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DEBORAH FRIEDES |
Signs for Furo in Tel Aviv’s port area.
The building which houses the installation.
The sign at the entrance to the installation. “Furo” means “bath” in Japanese.
A question was asked in Hebrew, restated in English, and then translated into Japanese. This was part of the scene at yesterday’s press conference for Furo, a collaboration between Ohad Naharin and the Japanese video artist Tabaimo.
In the last two decades, Israeli choreographers - led by Naharin - have pushed the boundaries of their art form along with their foreign counterparts. Furo continues this move forward. Globalization, collaboration, installation, technology, and video art are some of the hot words right now, and every one of these terms can be used in a discussion about Furo. The seed for the production began in New York City, where Naharin saw an exhibition of Tabaimo’s Japanese Bathhouse, and the collaboration between the Israeli choreographer and the Japanese video artist was initially shown in Stockholm. Now the installation - with Tabaimo’s video projected onto three screens which shape a stage space dotted with yellow buckets and flanked by two dancers standing on boxes with rotating platforms - is in Tel Aviv, with tickets at a mere 60 shekels in conjunction with Israel’s 60th birthday. Over the next few weeks, audiences will flock to the city’s port to see the work, which loops continuously for several hours nearly every day. Viewers can filter in and out as they like; meanwhile, pairs of Batsheva dancers trade off performing duty partway through each loop (one full cycle is 45 minutes). I got to preview the work (and make my way through a Q-and-A session primarily in Hebrew!) at the press conference and can’t wait to go back to see it with a regular audience on Friday. I have a feeling I’ll stay for a few cycles . . .
