TWO ROOM APARTMENT (performance)

By and with: Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor
Based on the 1987 dance work by Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror
Music: Ori Vidislavski (original music), Elton John, Vains of Jenna
Artistic advisor: Keren Levi
Costumes: Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor
Lights: Netta Koren
Coproduction with Centre National de la Danse (Paris) and Grand Theater (Groningen)
Premiere: 2012
Duration: 50 min.

 

The work was chosen as Best Performance of the Year by the Israeli Dance Critics’ Circle for 2013. After the premiere in October 2012, in two years, “Two Room Apartment” was performed more than 70 times in Europe, Asia, North and South America.

“Two Room Apartment” brings Sheinfeld & Laor to the stage for a duet that reflects on their relationship as partners in life and as creators. Both personal and political, the work examines boundaries in various contexts: physical borders such as between territories or between two rooms, but also non-physical borders, such as the one between life and performance, and the boundaries that the individual sets for himself. The work uses a simple dance language and a minimalist aesthetic, and explores the notion of life as a framework in which a precise, almost compulsive repetition of customs and behaviors takes place.

The work suggests a new and contemporary reading to the original performance created by Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal that premiered in 1987 in Tel-Aviv. It is considered a milestone in the development of independent Israeli choreography, and it also received impressive international acclaim: the work had won several awards at the time, among them the Bagnolet Competition for Choreography.

Niv and Oren inspired the work with their intimate relationship and emotions, and the result is fascinating. They showed us how it’s possible to maintain a work’s basic structure and dynamism, and yet imbue it with their own authentic content without undoing the basic structure and form. / Ora Brafman, “Dance Talk“ /

 

Photos by Vojtech Brtnicky, Gadi Dagon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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