigo

The Vertigo Dance Company dazzled audiences at the Suzanne Dellal Center last month.

By ORA BRAFMAN
The Vertigo Dance Group (photo credit: PR)
The Vertigo Dance Group
(photo credit: PR)
The Vertigo dance company offered a refreshing repertoire evening, with guest choreographers Sharon Freidman (Spain) and Anna Halprin (USA), alongside a short solo by Noa Vertheim, the company’s artistic director and house choreographer.
After a long break from the stage, Verthiem returned to perform a solo she composed. Twirling in a loose, age-defying dress she danced her heart out in this self-portrait of a dance, loaded with expressive motions. Between depicting moments of content, pain and anger, she looked like a lucky girl, celebrating her 50th birthday, doing what she loves most. It could have been even more significant if she had taken this opportunity to show a daring, new artistic facet.
The most compelling dance was by Sharon Freidman, a former dancer with Ido Tadmor, the Kibbutz and Vertigo companies, showcasing Stable, by special invitation of Vertigo.
Relatively unknown on the local dance scene, Freidman developed his choreographic skills in Madrid, and in recent years his international career has soared. Now he returns to Suzanne Dellal as a ripe, coveted choreographer.
His creation turned out to be a breathtaking experience.
All eight dancers, mostly men, adapted superbly to Friedman’s highly energetic and virile actions, based on contact improvisation. With tight, complexly compiled compositions, which disperse and reconnect in split seconds, the stage becomes a steamy, chaotic event that soon finds intrinsic kinesthetic logic. The cast’s performance simply excelled, and challenged the Vertigo experience, particularly in the despairing scene at the end when the clan stormed across the stage like a wild herd, while abusing and ignoring the individual victim.
Anna Halprin (95!) came to Vertigo’s ecological village near Jerusalem to help the dancers do a very concise rendition of her renowned Parades and Changes, premiered in 1965. Halprin is one of the last surviving pillars of post-modern dance, and led an unusually fruitful life.
In the ‘60s, Parades was considered pioneering and scandalous work due to the dancers’ total nudity. The audience at Suzanne Dellal, however, got shortchanged with a chopped-up rendition of the work, overstretched prologue and nudity simulated with skin-colored underwear.
Yet, her cooperation alone bestowed merit on Vertigo’s Global.
Additional performances will take place on May 4 at Yagur and May 5 at Karmiel.