The work is a collaboration with the two artists - Noam Alon and Clemens Turpe who live in Paris. It was created for Danse Élargie 2018, and performed at the Theater de la Ville in Paris. Due to the geographical distance between us, the work was formed from our meetings on Skype and some intensive work sessions in Paris and Tel Aviv.
We were discussing a lot about nature and about Heterotopia - different place - as it was a consequence of our dialogue - while talking online, trying to imagine ourselves in the studio - we had to use a third imaginary space in order to feel creative. The obstacles of technology were affecting our artistic language in a reflective way- in the places in which were trying delicately to give shape to the imagined peaceful nature, with “crafty” design style that brings with it certain naivety, the technology appears. It makes us even more far from Nature in the real - even if it represents it. The tension between the mechanic and the chaotic was repeating again and again, either in our body and our stagical presence, either in the visual images themselves, that were
all stressing up a bold conflict of the 21st century, in our eyes.
As much we want to criticise it, our performative ritual won’t be complete without letting the two sides of this conflict give us its signs. The desire to get out to a real journey in the world itself, is mediated by technology in everyday life. Therefore, we are trying to find beauty at these moments as well, for the purpose of concealing it as part of us, and by that create a certain relief and belonging, in the complicated reality of 2018.
Heterotopia is always in relation to all of the remaining spaces. Therefore, our esthetic language is questioning the matter of scale - we are trying to create a compatibility between our bodies and the real space that we are inside it. This compatibility summons the sublime - the “not being here”. This merge between the body and the space, and the use of basic colors - is asking to almost delete us - to free us from being functional. All that brings us closer to our heterotopia - in which we are “just” a part of the landscape.
Creators, performers and stage design: Noam Alon, Clémence Turpin, Nina Traub
Produced by Théâtre de la Ville with Musée de la danse and Fondation d'entreprise Hermès as part of Danse Élargie event, 2018
© 2020 Nina Traub