Streets ahead in Modi’in

Austrian urban theater dance group Direction Future is part of the Israel Street Art Festival’s international lineup.

By BARRY DAVIS
Direction Future’s ‘Memoria’ 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Direction Future’s ‘Memoria’ 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Next week Modi’in will take to the streets, but we’re not talking about social protest here. This Wednesday and Thursday, the compound of the local Heichal Hatarbut cultural venue will be abuzz with artistic endeavor as the ninth annual Israel Street Art Festival takes place. This will be the second time that Modi’in is hosting the event, and the program covers a diverse spectrum of artistic bases, taking in breakdance, rap, beat box, rollerblades, skateboarding, capoeira and all kinds of dance shows from Israel and abroad.
One of the biggest draws in the lineup is the Memoria show by the Salzburg-based Direction Future urban dance theater.
Theater founder Sergej Pumper makes no bones about the subtext on offer and says that the name he chose for his dance outfit spells it out.
“The meaning of the name is a kind of question and answer – what is the direction, and [to find out] go into the future. I believe that as an artist, it is my job to give messages to the audience.”
Pumper says the latter primarily pertain to two main areas of life and that he tries to share some of his insight with people caught in the mainstream tides of life.
“I have more time than most people who go to their jobs every day and are caught up with all their day-to-day problems,” he continues. “I consider environmental and social issues, and then I make a [dance] work based on those things and present it to the public.”
So, it seems that art follows more tangible day-to-day problems.
“All my work has some kind of message to give to others,” explains Pumper. “First I get the main idea, and then the dance follows.”
That also applies to the work Direction Future will put on in Modi’in next week. “There are three dancers in the piece. Two represent the industrial countries, which are rich and strong and affect other parts of the world, and one dancer represents the part of humanity that is on the edge of life.”
Pumper really wants to make a difference. “Everyone sees these TV commercials that ask people to give some money to the poor, but in reality no one here realizes the real meaning of the situation. The problems just go on and on – nothing changes. People are dying all the time, from hunger and disease, but we are geographically so far away from them, so we don’t see the problem and we can just get on with our lives. So the message I want to get across in my shows is, just think about this problem one more time. In these days of social networking, we can all push the politicians to do something,” he says.
The Direction Future website describes Memoria thus: “Three performers symbolically display the struggle of economic dependence, exploitation, human relationship, (un)awareness, empathy and disinterest in a microcosmos of three individuals from two worlds that are one but yet separate.”
But, surely, the vast majority of people who attend Direction Future’s shows want to be entertained by some intriguing high-quality dance rather than go home pondering some of the world’s more pressing problems.
“That’s true,” Pumper admits, although adding that he has a grassroots feel for life and that he has gained some insight into what makes the “common man” tick.
“Many, many years ago I was a street dancer in Austria. That’s how I lived, dancing every day all day and collecting money from people. Then I started to do shows for audiences, people who chose to come to see my work, rather than people who just happened to pass by where I was on the street,” he recounts.
That gave Pumper more food for thought.
“I started thinking about what I do as an artist and that my work is not just about dancing but also about living outside mainstream society and taking a look from the outside. Maybe dance is not the best medium for getting messages to people, but I think it is important to try to do that,” he says.
Political and social subtexts aside, Pumper has put together a highly attractive work. Memoria is very much about opposites and contrasts and the dynamics that emerge from their juxtaposition.
The dancers – Pumper normally performs himself but has another pressing artistic engagement in Austria while the company is in Modi’in – clearly come from different worlds and, presumably, bring differing cultural and social aspects with them to their artful calisthenics. The threesome comprises half American, German-born Patrick Williams Seebacher, who replaces Pumper here; half Chilean Austrian dancer Sandra Mueller; and German-born Youngung Sebastian Kim whose family hails from Korea.
The visual entertainment is enhanced by music, compiled by Pumper, which undulates, meanders and strays into numerous disciplines, from pastoral classical airs to acerbic rock and much betwixt.
“I don’t want to get bored, and I don’t want my audience to get bored,” states Pumper. “If I go to see some performance and I feel the energy is flat, it makes me want to go to sleep. That’s why the energy levels change the whole time in Memoria. There is always something going on. I also want to get the message through with emotions and body language.
Whatever language you speak, everyone in the world understands emotions.”
There will be emotion, and excitement, elsewhere in the International Street Culture Festival lineup next week, not least at the 2012 breakdance championship – a.k.a. Battle of the Year – where the winners will go on to represent Israel at the world breakdance championship in France in November.
There will also be an international roster of breakdance artists on show in Modi’in, including from Germany, France, Austria and the US. One of the Stateside-based breakdance specialists is Israeli-born Oren Michaeli, who has lent his artistic skills to a wide range of big budget movies and music productions, including Step Up 3D and Dance Flick, dancing alongside pop and R&B star singer Rihanna and rapper Missy Elliott.

The festival program starts at 6 p.m. on both days. For more information about the festival: (08) 926-4141, (08) 926-4545 and www.street-festival.co.il