Dance that challenges

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Vancouverites who saw Arkadi Zaides’ Quiet at the 2011 Dancing on the Edge Festival will be happy to hear that he’s not only coming back – but that he would like to keep coming back.

Zaides returns to the Firehall Arts Centre April 24-27 with another challenging multi-performer show, Land-Research. Calling the Firehall a “special and unique place,” Zaides told the Independent, “I’m very aware when the space is socially aware and relating to its locality in a critical and artistic way, and I think Firehall does it really amazing.”

The product of many people’s efforts (research, dramaturgy, video, photography, music), Land-Research features five solo performers: Raida Adon, Yuval Goldstein, Sva Li Levy, Yuli Kovbasnyan, Ofir Yudilevitch (who was also in Quiet). According to the promotional material, “Against panoramic photos of broken scenery,” the “performers from different backgrounds go through individual processes of transformation.”

“It’s a back and forth from the soloists to the images, so the images bring the landscape into the piece,” explained Zaides in a phone interview from Israel. “It’s a juxtaposition of the solo body in relation to the landscape, to the land.”

But don’t get any idyllic, peaceful images of majestic mountains, rolling hills or the vast Prairies in your mind.

“The landscape that is shown in the piece has question marks in it,” said Zaides. “Almost in all of the images, there is the presence of concrete. Even when it seems like it’s open space, outdoor space, there is some interference of humans – you feel that the space was touched ... it has marks in it. Also the idea to put the soloists separately, with the performers not being in any communication one with each other, touching the issues of walls and borders in between people when living in a complex reality which has an issue with authority on land and the idea of belonging and whose land is it. And, of course, yes, [there is] the comparison that there are things scripted on the land as there are things scripted on the body ... there are marks, and these marks carry some history and ... every person is a mini-universe that carries his own history and the land carries its own history also.”

Critics of Land-Research have praised the work, but also commented on its apparent bleakness. One reviewer managed to find in it a “modicum of optimism.”

“It’s a very important question for me, because I do feel, from my observation of what’s going on here [in Israel] when there is land involved, borders have been built, or the possession of the rights over the land [is disputed], I feel not very optimistic because it’s, in a way, a bad circle that never ends,” said Zaides when asked if he was hopeful about the future. “Again, when two different groups are claiming that one land is theirs, it creates a lot of tension, and I observe the tension in the bodies of the people that maybe they don’t necessarily know that there is an effect. But I do feel it’s all linked and it’s forming, in a way, a [negative] society – and I’m talking not only [about] local society but generally when this issue is in the middle of a certain region.” He spoke of the need for sides – people – to compromise. “I’m talking about the land here but, always on the same note, I refer to communication between people with the same problem,” he said.

In the July 1, 2011, interview he did with the Independent about Quiet, Zaides said that, as an artist, “I find myself having no other choice but to respond to what I see, feel and experience around me.” When asked during the Land-Research interview about being reactionary versus visionary, Zaides said, “The thought that is a lot in my mind is that when you say, ‘I have a solution,’ you have discrimination.... From my point of view, right now, there is no solution. If I say I have one, then it hurts somebody else. So, as an artist, I don’t feel I can say I have a solution or I can tell what can solve what is wrong. I can only portray or reflect on whatever I see, because I think part of being in a conflict zone is also, in order to continue in ordinary life, you have to shut yourself [off] from a lot of the information that is around you, it’s too much to handle. It’s too much to handle when human rights are violated, it’s too much to handle when people are dying so, until it reaches your front door, there is a certain way of taking part of the information away, just not welcoming it into your environment, which is totally survival mode.... I think a lot of narratives are being pushed away from the discourse and from the society.... The fact that something is not being communicated is influential on society, so I feel that, by bringing some of the narratives that are already existing, but maybe [are] a bit pushed aside, I wish to just make people ... think about themselves in relation to where they are to the problems.”

Before the interview ended, Zaides voiced his appreciation for everyone who had helped make the Vancouver visit possible, including the Firehall Arts Centre and the Israeli consulate in Canada, among others. “It’s really nice to come to a place several times with different projects,” he said about Vancouver and the Firehall. “It’s becoming like a small base ... to establish something more than a one-off, it’s an ongoing collection, which is really precious.”

For tickets to Land-Research, visit firehallartscentre.ca or call 604-689-0926.

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