Survival: The Dance Version Gets Started | Israel today

A few years ago, the choreographer Dana Rotenberg watched a play in which her best friend acted at the Tsova Theater.

Actors, a director and a playwright were present in the theater, as expected.

A central theme was chosen for the show and a dramatic storyline.

Theatrical convention followed naturally, except for one difference - the show was created, from start to finish, in only 48 hours.

Rotenberg described astonishment at what happened there - her actress friend changed before her eyes and played a comic character, as opposed to the serious and dramatic tape cast she was associated with - and she did it excellently.

As a choreographer with a flair for games and a love for formats, the light bulb of discovery went on for Rotenberg: "I decided that I needed to make a version of this in dance."

The concept of Project 48 began in Washington DC.

in 2001 as a film competition, and since then it has been held around the world.

It is a creative mechanism with clear, strict and uniform rules.

There is no extension of time and no excuses.

Those who are willing to participate in the game are aware of the time constraints as well as the element of surprise, because arbitrarily each creator receives a genre, a prop, a line of dialogue and other "landings" drawn for him.

Project 48. "They said it was a far-fetched idea", photo: Askaf

At first, Rotenberg's excitement and desire to initiate the 48 Festival in the field of dance ran into a wall.

She proposed the idea to various theaters and institutions: "They told me that it was a far-fetched idea and that it would never work in life."

But with Rotenberg, the train has already left the station, and exactly a decade ago she decided to produce Project 48 - the dance version, independently.

A few years ago, she found her place as part of "Bat Sheva Host".

The transition to the field of dance required a change: "I wanted to neutralize the competition."

In her opinion, the routine in which the creators of the dance are subjected is quite lonely, therefore one of the main goals of the project was to create a community partnership and not one that is saturated with further competition.

Growth from moments of crisis

One of the topics that preoccupy Rotenberg in her intertwined life and work is separation, and Project 48 is in many ways an exercise in separation and an opportunity to release barriers.

"My grandmother had a porcelain collection that she kept for special occasions, but she never used it and it never saw the light of day."

In this crowded and exhausting creative blind date, you have no choice but to say yes.

Ideas erupt and materialize, and unlike porcelain, do not wait for tomorrow.

In moments of creative crisis, and there are many of them, creative redemption comes from surprising places with no choice.

For example, one of the producers found herself sewing costumes in the dead of night from sliced ​​uniform bread.

A few years ago I participated in a project as a dancer.

Notes with the names of the participants were drawn in a hat, and curiosity was mingled with solemnity and surprise.

After dividing into teams, each group was given a source of inspiration that was revealed just before the countdown began.

I received two videos: the first, a speech by the Minister of Culture at the time Miri Regev;

And the second, a video of a woman walking down the streets of New York and receiving a barrage of sexist comments.

The role of these seeds of inspiration is to give context and a starting point to the creators, and more importantly - to continue the dialogue between the audience and the dancers and to allow diffusion between the external, contemporary world, and the one in the studio.

At the end of the 48 hours I came home hungry.

I baked a brownie cake as usual, but due to a whirlwind of fatigue and adrenaline it came out blue.

To this day it is not clear to me what exactly happened there, but I must have returned from a crazy trip.

Every year, this is the tenth time, Rotenberg calls to invite the participants - key figures in the dance field in Israel - to take part in the project.

To those frightened by the idea, she explains: "I go to work every day by car. Once a year I get on a roller coaster at an amusement park."

Rotenberg has been championing this multi-participant project for a decade.

Between coordinating studios with the Kibbutz Seminary College to prepare the stage in the structure of the "Bat Sheva" troupe, she fantasizes about being a dancer in the production, leading and not leading: "Who knows, maybe they'll ask me to dance while I'm singing a song by Edith Piaf, and I won't have time to refuse." .

Project 48 at the Suzan Dellal Center: Thursday, July 28 at 9:00 p.m., Friday, July 29 at 10:00 p.m.

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