Assessing the drive-in option for live performance arts

Among the brave pioneers is the Vertigo Dance Company.

By ORI J. LENKINSKI
The Vertigo Dance Company performs ‘Birth of the Phoenix.’ (photo credit: YOEL LEVI)
The Vertigo Dance Company performs ‘Birth of the Phoenix.’
(photo credit: YOEL LEVI)
Last week, at the request of the new Minister for Culture and Sport, Chili Tropper, the ministries of Culture and Health agreed to allow live performances in drive-in format.
The announcement was accompanied by a long list of requirements for each performance to contend with. Up to 200 cars can enter the complex, granted that there are two meters between each vehicle, that attendees give their name and ID numbers to the organizers and that there are sanitation stations throughout the arena. Performances can include up to ten individuals that work as a capsule, including sound and light technicians. Musicians, aside from those playing wind instruments, must sit seven meters apart from one another.
Though the announcement was seen as a positive gesture from the government towards the arts sector, the practical implications of the associated requirements will make it nearly impossible for the large majority of cultural organizations to produce such events.
Among the brave pioneers is the Vertigo Dance Company, whose size and veteran status has afforded the Jerusalem/Netiv HaLamed Hay-based company to take on the ministries’ demands.
Directors Adi Sha’al and Noa Wertheim were the first to offer a live dance performance at the Suzanne Dellal Center following the long months of lockdown. Responding quickly to the new status quo, the company called on its strongest dancers to restage Birth of the Phoenix, a performance that takes place outside within a metal structure and on loose earth.
Now, Sha’al and Wertheim will offer the same performance only now seen from cars.
In 2004, I participated in a site-specific dance performance by Canadian choreographer Noemie Lafrance in New York City. Inspired by film noir, the production took place in a parking garage on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Instead of a seat number, audience members received a car make and color and whether they were to sit in the front or back seat. The headlights provided the main lighting for the show. Music was piped through the radio, broadcast on a private channel.
As a dancer, I was not privy to the ins and outs of the production nor did I tackle the various technical challenges presented by the unconventional setting. However, the entire cast and crew were aware that this performance was pushing the viewer experience into new territory. We had to be conscious of the angles and visibility in ways the stage never required. In that show, there was room for twenty cars.
Had there been more, or rows, there would have been no point in attending as the audience would not have been able to see anything. A proscenium stage is coupled with a raked audience so as to allow rows of audience a clear vantage point.
A drive-in cinema works as the screen is raised so viewers in cars need look up, creating an undisturbed sight line. But this new possibility to present live performances in the drive-in setting is a recipe for failure.
After months of inactivity, most companies do not have the funds to take on such a big challenge and adapting choreographic or dramatic works to an outdoor setting requires time and resources. Though the entire arts community is desperate to get back to performing, this is not the solution to our problems.
Some may find a way, such as did Vertigo, to maximize on the drive-in potential but the reality of today’s Israel will exclude the majority from even attempting to participate in what is now the only sanctioned option to hold a live performance.
Vertigo Dance Company will present Birth of the Phoenix on Thursday, August 13 at 8:30 p.m. at the First Station parking lot in Jerusalem. For more information, visit www.vertigo.org.il.


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