Dance Review: Haunted by the Future

Jerusalem-based Machol Shalem promotes independent dance in Jerusalem and produces a modest festival of its own.

By ORA BRAFMAN
‘Haunted by the Future’ 370 (photo credit: Tomer Applebaum)
‘Haunted by the Future’ 370
(photo credit: Tomer Applebaum)
Jerusalem-based Machol Shalem promotes independent dance in Jerusalem and produces a modest festival of its own. Now it showcased at Suzanne Dellal three duets, including Haunted by the Future, created in Jerusalem by international choreographer Nigel Charnock, who passed away earlier this month. The evening is dedicated to him.
The first of three duets, Force Majeure, created by Ofra Idel, totally convinced that the stormy relation with her partner Danielle Shoufra is based on true emotional recollections. Idel, however, remained within the obvious boundaries of hate-love, and equal parts of attraction and retraction relations. Adding a plastic bucket with a white lilies didn’t conjure surreal subtext or salvage the choreographic sketch.
Nadar Rossano’s Off Line duet managed to do rather well with basic, mundane contemporary lexicon and technique, produced a charming, cohesive piece with a voice of its own that pulled in its wake a flimsy tail of Israeli staged folk dance innuendoes, which worked in its favor.
The rhythmic choices were refreshing; right foot right, left foot right, left foot left, right foot left, on the beat over and over again at various speeds, interlacing between fragments, tying together fractures, a true case of limitations that liberate imagination, enabling it to come up with many variations on a theme.
Most people that packed the Suzanne Dellal hall came to see our illustrious dancer Talia Paz and British dancer Michael Winter, both well-seasoned performers, expected to bring on stage maturity and stability. Well, never in Nigel Charnock’s school. His duet Haunted by the Future, like many pieces he choreographed around the world, is wild, noisy, hilarious and rude.
He found his own genre of dance striving to redefine its extremities and boils over with excessive energies, bordering on hysterics. Many go bananas for him; love his wit and bursting energies. Both dancers did, or so it seemed. It was a pleasure watching them go through the Charnock psycho-grinder and come out smiling.