A critique of Sharon Eyal's "House," which premiered Dec. 4 at the Suzanne Dellal Center within the International Exposure framework.
By ORA BRAFMANSharon Eyal's 'House' 370(photo credit: Gadi Dagon)
Considered to be Ohad Naharin’s muse and one of the Batsheva dance company’s leading dancers for almost two decades, Sharon Eyal developed as a choreographer within the supportive cradle of Batsheva. With and a budding career on the international scene, Eyal opted for independence and formed her own company, LE- V (“heart” in Hebrew), taking with her some of Batsheva’s best dancers with her.Premiering her company at the Suzanne Dellal Center within the International Exposure framework, the company performed House, a new and improved version of a the last piece she created for Batsheva, called Hofesh Dance.The nine-member company is composed of ex-Batsheva dancers as well as foreign dancers. The female section is powerful, more interesting than the male section, but altogether they look good and work well as an ensemble.Though in House, as in Hofesh, the dancers wear uniform, skin-colored outfits, shimmering red lipstick and heavy eye makeup, the uniformity of the earlier piece has lost some of its rigidity.Many of the unison passages have become noticeably more flexible, allowing greater leeway for individual expression and thus a more complex overall structure.House seems to indicate an evolution toward greater freedom, and that, along with the piece’s strong animalistic undercurrents, hypnotic rhythms and delightfully repetitive micro-movements offers some real delight.With House, Eyal shows she has matured as a choreographer, and will likely keep on challenging the dance scene in the future.
