“I bring to the individual spectator an option” about how to interpret the performance, said Rami Be’er, artistic director and choreographer for the Israel Contemporary Dance Theatre, of the company’s latest production, “Screensaver.”
Though Be’er said the piece, which combines dance and video images, presents a “general message against violence” and a “call to peace and harmony between human beings in different circles,” it’s “actually not telling a story,” he said during a telephone interview from Israel. He wants each person to “connect it to himself through what he sees.”
And, he continued, its interpretation is multi-layered and open-ended. “I use images that relate to what we see happening all around the world today. It’s a piece that you can see through different layers and not in one way, and this is the way I would like it, rather than try to understand one particular message.”
“It’s a whole concept of total expression, not just movement,” Be’er said, of the performance, which “combines different tools of the stage.”
Be’er created “Screensaver” about “two years ago,” he said. Since then, he said, the company has performed the 70-minute piece “over 200 times over Israel and the world.”
They will stop in Milwaukee for one performance on Thursday, March 10, 7:30 p.m., at Alverno College’s Pitman Theatre.
According to Dan Rudolf, general manager for the company, one of the things most important to him is that audience members don’t forget what they saw.
“The music is a collage,” he said. “You will feel it in your stomach. It’s very energetic. It’s romantic and wonderful to see how the sets change during the performance.”
Internationally known
Alon Galron, Israel emissary and director of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center, said the company “represents the best there is in Israel.”
The center “tries to bring to the community all kinds of things that represent Israeli culture,” Galron said, but he thinks it’s important “to show different angles — things the community hasn’t been introduced to.”
In addition, Galron said the visit by the company “allows [people] to see Israel for what it is and not only for the headlines that show the horror and the terror.”
Rudolf agreed. “It is very important for the image of Israel today to show that not everything is war,” he said from his home in Israel, noting the long and physically challenging tour the company will soon begin.
The company, which consists of 27 members, 17 of whom are dancers, will arrive in Miami for a five-stop tour in the U.S on Feb. 19, which will include performances in Pittsburgh, Chicago and a week of performances in New York. Afterward, the company will tour in Italy.
The company, originally named the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, was formed in 1970 by Yehudit Arnon, who still serves as the artistic adviser and director of the dance studio today, and who also originally trained Be’er, who started as a dancer with the company in 1980.
The company is based in Kibbutz Ga’aton, Israel, where the dancers have five different studios and practice from about 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week. All of the dancers are Israeli, aside from one who is from Japan, Rudolf said.
Tickets for the event are $50 for patron, $30 for premium seating, $25 for side seating and $10 for students with a valid ID. To purchase tickets, call the Pitman Theatre box office at 414-382-6044 or go to www.alverno.edu and follow the links for performing arts events.
The performance is presented by the Israel Center and the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, and sponsored by the Helen Bader Foundation and the Jewish Community Foundation, the endowment development program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
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