Every night we sleep,
every day we get up for a new day.
At night we dream, without certainty, without control,
into the days we dream the dreams of our reality.
The ways of being, the ambitions, the desires.
At night all these are mixed together, in the wide range between pleasure and nightmare.
Even if we try, we will not be able to catch the same remnant of a dream.
The one that just passed through us, left us silent or breathless, without a grip.
The ‘dreams of reality’ we would desire to realize,
to create them from actual, visible, absolute matter,
to allow control, certainty to be the tools of construction, to relinquish their hold.
What lies between dream and reality, between waking and sleeping,
can we exist and meld in the dark, in the light –
To become the one dream in the full circle of day and night,
close and open our eyes –
From that same deep, sweet silence of our presence.
The dance work was created in the studio of the Adama Movement Center, located in the area of the border with Gaza. Seven dancers participate in it. The work was built through the stories of their dreams. The struggle in building it was trying to understand the energy left in the body during the dream, and its illustration through the moving body.
How does the connection between the ‘story’ and ‘energy’ produce the essence of the dream and perhaps actually the essence of the daily reality of each of us. After many years of building choreographies for the stage, I moved on to research healing movement. Healing movement holds the energy that lies hidden within us, the energy that movements stir within us, it is less concerned with image or form, and more closely approaches the natural look of its completeness and imperfection, as we experience when we gaze at the moon with its fullness and emptying.
The choice of dreams allows the option to explore and integrate the inner movement with the movement that is made visible and is driven by the desire to understand the energy that lies concealed within us when we are in a situation that we seemingly have no control over, we do not know what story will arise and through what energy it will find its expression, we do not know what we will summon when we will release ourselves into sleep.
The movement material seeks a way to express what is not perceived, the asymmetry in the constant change as well as the need for holding and creating a center axis as a basis for stability, the softness required in order to balance the transition from control to lack of control and vice versa. The place where there is a space of quiet breathing towards the hysteria that causes the ground to fall out from beneath our feet.
Genesis 37
1 And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan. 2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. 4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. 5 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. 6 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed …
19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. 20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams. 21 And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him. 22 And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again. 23 And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him; 24 And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.