Back JUST FOR A HUG

translation of an article by Gabi Eldor

“Sudden Birds” .  The work by Yasmeen Godder disturbs the soul.  It touches the pain, madness and badness in extreme and merciless ways, all of its elements creating a complete perfection.

In the new, Studio Suzi, at the Bat-Shevah building, in a space which is completely white, Godder, along with the stage designer Anat Sternschauss and the lighting desinger, Jackie Shemesh, created a world lacking shadows, white as well, with white lighting, hidden partially by box covers, placed on the edges of the space.  Like a room without walls. Four women in black dresses, in the interesting design the costume designer Lulu Liam, which touches the possibility of extremes, but remain wearable clothing, create an entangled relationship which goes into play through touch- every touch activating a chain of responses , every touch is in the realm of a hug which turns into a choke.

…This dependence exposes various movement possibilities, but Godder has taken it to an extreme place, when the dancers ( Shahar Brown, Kama Kolton, Maya Weinberg, Sharon Zuckerman)  don’t only touch a hand, leg or chin, but also use their face, their voice, and especially their eyes in a way which contradicts the usual expression of “dance” in which only the body work.  In a rising ladder of emotions which becomes more and more extreme, a smile turns into a twitch, the fingers freeze like a death mask, and that which begins as a playful children’s game, turns into a terrible dependence, of a confession of a parent-child and sister relationship, of the manipulation and the fear and the glory of a temporary victory and a destructive impulsive behavior which is given relief.

Godder’s performance language is solidifying , and already in her earlier work the body speaks in a familiar voice and at the same time in another, secretive, which gives way to sudden cracks- like another movement at the end of a familiar movement, a sudden dropping or the addition of a dissonant hand.  But despite all of the unruly content, this work is a perfect orchestration, severe, which doesn’t use props or extraneous elements at all. This is a human document, with no illusions, and hardly any consolation, of the cruelty, which we are all capable of, the fear which we know, and of the loose boudaries of sanity. Godder achieves allowing one moment to become multi-facetted, almost like a cubist painting, in which a portrait is seen from the front and the side at the same time, and she does this not only in the spatial dimension but also in that of time, as if one moment explodes into particles: the sudden stops, elongated, remind one of family photos in which one accidental moment is frozen, but now commemorated, the accidental becomes meaningful, historical, multi-facetted.

Karni Postal on the side of the stage, also dressed in black, creates another reality, a full world, also without borders.  With an electric cello, she creates intense sounds, which disappear into another time, without boundaries, which sometimes, especially towards the end, the cello seems to be urging the dancers, increasing the excitement.

The reading of names of the participants by that same Sharon Zuckerman, an immensely powerful performer, is accompanied by a self-beating ritual and wicked smile, as of they are saying: this is not only a show  and now were all going home, its true that this is a performance, but this is us, these are our names, this is real.