Naharin's Japanese collaboration

Choreographer Ohad Naharin and Japanese video artist Tabaimo have joined forces to create this multicultural, interdisciplinary work.

By HELEN KAYE
You can safely say that Furo is like nothing anybody has ever seen. Choreographer Ohad Naharin and Japanese video artist Tabaimo have joined forces and talents to create this multicultural, interdisciplinary work that will play in a purpose-built pavilion designed by Giora Porter at the Tel Aviv Port through May and June. Furo is animation and live dance. Tabaimo's Bathhouse (Gentlemen) screens on three walls. Influenced by 19th century Japanese painting and by manga (Japanese comix), the piece depicts a Japanese bathhouse and its varied male clients from various points of view, like a fish or a bird. Naharin, the artistic director of Batsheva Dance, saw the work in a New York gallery, and the collaboration was born. For Furo Tabaimo added new scenes and re-edited the piece. Naharin incorporated a pair of dancers performing on an elevated and revolving stage close to the audience. Animation and dancing form a 45-minute loop with the changeover from pair to pair as part of it. When Furo premiered in Sweden in 2006, the dancers were all men. Here both sexes perform and all 40 Batsheva and Batsheva Ensemble dancers will take part. For its part, the audience can come and go at will. It can sit and watch the whole loop, or go into the lobby where Mei Eden, the project's main sponsor, has planned something special, and then come back and watch a different pair of dancers. This month and next, Furo plays on Fridays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Saturdays from 9 p.m. to midnight, and Monday to Thursday from 6 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. In honor of the state's 60th birthday, the tickets are a subsidized NIS 60.