Dance review: Maya Brinner –‘Local’ Jaffa Port

The program varied each day, and on Friday it included an informal premier of Brinner’s performance piece at the entrance hall.

By ORA BRAFMAN
‘LOCAL’ by choreographer Maya Brinner. (photo credit: TAMAR LAM)
‘LOCAL’ by choreographer Maya Brinner.
(photo credit: TAMAR LAM)
Choreographer Maya Brinner’s multidisciplinary weekend, under the title “Local,” at Warehouse 2 in Jaffa, included short films, short dance pieces, music ensembles and performance art.
The program varied each day, and on Friday it included an informal premier of Brinner’s performance piece at the entrance hall. Two young dancers paced slowly around two flag poles, and left their footprints on the soil. Soon, the marks were erased by new ones, as they persistently continued the ritual, sanctifying the flag, with all the implications that entails.
Concurrently, in the foyer the Abra group sang a lovely original, harmonious improvisation, which, they explained, was inspired by the site itself and the history of Jaffa.
On stage, the short film Surveyors, by Itai Marom, was connected by association to the flag performance, as the camera followed a small group of surveyors in the vast Namibian desert, trying to map the endless, overpowering dunes. The workers shoveled sand in order to stabilize their measuring instrument, a futile act in the circumstances.
Strangely enough, the shovel returned in Einat Gantz’s dance piece All Told, We Wanted it All. While a couple of dancers try find unifying ground, they seem to walk in circles around the issues which separate them.
In that eternal effort, they sometimes collapse, sometimes find support, yet somehow miss that safe, stable state that will bring some peace and quiet to their future. While they work on their relationship – or metaphorically, our own – a third person stands by a plastic container and use his shovel in rhythmic pace to mix soil and stones for the duration of the piece. He sings, once in a while when he weakens, the other dancer gives him a hand.
The work which followed, Ya’ar, (Forest) originally danced by Brinner, was performed by Shuli Enosh, a strong dancer with fine stage presence. As she entered, she spread over the floor brown almonds in their shells, or so it seemed. Any move she made was affected by the texture of the tiny obstacles. It is a short piece, but Enosh managed to charge it with energies, inner storms and effective gestures, reminding us that she learned from the best, as a dancer with Yasmeen Godder.
Brinner as curator did a fine job and managed to bring the best out of each component.