Homeland for sale

International Exposure-2006 took place in Tel Aviv

International Exposure in Russian can be called a festival, but the word “fair” is still closer. On the stage of the Tel Aviv Susan Dellal Center and in its surroundings, Israeli dance theaters are shown for four days - both famous ones that have traveled the world and semi-amateur ones. Most of the audience in the audience are producers of international festivals (our people from Moscow and St. Petersburg also came this year) - and so each of the theaters is trying to seem better, to sell itself. This is facilitated by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which patronizes the festival: they understand very well that at the time of purchase, not only an event for some European (American, Japanese) festival is purchased, but also a certain image of Israel. That’s why they called in more journalists to record this process on paper.

There is almost no classical ballet in Israel; in any case, what exists does not deserve a separate discussion. But modern dance is represented by several high-class troupes (there are no such troupes in Russia, except perhaps “Provincial Dances”). Before the trip, this seemed surprising to me - the degree of training that is demonstrated, for example, by the artists of the Batsheva or Kibbutz dance theaters, if it were applied to the classics (if the artists chose classical dance in their early youth), would guarantee undoubted success. After International Exposure, after conversations with local people and just a careful look at the surrounding area, this ceased to surprise.

Ballet is an escapist art, and it is not for nothing that it begins to flourish in the worst times. But in Israel no one is going to run away from reality. There is a different way of communicating with the outside world - formulated in a play by the Gesher Theater based on David Grossman: “If you can’t laugh at something, it means you haven’t understood it enough.” And one more thing: if that vital, overflowing energy that fills Israeli contemporary dance performances were poured not only into “Swan Lake,” but even into “Don Quixote,” the performance would simply be torn apart, there would be nothing left of it.

Here in “Bertolina”, made by Sharon Eyal at the Batsheva dance company, a crowd of young people gathers into a dense lump in the center of the stage, their loins tremble, their bodies are in a fever - from the center of the crowd someone flies up for a second, but immediately finds themselves again inside this swaying furious swarm. The logic of the performance is the logic of describing chronic excitation that finds a way out and arises again. There are no “solo parts”, and there is also no separate existence outside the group: either everyone crawls, leaning on their elbow, or jumps like crazy. The men stand in a double row opposite each other, the girls run up in turn and jump into their arms - lifting the next dancer up, they lay her on the ground, and immediately another is piled on top of her, then a third, and a sort of swarming hill grows. The movements are repetitive, the choreographic language of the young director (who herself dances in this ensemble) is not too rich, but the pulsation of energy makes the audience literally jump on their chairs.

“Batsheva” is the first contemporary dance company to appear in Israel; forty years ago, Baroness Bathsheba Rothschild invested money in organizing the theater. In Hebrew, her name sounds like Batsheva - that’s the name for the troupe. In general, patrons of the arts are highly valued in the country - the Susan Dellal Center, a luxurious complex with three auditoriums, is named after a girl who had nothing to do with art. She simply had the misfortune of dying very young, and her parents gave money for construction, thus deciding to perpetuate the memory of their daughter. But the memory is not only preserved in the names (by the way, streets in Israel are not renamed no matter the political weather - the British George V and General Allenby are immortalized in the center; the only exception is the Square of the Kings of Israel became Yitzhak Rabin Square after the latter killed). Although the country does not have a special law on patronage, any entrepreneur sponsoring a socially important project can apply to the government with a request to reduce taxes - and will receive a positive response. That is why this practice is developed: all theaters live at the expense of patrons. Government subsidies make up 20-30% of the budget, another ten percent comes from ticket sales, the rest comes from the help of companies and individuals. Batsheva has perhaps the best position of all - the company occupies a separate building in the Susan Dellal complex. The rest are looking for and renting premises.

But city problems and joys remain city problems and joys, and the most interesting event of the fair was the performance that was shown to us (translated into Russian realities) in the collective farm House of Culture. Few kibbutzim (Israeli collective farms that arose at the dawn of the state, when socialist sentiments were very strong) have now been preserved in their original form: it often happens that a person lives in a kibbutz and works in the city. When Kibbutz contemporary dance company was created, this ideology was still strong and the principle “if you till the land, you write poetry” was assumed, that is, first you work in the field - then you dance. Now this is a professional company, in which not all participants are members of the kibbutz; but the proud name was preserved, and to demonstrate our originality, we were specially taken to this House of Culture - however, not to the one where the touring troupe usually rehearses (it is far from Tel Aviv), but to a similar one, closer.

White houses, 22 degrees in the sun (harsh winter, the Israeli ambassador to Russia warned us, you will still be going to swim, keep in mind that there are no lifeguards on the beaches anymore), a passing agricultural machine, a Volkswagen floating towards the house of a local peasant. And Rami Beer's play "Ekodum", completely urban, rhythmic, tough - no beach laziness. In a large box, open to the viewer, a girl is struggling, feeling the walls, methodically and hopelessly. Fantastically exposed light - networks are woven from it, boundaries are marked with it, from white to gray fifty shades are visible in the spotlights. And two parts of the performance: an aggressive declaration of the troupe (we are like this, we are together; five people go up to the ramp, like top models, looking defiantly into the audience) and a set of complexly connected scenes (we are like this, we are - different). In the second part - anything from the procession of a bouncing line and the journey of two black-haired divas on some kind of cart, which, like rickshaws, is meekly dragged back and forth by men, to three men in a portrait frame, one of whom suddenly starts jumping like that, It's like a hopak is dancing. The music is international pop, not annoying here, but here appropriated and put at the service of man. We need such a rhythm - and we will subordinate it to ourselves, rather than it subjugating us.

But these are peaks, achievements, pride. At International Exposure, meanwhile, very simple things are offered for sale. Thus, the Concerto for four dancers and orchestra, choreographed by Sally-Anna Friedland for Dance Drama Company and Ra'anana Symphoniette Orchestra, was an inspired exercise by amateurs. For half an hour, three blooming girls and one inspired young man performed something like a parody of the Polovtsian Dances, and then, with the same degree of skill, moved on to tango. Obliquely, ineptly, wildly, the orchestra was unimaginably out of tune - but nothing, no one booed them, and they were even quite applauded. Everyone has the right to offer their products - maybe someone will like it. (A local commercial promoting some cellular company: a kid stands at a crossroads and sells some cheesecakes, no one buys them. A woman, seeing his sad face from the balcony, texts half a dozen acquaintances - and a line forms at the little seller. )

This is important, and this is probably why there is no clear classical ballet in the country. There cannot be a “maybe” in it, the fifth position is closed or not, the pirouette is twisted or blocked. Ballet is an inhumane art; The people of the country, which arose after the most brutal of wars and was conceived as a refuge and refuge, are unusually soft in the intonation of skill.

They are tough in another way - in defending boundaries. At the Gesher Theater, the audience listens attentively to a story from the early years of Israel (the same performance by Evgeniy Arie - a neat adaptation of Grossman's novel). About how a family lived that survived the Second World War, raised their son and carefully hid from him everything that happened to them in the camps, so as not to traumatize the boy. But sometimes they blurted out about “Nazi monsters,” and the child imagined some evil magical creatures, something fabulous. When the little man understands what’s what, he shouts (and this is the only raising of his voice in the play) that why didn’t you (the parents) fight, how come you allowed it! And further: we will fly on airplanes (we will not be like that). And this is the only place when a sensitive audience, laughing and reacting attentively but quietly, gives a real ovation.

And in the Tel Aviv Museum there is a life-size green ceramic donkey. The artist who created it for the exhibition died, and it remained in the museum. And when children come on an excursion and the guide asks them why they think the donkey is green, the children answer: so that he won’t be noticed in the grass.

Constant feeling of insecurity. The feeling that life is here, and it is seething unimaginably. Pride. Humor. Tolerance and intolerance in close conjunction (in Jerusalem, the guide several times in a row: the temple stood on the site of that building with a golden dome; “that building” is a mosque). In order to get a feel for this country, of course, you need to visit it - but if they finally bring something from International Exposure to Moscow or St. Petersburg, maybe it will become a little clearer.

Anna GORDEEVA