Back In the Eye of the Storm

Ruth Eshel
22.03.2011

“Storm End Come” by Yasmeen Godder, In the Eye of the Storm

The new creation by Yasmeen Godder and Itzik Giuli takes further their journey of exploring the human unconscious. It’s hard to stay indifferent in the presence of such exposure and its intensity

“Storm End Come”, the new creation by Yasmeen Godder and Itzik Giuli, is marked by a distinct personal voice and is yet another step in their journey to unfold the happenings of the human unconscious caged in body. What takes place in the unconscious is much wilder, more stirring and bigger than life. The physical, everyday body enters here a state of tension which accumulates slowly and steadily, in moments quivering and trembling from the surplus of energy. The inner masks peel away, the internal “stable” of the body cleans itself out, and revealed beneath is an animalism which appears pre-human. This is mysterious territory, and within it, as if in an archeological excavation, one may listen to impulses of the unconscious which allow us to connect to the place we came from. The stage and background are white and do not disclose when and where the happenings occur. The dancers, on the other hand, look casual in cloudy pastel colors, the pattern of their clothes slightly twisted, as if these small faults are deliberate signs that point to the beginning of the process. The events on stage have a hypnotic power because of the strong presence of the dancers who are deeply immersed in process, drunk, experiencing pleasure and pain in the places and states they find themselves in. There is no concrete development or story-line, only meetings and intersections between creatures who share an inner hunger, quiet and deep, a hunger which appears bottomless and insatiable, and these creatures play amongst themselves in rituals which touch on the borderlines of life and death. In the beginning of the piece a dancer is seen kneeling on all fours. She activates an internal engine so as to awaken her torso with impulses, attempting to connect to an inner memory of the body. She advances in space on all fours, becoming submerged in her inner world as currents of animalistic energy engulf her. More dancers enter, each soloing through phrases of movement all their own, products of inner unrest, of a willingness to join the seance. Among the dancers connections form, mostly duets. Seemingly, chance, coincidence or fate steer the piece. Every movement, every touch, creates a chain of reaction, as movements join together in kaleidoscopic combinations, like some deep long breath which ebbs and fades. The movement is intricate, body inside body, the spaces in between expanding and contracting like an improvisation crystallized. The dancers appear glued one to the other, enjoying the proximity, the pain and the joy, the intimacy. They sway together, rolling and rocking, drunk from the internal ride, when suddenly and with no apparent reason one throws another who is then severed, slung in the air and left rolling away on stage. The dancers bite each other gently, taking pleasure in these games of playful fondle. In one of the sections, two dancers advance together on all fours, the boundaries between them a blur. A dancer’s head is placed in the chokehold of another’s ribcage, and two other dancers hold her legs which rise to the ceiling. This curious ritualistic parade is one among many in the piece. Towards the end of the piece the music becomes silent and the continuous and condensed flow of movement comes to a sudden halt. Fate has placed one dancer above her partners’ heads, held there with their help. they loosen the grip and she is dropped to the floor like “the Chosen One” in “The Rite of Spring” by Vaslav Nijinsky. However, this is not a folk tale, but an internal process which has come to an end. She stands up, and everybody leaves the stage. This creation, which is like a glimpse into an ecstatic inner journey, like Godder and Giuli’s previous creations, leaves the audience shocked, drained and astonished in the face of such intense exposure. You might like it and you might not, but you can’t stay indifferent.
Choreography: Yasmeen Godder, Co-Creation and Dramaturgy: Itzik Giuli, Creating Performers: Dalia Chaimsky, Shulamit Enosh, Tsuf Itschaky , Danny Neyman, Anat Vaadia, Sara Wilhelmsson, Music: Hajsch – “1992”, Lights: Omer Sheizaf, Costumes: Michal Bassad, Suzanne Dellal Center Tel Aviv, 15.3