Dancer-choreographer Rina Schenfeld will perform a new work – Threads & Feathers, that reflects her past, as well as the present. When Schenfeld, a star soloist of the Batsheva Dance Company, left the company to pursue an individual career, she also turned away from narrative dance and moved towards the Bauhaus aesthetic, towards nature and objects, and it began with threads. The first dance work she created in her own company in 1979 was a solo piece – Threads, which was very successful in Israel and abroad.
Today, with a repertoire of over 120 dance works that she has created over a period of more than 45 years, she felt the desire to take another look at that first dance, one that symbolized the beginning of a new path. She was curious to see what had changed, to return to the beginning and see what had developed, for good or bad, in her and in her environment.
Schenfeld embarked on this journey with Israeli guitarist and composer Nadav Lev, and Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan (appearing virtually, via projection), and the result was a new piece: Threads and Feathers. The second part of the program will feature a work performed by dancers from Rina Schenfeld’s company.
The collaboration between Schenfeld, Hannigan and Lev began five years ago with a joint performance in Tel Aviv. The desire to continue working together, while negotiating the geographic distance between them, led to the idea of working with video. Hannigan and Lev filmed a video at the Jewish Museum in Paris as a birthday gift to Schenfeld, a video which was to become part of the new piece Threads & Feathers. Lev will perform live on classical and electric guitar, while Hannigan will appear in video segments projected at times on a large screen, and also on Schenfeld’s clothing. The dance reflects Schenfeld’s love of objects, and over the course of the piece she dances with ladders, threads, feathers, fabrics, and more… Musically, the work includes compositions by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Hans Abrahamsen, and Noa Blass.
Performances will take place in two Tel Aviv venues: Tmuna Theatre on Thursday, April 3rd at 20:00, and at Studio Annette on Wednesday, April 4th at 20:00. The performance at Studio Annette will place an emphasis on music as part of a series on the guitar presented by Nadav Lev.
