Sharon Eyal’s Bill

A fiercely lyric and powerful work, Sharon Eyal’s Bill is an experience at once ultra contemporary and primal; charged with allusive imagery and movement.

Eyal’s choreography is reminiscent of an anthropologist researching the mysteries of an urban tribe through movement. In some sense, this tribe is composed of the Batsheva Dance Company, whose dancers generate the feeling that the choreography is not something they execute – the movement is in their bodies, radiating outward as performance.  In Bill, clad in identical skin-colored body suits, their hair painted white, the minimal costume emphasizes the individuality of each body as expressed through movement. At times the dancers appear to be nude, clad in this skin we all wear like a uniform, signaling a sense of belonging to a tribe called humanity. At times the music and movement alter the associations, and the costumes reflect the imposed unity of a technology dominated society. Wearing the anonymity of the masses, moving in unison like denizens of a futuristic society.

Yet Bill, with its strong tribal images, begins with a solo. A male dancer moves in a soft square of light to Oren Barzilai’s Dark Blue, surrounded by the vast dark space of the stage. There is a soft undulating flow to his movement broken by sudden dramatic transitions that melt back into the flow. Transcending boundaries, he drifts out of the light, there is a sense of freedom, an animal spirit to the movement surging through his body as the stage is flooded with light. This solo is followed by three more, each with a different character and feel, before a cluster of dancers enters the stage.

Eyal has a wonderful sense of space and composition, which is keenly felt in the series of solos opening this work where she creates a sense of composition with one dancer. Intensely aware of the negative space surrounding the dancer, she draws the audience into this realm of endless possibility, working in dialogue with the light and music. The individual and group reflect on one another throughout this work, both in the choreography and in the creative team. Guy Bachar is Eyal’s co-creator, Eyal and Bachar created the costume design and soundtrack design for Bill, with original music and soundtrack design by Ori Lichtik, and lighting design by the inimitable Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi).

The different elements work together to create layers of impressions, like mists and mountains merging in a watercolor. There are often several focal points, with the lighting shifting the gaze and consciousness. At one point a dancer stands behind a group that moves slowly in poses reminiscent of classical ballet, while behind them, another, larger group dances in the shadows, a loose, rhythmic club groove. At times, when the light dims, the teeming movement creates the sensation of entering the molecular structure of a dream.

The visual intensity of the work is densely rich with allusive references that range from the visual arts, the dancers recalling images of Classical Greek sculpture, to pop culture references invoked through minimal props such as dark glasses and later, backpacks, or even a fleeting hand gesture in one mass movement segment that brought Michael Jackson’s Thriller to this writer’s mind. The mix of club culture, classical imagery, pop culture, retro fashion and kitsch – all conveyed primarily through Eyal’s movement language, is also full of humor. Bill is permeated by a sensibility that merges the poignant with the absurd; it’s funny because it hurts. One of the most overt expressions is in the section performed to the anti-love song “I’m a Victim of This Song” (recorded by Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist – an interpretation and transformation of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game), with numerous configurations of heart images created with fingers, arms and other body parts along with virtuoso lip-synching.

A mesmerizing experience, Bill draws you into the rhythms of its tribe – dancers, people, moving in the clubs and on the street to the changing rhythms of our time.

Bill will be performed December 15, 19, 20 & 21 at 21:00 at the Suzanne Dellal Center, 8 Yehieli Street, in Tel Aviv. Tickets: 03- 5104037 or via the Batsheva site.

Bill by Sharon Eyal
Co-creator: Guy Bachar
Original Music and Soundtrack Design: Ori Lichtik; Lighting Design: Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi); Costume Design: Sharon Eyal, Guy Bachar; Soundtrack Design: Guy Bachar, Sharon Eyal.
Performed by the Batsheva Dancers:
Shachar Binyamini, Matan David, Iyar Elezra, Ariel Freedman, Shani Garfinkel, Chen-Wei Lee, Doug Letheren, Bosmat Nosan, Ori Moshe Ofri, Rachael Osborne, Ian Robinson, Michal Sayfan, Idan Sharabi, Bobbi Smith, Tom Weinberger, Adi Zlatin

AYELET DEKEL