Temporary happiness

A group of almost forty dancers clad in various shades of green crowd the stage of Herzelia Performing Arts Center near Tel Aviv and slowly start performing a synchronized pulsating movement to a Sirtaki tune, bending to the floor, heads down, moving their knees and elbows. The green flock of swaying backs evokes images of happy creatures such as cicadas, maybe, or a group of mechanical toys being wound up.

  Whatever the association, an unmistakable happy playfulness was imbedded in “Telophaza“ from that moment on, and this spirit of conciliation was perhaps the dominant new flavor, an element that has been subdued in Naharin‘s work since his earliest pieces. “Telophaza” first premiered a couple of months ago on the outsize open air stage under the star studded desert sky at “Timna“ park, near Eilat. Now, on a conventional stage, the spirit of boundless scope lingered in the background.
In some ways, this piece belongs to his more intimate works that zoom in and research human contacts and draw one‘s attention to individual dancers as people rather than performers. For this purpose, Naharin uses several cameras and large video screens as a background, projecting close-up images of ...