The historical role of the theater is to be a "place of gathering" for the community, argues dance scholar Andre Lefki.
This concept was put to the test with the outbreak of the corona epidemic, which led to the complete closure of the halls, and later also to restrictions on gathering, proximity and contact, in a medium whose contemporary form seeks to achieve as much as possible an unmediated encounter with the viewer.
In retrospect, the upheaval created by the pandemic in the live performance arts (especially) yielded creative solutions in two main ways: "entering" the screen through the online platforms and video technologies, and exiting to the public spaces through placing shows in squares and boulevards, in shop windows, and also in the yards of private homes.
Despite the difference between them, the two directions of action reflected a similar motivation, the basis of which is the refusal to give up meeting an audience that gathers together with the performers for the same time and space, regardless of how these are experienced.
Although the world of culture has already returned to pulsating and operating, the traces of the days of the epidemic are still evident in the contemporary work, whether in direct reference to this period in the contents of the works, and especially in what can be identified as a rethinking of the traditional relationship between the stage and the audience.
From "Sun&Sea", photo: Photo: Andrej Vasilenko
This trend is also present in the Israel Festival 2022, which will open this week (Thursday) with a diverse program of shows from abroad and unique Israeli original productions, curated by the new artistic directors, Itay Mautner and Michal Vaeknin. For the first time in two years, the festival is being held without "corona constraints", and it seems that exactly For this reason, a deliberate choice was made both in the ways of using the spaces of the Jerusalem Theater and its surroundings, and in the curatorial line, with the aim of stimulating thought about our role as viewers, and about the possibility of applying the new forms of communication offered by the shows - also in life outside the theater hall.
The performance track
The opening show of the Israel Festival, "Sun & Sea", is an operatic performance created by the director Rogila Bardjokeita, the libretto writer Vieva Grenita and the composer Lina Laplita (Lithuania), and creates a spectacular vision of a beach full of people, flip flops, popsicles and lots of sunscreen, which lazily and interrupted only momentarily by a shrill siren.
Bardjokeita describes the show as a "singing beach", and the poetry does indeed play a central role in building the stage world and its emotional frequency: the texts reveal simple everyday experiences, so much so that it seems that they deal with nothing, but in fact one can recognize in them a gloom that echoes the The deep theme of the show - the climate crisis that threatens to consume all the beauty on display.
The uniqueness of "Sun & Sea" lies in the viewing method it offers, which breaks the conventional theatrical frontalism: the audience observes the beach from above, standing on balconies 4 meters high.
The format was developed by the creators when they presented the show for the first time at the Venice Biennale in 2019 (where it was crowned as the big winner of that year), and it largely turns the beach into a kind of surreal capsule - separate from the world, but also part of it.
Accordingly, the audience enters to watch the show in regular cycles of half an hour, and leaves the event while it continues and without clapping.
Granita explains that in this way the viewers "plunge into the illusion of an endless day on the beach", and Bardjukeita adds: "Ideally, there would be no cycles at all - just a never-ending flow of people coming and going, like a real beach".
Solutions become problems
"Convenient solutions for a happy life", the work of the visual artist Theo Marcia and the choreographer Steven Michel (France) is indeed built as a show with defined boundaries and a traditional placement in front of the audience, but the world that emerges in it presents in an unconventional, and even shocking way, the existence of life in today's consumer society, which is based on a capitalist economic system that challenges the individual's feelings of identity and belonging.
From "Convenient solutions for a happy life", photo: Erwan Fichou
The event that stands at its base is the act of interior design of an apartment, which begins as a white, sterile and empty space, and is gradually filled with furniture that does not create a feeling of home but rather emphasizes loneliness.
In the subtle tension between the comic and the tragic, and the familiar that has become foreign, the aesthetic starting point of the piece can be identified in the iconic "hive" of IKEA shelves, the corporation that promises "beauty for all and the democratization of design."
But through the dystopian view offered by the creators - the generic furniture takes over the space with its presence so that "the body serves the object, and not the other way around, as we usually understand design and furniture", they explain.
Choreographically, the score of the actions was built on the basis of physical and performative materials from catalogs and training booklets, fitness classes, self-care books and "Siri"-like voice assistance programs, which, according to the creators, are seen as "trophies of victory for a good life... an artificial paradise that someone or Someone can surround themselves with it at critical times, as an expression of personal and material development."
However, the move that meticulously builds the apartment gradually turns out to be a process of dissolution - of identity, of uniqueness, of independent thought and movement - to such an extent that the figure who leads the show resembles a plastic piece of furniture more than a human being.
In this way, Theo Marcia and Steven Michel believe, the "domestic drama" they created will awaken in the viewer "an internal reflection on homelessness, alienation and consumerism, since we have all lived, envisioned or experienced some of these concepts in the recent past", and will even sharpen his awareness of the dictated "choreography" In advance we all give ourselves to her when we enter the supermarket or the mall.
From "A thousand ways", photo: Maria Baranova
"1,000 Roads", the latest work of the group 600 Highwaymen (USA), founded and led by Abigail Brody and Michael Silverstone, moves - like its predecessors - on the seam between theater, dance, performance and civic meeting, in a way defined by the magazine "New Yorker" as requesting "Rewiring the DNA of theatrical viewing".
Indeed, the show completely dismantles everything we think we know about theater: instead of a show or actors - the spectators are the participants, and execute three possibilities of human encounter, which communicate with each other but each also stands on its own, through a series of relatively simple instructions .
The first, an hour-long "phone conversation" between two strangers mediated by a robot with a female voice, during which personal details about each of the participants are gradually revealed, without revealing their identity;
the second, the "meeting" of those people on the stage of the theater, one on one, but separated from each other by a partition glass, and in a way that allows for gradual acquaintance/acquaintance through the gaze (and not the words and voice, as in the first part);
And the third - "the gathering" - which groups all the strangers who participated in the work from its beginning into a joint action through which the power and complexity of a group gathering can be experienced.
On the one hand, "1,000 Ways" presents a distinctly "Coronian" aesthetic;
It came into existence during the pandemic and from the need of the creators to continue making live art, and not to settle in the spaces of zoom and live streaming.
However, Brody and Silverstone emphasize that although the work is a distinct product of the spirit (and conditions) of its time, it aims to illuminate much more primary and universal dimensions of human existence: "'Covid' did not flood new questions but strengthened issues that were already present. Questions about proximity and distance - our abilities to imagine and care for the lives of others. Things like borders and countries, which try to separate, now prove to be useless. The world's population is completely connected to itself, and we are at the same time closer and more distant than we have ever been."
A viewer is present, thinks and feels
Despite the difference in the performance proposals and the aesthetic approaches of the works, all three present a similar reading of reality at the current point in time as a moment of crisis - social, ecological or human - the signs of which are evident in all dimensions of life and also affect artistic practice, but at the same time reveal its potential to bring about change, even the smallest one.
Theo Marcia and Steven Michel, creators of "Convenient Solutions for a Happy Life", present in this context a pessimistic situation, which also has a point of light at its core: "Money rules the world - not the ideas, not the art, not love. Artists are working people facing a reluctant political system towards what they do or contribute to society. They cannot change the world, but they can open spaces for dialogue, empathy and collective reflection. Because, after all, art is undoubtedly important and relevant as a means of actively imagining the world in which we want to live."
Brody and Silverstone, photo: Tei Blow
The creators of "Sun & Sea" point out that the creative processes themselves have meaning: "We have created a choir where everyone's voice is equally significant to the other, and we have applied non-hierarchical working methods in our artistic practice," says director Rogila Bardjukeita.
Regarding the question of the ability of the show, and performance in general, to drive social change, the author of the libretto Granita claims that "even though the operatic performance is focused on addressing the climate crisis, it does not offer solutions or contain any lessons, but rather allows the viewers in the audience to enter a zone of pure melancholy and surrender to the feeling of the end ".
And in this sense, the work actually has the potential to influence at the personal-internal micro level, because "every minute of climate awareness is important".
Hidden within the big issues is the - probably eternal - question: how do you keep the art alive and activate the viewer in such a way that his encounter with it will be meaningful, and will also resonate in life after the show.
Abigail Brody and Michael Silverstone, creators of "1,000 Ways", avoid determining how art should affect: "We will never pretend to dictate how any person should feel, and certainly not everyone will have the same experience."
However, it seems that the artistic proposition inherent in their work - to create intimacy with a stranger and fulfill it in the one-off moment of the present only - succeeds in distilling with great precision their perception of the role of art and performance in contemporary society: "To think about each other, to treat another person with great attention and with curiosity, and also allow ourselves to be seen by others."
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