There’s nothing like a deadline to get the adrenalin flowing. The film world has long since taken advantage of the current penchant for short forms and the thrill of a tight deadline to create a new format: 48 hour film projects. It can be tricky to distinguish between a gimmick and a useful or insightful tool, much depends on the practitioner. Roy Maliach Reshef, artistic director of the 14/48 Project, has successfully adapated the theatrical version to the Israeli stage for the past two years as part of the Short Theatre Festival at Tzavta.
Choreographer Dana Ruttenberg initiated Project 48 in dance, creating her own perspective on the process, inviting choreographers, dancers and dramaturgs to take part. Each choreographer determined via lottery the number and gender of performers in the work, then assembled the appropriate number of males and females drawing names at random from a hat. Then the dramaturgs each drew the name of a choreographer, and the teams were in place. The inspirational starting point for the teams is this video clip of a scene from Walzer by Pina Bausch. The teams had 24 hours to create and rehearse a dance piece that related to the clip, complete with music, costumes, set and lighting; performances took place on June 13 and 14, 2013.
I set out to see Project 48’s first round of performances, with curiosity and an open mind; I came away exhilarated, reminded of all that excites me about dance. The quality of the works presented and the production as a whole was astonishing, a truly impressive achievement given the exacting schedule of this format.
I enjoyed the performances, but just as important was the opportunity within the dance community to encounter the unexpected, work with people they may not have worked with before, and especially for those whose creative process is usually long and involving extensive research – an opportunity to let loose and try something very, very different. Placing the emphasis very appropriately on the process, rehearsals were live-streamed online. From the perspective of the viewer, it was an extremely fun and creative evening, and I suspect that the choreographers and dancers, despite the nerves and exhaustion, had a lot of fun too. Project 48 was an immensely successful experiment, which I hope to see again.
Uri Rubinstein accompanied the creative team on this 48 hour odyssey, his photographs of the process were exhibited in the foyer of Warehouse 2 on the nights of the performances, offering a look behind the scenes, and graciously shares them here with Midnight East. To view Uri Rubinstein’s photos of the performances on both nights, click here.
