It was so much fun the first time, the Tel Aviv Municipality is doing it again! Hosting the multi-arts event “Rega Ehad (one moment): Art in Unexpected Spaces #2” on Thursday, March 12, 2015, with music, theatre, art, discussions, workshops and exhibitions – on all floors of the Municipal building, and expanding out to the Einav Cultural Center and Gvirol Arts Center at 108 Ibn Gvirol Street. It all starts at 19:30, admission is free – come early, and stay late.
A word of advice: free tickets to the events must be collected at the information desk in the Municipality lobby. I did this in October, so I know how it goes. Yes, there is a line. Yes, it can take a while. Yes, some popular events get “sold out.” Just remember – we’re all there to have fun and it is really great to have so many performances all in one night, all FREE! So relax, listen to music and chat with your friends while you wait and you’ll have a great time.
Midnight East Recommends:
The wonderful Geva Alon with songs from his first album in Hebrew, and all the favorites – “Modern Love” “Days of Hunger” “I Can See the Stars” in a solo acoustic performance – upper lobby at 23:45.
Kutiman will be launching a new project: Mix the City Tel Aviv Yafo. 12 musicians were invited to compose and perform their music in different Tel Aviv locations, Kutiman edited the video on a special digital platform courtesy of the British Council, developed by Flying Object, Roll Studio – London, that enables the user to create and share a musical mix of the city. At 23:45 visitors to the 12th floor will have a chance to try it out for themselves.
Jenny (Nadav Bossem) and Jana (Adili Liberman), the “Girls in Arms” trained (not) by the IDF Spokesman, will give you a tour of the municipality building that is like nothing you have ever experienced. These two are patriotism in its most hilarious incarnation. Seriously funny actors and observers of Israeli culture, they parody to perfection military and general Israeli tropes that will be hilariously familiar to most Israelis, and non-Israelis are sure to have a laugh too, even if they don’t get every single in-joke. Tours start at19:30 and 22:30 on the ground floor.
Dance duets on the 12th floor at 20:30 and 21:45! Ma SheBe’emet Margiz Oti (What Really Makes Me Mad), a duet performed by Adi Boutrous and Stav Struz (partners onstage and off), explores the possibility of an intimate relationship between Arab and Jew in Israel.
“We live in a place that has what is perhaps the greatest conflict in the world,” Adi Boutrous said in an interview with Midnight East, “I don’t know, maybe not the largest, but the most problematic. It has no resolution…at this time. I think it’s one of the most complicated conflicts in history, and for us to live here, in the State of Israel, an Arab with a Jew – however you look at it, however you turn it over in your mind, there is hostility, and there are things about it that get to you, and it’s not always comfortable.” (read the full interview here)
Noa Tsuk‘s Doom Doom Land, performed by the choreographer with Matan David, takes a surreal look at the everyday, with music by Ohad Fishof and Nate Young – Comes Unbidden.
Dancer/choreographers Avi Kaiser and Sergio Antonino will perform “Shum Makom” (No Place) in the first floor hallway at 21:00 and 22:00, and will perform their site-specific At Your Place in the 12th floor lobby at 23:00. To bring audiences closer to the dance experience, co-creators Kaiser and Antonino seek to “abolish the classical separation between people who look and people who do” and create a performance in which the performers and public share the same space, a “common space with no border, the same ground, same conditions, both (performers and public) occupied with a very concentrated and powerful action.” (read the full interview here)
Opera!!! Come to the 11th floor, room 1155, after 20:00 for an exceptionally intimate opera experience with singers from the Israeli Opera Studio. There is a wonderful cohort of singers in this studio, I really recommend coming to hear them – even if you hate opera! They’ll be singing well known arias from operas, operettas, musicals and Israeli songs. Who knows – you may discover that you love opera.
Alit Kriez, Efrat Arnon and Natalie Zuckerman will perform Daphna Silberg’s Torat Hazera in the Service Center on the street level at 20:00 and 23:00. Funny and entertaining, this piece raises some serious and valid questions about the policies and practices relating to artificial insemination, the ethical implications of which have not received the attention they deserve. Silberg uses this platform to expose issues of racism within Israeli culture, a racism that is all too often unacknowledged and ignored. Read the full article here.
Natalie Zuckerman will also be performing HaGuf HaAher (The Other Body) at 21:15. First performed at Tmuna Theatre’s A-Genre Festival 2013, co-creators Natalie Zuckerman and Atalia Branzburg present a very personal, intelligent and funny look on living with a physical disability.
Info and updates on the Art in Unexpected Places #2 event page.
