Hands Up

I met Imogen through a video she uploaded to the internet titled Dying Handstands. In it she performed handstands that collapse melt and die. This video, that was different than other handstands videos that demonstrate control or power, evoked in me the question: What do you do with a technical skill after you’ve worked your entire life to achieve it and how can you make art with it?

Our joint work gave birth to a series of choreographic experiments/ circus numbers in which technique and technology mirror each other. Together, we try to understand the magic of handstands, their limits and to reimagine what they could be.

Choreography: Ofir Yudilevitch
Creative performer: Imogen Huzel
Music: Tomer Baruch
Stage design: Ofer Laufer
Costume: Tamar Ben Cnaan
Dramaturgy: Yael Biegon-Citron
System Engineer: Prof Gil Yudilevitch
Mechanical design: Benny Avital, Shir Fligelman- Zickel Engineering
Electronics: Zvi Markfeld
Software Engineering: Aviehu Yudilevitch

Thank you to Mifaal Hapais for supporting the project. This creation was supported by Yasmeen Godder Studio as part of a Resident Artist Program. Thank you to Robert from Zickel Engineering for his generous and professional support. Thank you to my father for all his time, help and knowledge. Thank you to Iris Erez, Meytal Raz, Nurit Dreamer and Hilel Kogan for their creativity. Thank you to my family.

Ofir Yudilevitch is a choreographer, dancer and an acrobat. Ofir began his journey in Capoeira before turning to the contemporary dance field where he worked as a freelance dancer. His work is presented on stage and in the street and mixes contemporary dance with other fields such as circus and martial arts.

D E M O N S – An Epos of Twilight Zone Calibration / The First Chapter

In our Rock Dance and Village Chant, we return to assemble and gather more wombs for our gang of Iron She-Devils. The moment of choice, the coronation, traverses our timeline once more. Who will fight for us, for you? Welding her heart’s blood with gold, imbued with pathos, charged with pride; She will become the marrow of her bones against her own skeleton.

Here is where the songs and dances of a tale flow from and initiate the vocal rituals and folklore inspired by the eastern country of the Black Coast: Georgia and a parallel universe originated from imagination.

We owe it to the history written in blood.

Choreography; Text; Vocal and Live Music Composition: Annabelle Dvir

Creative Performers: Gili Dadon, Hila Pulvermacher, Layil Goren, Noa Shaveh, Noa Keller, Tamar Sonn, Tamar Kaminsky, Yael Schreiber, Zohar Yehieli, Annabelle Dvir

Original Live Music Composition: Bass Guitar: Zohar Yehieli, Drums: Tamar Kaminsky, Saxophone and Cello: Yael Schreiber, Dudok: Annabelle Dvir

Costume Design and Sewing: Shelly Boo

The work is being developed and supported by the Artist in Residence Program at AGORA – CITE INTERNATIONALE DE LA DANSE – Montpellier Dance France; Supported by The School of Movement and Dance – The Ness Ziona Center for Culture & Recreation; TeatrInGestAzione Company – Naples Italy 2021; And The Israeli Choreographers Association.

Thank you: Nir Vidan, The School of Movement and Dance – The Ness Ziona Center for Culture & Recreation, Adi Daniel, The Democratic School Kanaf – The Golan Heights, Menachem Goren, Slava Gepner and the TanzFaktur team Cologne – Germany. 

Annabelle Dvir is an Israeli-Georgian choreographer, voice artist, live sound composer and dance performer, who researches the live art through the tension between sensation and perception, the heard and the seen. She creates extreme physical-vocal practices and examines new esthetics that merge between the worlds of reality and fantasy. She composes, in a musical-choreographic eye, the embodiment of live sound and the visual shapes of alternating soundscapes in order to transform human preconception, emotions and inner desires. Her stage work and practice presented both nationally and abroad: Germany, Croatia, Italy, Georgia, Denmark, Spain, Lithuania, Atlanta USA, France. Winner of the 2022 Minister of Culture Award for Artists in their first ten years of activity.