The sentences she heard from her late mother ("You need to be more feminine"), the longing for her musician father ("I suddenly found out I was making a tribute to him"), and the shaking after the harassment by Moshe Ivgi ("The reactions shook me") • An album she wrote and composed
"My game is a gig that has taken hold. The music was there before."
Levi
Photography:
Efrat Eshel
For the past 26 years, we have become accustomed to seeing actress Asi Levy play a variety of characters in film, television and theater, performing monologues that others have put into her mouth.
Now she is giving free rein to the words she wrote herself, without filters, wrapped in melodies she created herself.
Yes, from now on they said: Asi Levy, musician.
Levy spent her corona months in the basement of her home in Ramat Gan, which she shares with her two daughters - Zoe (17) and Lehi (18 and a half).
On this floor hides a magical and spacious room, half a studio and half a studio, full of records ("I love the sound of a record playing on a turntable from start to finish. I hear jazz, Israeli, Patti Smith, Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Billy Holiday"), and In posters, guitars, piano, drum set and amplifiers, next to a computer stand and a seating area.
In this alternate universe the esteemed actress returned to her old love and dream that accompanies her from her childhood.
On January 3, she is about to release to radio the first single called "A Night in Paris", which she wrote and composed herself, from her debut album which will be released soon.
A soft and deep song, in which the sad city of lights serves as a setting for one night, into which a whole life of love drains.
Its sounds give the uplifting room the atmosphere of a New York or Parisian club.
The song and album are a birthday present Shalev gave herself at the age of 51, which she celebrated last September.
It is enough to see how the actress' body language changes, about which the Corona crisis closed her professional home - the Haifa Theater, where she starred in two plays before the outbreak of the virus - to understand how excited she is about the new turn in her career.
"My game is a gig, a gig that has taken hold," she laughs.
"Music was there before. I started playing classical piano at the age of 5 and a half. At the age of 16 and a half, after performing at concerts at the local conservatory, I felt that the intense training sucked me too much. I also played tennis seriously, competed in competitions, and felt it really took me. All my youth. So I left the piano. I wanted to go to parties.
"I had a teacher who beat me with a ruler on my hands, and it made me develop a very great anti to orderly learning.
My mom really mourned it, did not agree to sell my piano.
Today I can not read a character, it is a language that has been erased for me. "
At the age of 18, she went with her good friend Yossi Ezer, then a bassist in the Portrait band, to buy her first guitar." It was a black electric Yamaha.
I learned to play on my own.
Yossi's brother, David, gave me some basic lessons.
In fact, apart from acting, which I have officially learned, I am by all means a sworn self-taught.
"At the same time I wrote songs all the time and was active in the ensembles as a musician and singer. I had a rock band with the late Inbal Perlmutter, Iggy Waxman and Tal Gordon called 'The Fucking', a women's band that operated in the nineties, where they were all famous and only me at the beginning, and after the army I worked. With Tamira Yardeni as a water girl in performances by Portrait, Korin Elal and the Hat Bearers Band. "
After studying acting in Yoram Levinstein's studio, in 1999 she recorded an album with Nir Friedman ("which in the end did not come out as an album, but only a few songs for radio") and wrote music for occasional projects in which she participated.
"I didn't really have time to deal with it, and probably didn't have the courage either. I was terribly comfortable on the playing track, but the music was there all the time. Everyone knows me as an actress, but the industry knows I started as a musician. At home I keep playing guitars."
What happened this year that finally made the musical dream come true?
"In the last two years I started writing a screenplay for a feature film I also want to direct, about my personal story, a piece of my life, but it's pushed aside a bit, because I suddenly said to myself 'you have to get used to music now.'
" For about two years now I feel a burning urge Do other things, tell my stories and not just others'.
This is in addition to the Haifa Theater, where we worked very well until the Corona.
I was thinking where I want to move my story.
One way was to write the script, and the other was to go back to making music. "A
month before the epidemic began (" when they had already started talking about the tsunami on the way ") she began practicing playing and composing poets' songs." I practiced with the discipline of getting up every morning and going down to my room. The guitar and play.
Even then I had the thought that we would be taken off the stage because of the corona.
"To lubricate the musical engines, I took my favorite poets' books, David Avidan, Tirza Atar, Dalia Ravikovic, and started composing them. It was a morning warm-up, with work discipline and writing I never knew. Then I went on to write my lyrics. Every day, "It didn't matter if it was a good song or a shit song, I sat in the room. Even if I didn't write anything. At lunch break - then writing and composing again."
According to her, in all the female characters she writes about in the album, you can find parts of her, her past, her fantasies and imagination.
She chooses to play me the song "To Her Colors," in which a sentence stands out that describes a woman who "would rather be burned alive in the water than stay dry on the beach."
This woman is you?
"I think you can find acceptance in that. I have always argued that only dead fish swim with the current. I try to moderate over the years, but do not stop jumping into the water. As an artist, the worst thing is to stay in the safe place. I try not to do it, as much as life allows. Lee.
"In this album I realized that if I do not have who I am, and that we as artists must not wait for roles and things that will happen.
that's what I'm talking about.
dare.
Not to be afraid.
After the recordings of the album I can say that to this day I have not come close at all to the daring I needed this time in terms of writing.
These are my texts, and it's very revealing to tell my story.
"Even as an actress I always found the equivalent of personal life for the character I played. My soul never hid behind the lyrics. It's the power of the actors, you see a piece of their soul through the written words they give life to. To me, that's what makes art touching, good, fascinating And exciting. "
When did you realize that the collection of songs you wrote joins an entire album?
"About March, when I already had a lot of songs. Yossi recommended me to collaborate with Amir Perry, he also comes out a portrait. I and Amir have a similar musical style, and he also played at my wedding, so I thought the idea was brilliant. Amir came to me, excitedly heard some songs "I chose and told me that he did not care what he wanted to be in this project. I gave him full confidence as the music producer. Everything was done in the days of the Corona. At first we planned to record only three songs, a small EP, because after all the whole production is on me and I fund."
You did not contact a well-organized record company?
"I preferred to create without anyone's external intervention. It's mine. I chose the songs, the arrangements, the cover design (which was commemorated by Israel Prize winner Alex Liebek, the sinker in the Ein Gedi area; MK).
I was also responsible for the clip for 'A Night in Paris', shot in the studio while recording, combining photos from one of my and Tamar's last trips (Shelef, Levy's partner; MK) there. With Amir there was a complimenting and generous collaboration, he did the The arrangements, completely went with me.
"We did not have much time to record, recording sessions were canceled for us twice due to the closures.
But on the first day we recorded 'Night in Paris' there was a kind of magic in the air, as if a finger of God came down and touched us.
We were me, Amir and the technician Raz Burg, the owner of Tammuz Studios, where we recorded, who was also a partner in the arrangements.
"" Amir is a phenomenon who plays all instruments, and in three studio days we recorded three songs.
On the third day Yossi arrived, heard the songs and said: 'It's amazing, why not continue to a whole album?'
I thought a bit and said - go for it.
I went to write five more songs, to create a whole story. "
So what are we expected to hear on musician Asi Levy's album?
" I'm not good at definitions.
There are quiet ballads and there are rhythmic songs.
A story came out that I think is wrapped in gold by Amir and Raz, who did an amazing job.
I also worked on the texts with the stunning Sheila Farber, who edited them.
"The whole project was written, recorded and produced in eight months. In writing I'm in a world of characters who say what I want them to say, answer what I ask them to answer. I have control over them, and it's a tremendous, addictive power (laughs). I had fun going out and seeing the world. "
Needless to say, producing an album involves no small financial outlay.
Could you stand it?
"I definitely had to consider the economic element as well. It's a corona period after all, and I'm not working. So we made every effort to record out of love and at minimal cost."
* * *
Behind the name of the album, "Twenty-Nine & the Neighbors", there is - of course - a personal story.
This time, too, Levy dives into the past, plays me a song called "Tell me from mom" and explains why the album is first and foremost a tribute to her mother, Shoshana, and her father, Moshe, both of whom are no longer alive.
"This album screams of longing for my parents. 'Tell me Mama' was among the first I wrote. My father was a gifted musician, who did not take advantage of his talent and wasted. In his youth he was an orchestra player, knew how to play trumpet, drums, saxophone, clarinet and harmonica. He was a singer. He had a trio with his brothers, and they performed at the Blue Bird Club in Tel Aviv. He sang, danced and played.
"I grew up in a house where music is heard all the time.
His idol was Louis Armstrong.
My father would 'make' a trumpet with his lips, a champion of whistles, he knew how to imitate all the instruments.
Without noticing I discovered that I have no guitar solo on the album, only Amir's trumpet solo, and I suddenly realized it was a tribute album to my dad.
If he had known, he would have flown.
He was an Egged driver, died in 2007, at the age of 87. The album is really dedicated to him.
"In the song 'Tell me from my mother,' which is related to my mother, there are all kinds of sentences she would say to me, that today I miss, and we once annoyed me, like 'Why don't you put on make-up?'
She always wanted me to wear dresses, she was mad that I was in jeans and a T-shirt, she would tell me I needed to be more feminine.
"My mother started her career as a nurse in a hospital, and at a young age she retired and went into business.
She brought the wallpaper to the country from England in the 60s, and died in 2010, at the age of 80. She was so elegant, and the femininity she used to talk about - I suffered from it.
I loved pants with pockets (laughs).
She would travel to Europe, the woman of the great world.
The dresses and clothes she would bring me from there always stayed in the closet.
We did not fight, but I remember she would be mad at me.
As for the name of the album, my mother really liked the casino, and once in a while she went to play roulette. It made her happy, even though I was bored with them. Sometimes I would join her for short and pampering trips. Her number at roulette was 29, and 'neighbors' is a concept never. The casino. She remembered that my date of birth was September 29, even though it was 28, and for her it was her lucky number in the game. One day, when we were due to return from abroad, I went down to call her to pack for a flight and saw her sitting in the casino, upset that she had lost.
She did not know how to lose, even though it was not a large sum.
"The thing is, the way I got there - the roulette suddenly dropped to 29. Her smile jumped from zero to a hundred, as if she had received a seal that I had brought her luck again. She left the chip on 29, the dealer turned the roulette, and again heard '29 and the neighbors', a sentence he He announced three times in a row. "
In Israel, people really like to tag and put in frames. Did you take into account that there are those who will raise an eyebrow at an actress who releases an album?
"I must not mess with it. Whoever raises an eyebrow can also pick up on my job choices. The last thing that worries me is what they will say. It's destructive. As a creator, this fear is the most castrating thing that can be. I have a box of fears, I will not say no, But he's stuck somewhere deep in my memory, and I try not to let him manage me.
"Now my stomach is a little twitching, from excitement, because I've been waiting for it all my life, probably until today I wasn't ready enough.
In the meantime, I was brewing as a creator and as a person.
I could not write such texts when I was 20. "
* * *
And let's not forget: she's still an actress too.
Levy now appears in the new series "BlackSpace", which recently aired on Network 13 (Tuesdays), directed by Ofir Lubel.
A suspense drama starring Guri Alfi, Shai Avivi, Meirav Shirom, Reut Alush and Liana Iyun, which follows a shooting incident that took place in high school.
Alfie plays a police investigator who returns to the place where he studied, to decipher who the mysterious shooters were who shook the peace of the city.
Levy plays his commander, Superintendent Russo, who is responsible for an investigation that is only getting more complicated.
"It's not a huge role," she admits.
"The filming was short overall, but for me it was a great and fun experience."
A few months ago, Levy first told, in an interview with this supplement, about the mask of sexual harassment she went through, according to her testimony, from the actor Moshe Ivgi, with whom she acted in theater and cinema.
The exposed interview was released in the midst of the recordings for the album, which made for her the turbulent period anyway - even more complex.
"Things were important and had to be said, and all the right reasons were in front of my eyes. And yet, the exposure shook me," she says now.
"Suddenly I understood what the victims, the women, were going through, even though my case was nothing compared to the shocking cases there were. It made me think about what women have to go through when they are exposed, when their stories come out.
" I did not imagine the confession turning my head and stomach.
It shook me, diverted my attention from work.
After the article was published I felt that everyone around me supported me.
To me, this was the most important interview I did in my life.
In the places where we are most afraid - there should be a touch. "
What are the reactions you received?
" Amazing and strengthening reactions, not to mention victims who wrote to me on social media.
There was a tsunami of messages and telephone calls.
I was approached by all the TV shows, but I did not go, because I felt I had said my word.
This is not a festival I'm going to celebrate.
This is something that should have come out, because as soon as a person receives such a light punishment, his victims automatically come out lying immediately.
That's why I spoke. "
Did you hear anything from Ivy or his immediate surroundings following the publication?
" Nothing. "
* * *
Levy's decision to release an album in the days when the world of music is facing a huge crisis, and in an era where many artists are content in advance with only singles, is not self-evident.
"The music industry has changed, and everything is on social media and digital today. NMC will distribute me on the digital network. I know it's rare to release an album today, but I wanted to do an old school project, one whole piece, and I want to be taken seriously. I do not want to be an actress. "La Stotz with the music, a gimmick. I already have songs for the next album. I will write the music for my film, and I already have a show ready. I want to dream big."
Are you busy wondering if your songs will be on the radio playlist?
"No, the thought of a song going into a playlist doesn't bother me. Songs stay on forever, even if they don't make it to the radio."
What about continuing your playing career?
"I'll do it all together. The theater is my home, and right now they closed my house and told me 'you can not enter it,' without any logic or explanation. The ground dropped under my feet, with no due date.
" Did you close the door for me?
I will enter from the window with the songs.
We are getting ready to start running shows, wherever they invite us, with the songs and stories that accompany the songs and are related to me as an artist, as an actress and as a person.
I'll play the guitar and Amir will play the guitar, trumpet and other instruments. "
What of our crazy year we have sneaked into the album?
" I have two political songs, one of which is called 'The Border is the Breasts'.
I wrote it following the girl who went up and exposed a demon on the lamp in a demonstration in front of the Knesset, and all the noise and storm that this thing created.
The second song, 'Ze Tam Four', corresponds with the atmosphere and reality of the Corona period.
For example, in the sentence 'The words are over, shame is also lost'.
I never hid my opinions, I always talked about my feelings.
All the time. "
More and more artists today sound desperate. Even the demonstrations on the subject of culture have diminished.
" It is difficult to maintain a high-profile fighting spirit all the time.
It's like a wave, probably when you've an existential concern for the workplace and your life.
I have friends who are in very difficult situations, and the whole cultural world is in a terrible state.
The few times I leave the house I get a lot of sympathy, everyone misses, saying, 'Well, when will you be back?
Let them be ashamed of what they have done to you. '
These are reactions from all the people, on the street, in the market, in the supermarket, at the traffic light.
Not left or right.
"Until the current closure, everyone did not understand the logic of opening malls, IKEAs, bombing flights and synagogues. People have nothing to eat, but they have opened the gates for dream vacations in the Seychelles and Dubai. There are discreet WhatsApp groups of theater activists, helping each other and transfer money. "Beat support for those who need it. You can count on the palm of your hand the artists who can afford this period. I feel they closed the screen to us and darkened the world. So if you do not see me, let's hear."
To what extent did you involve Tamar and your daughters in the process?
"It was a very personal process, between me and myself, and until the last few moments it was really hard for me to share. But towards the end I played things to them - and the reactions were great. On the other hand, I'm afraid they's biased, sympathetic.
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