by Nathan Greppi
Despite the difficult period, there is no shortage of Israeli artists who manage to perform in Italy; Thursday 20 June, The Bergamo Summer Dance Festival will see the participation of the choreographer May Zarhywhich will bring its duets to the national premiere Ausencia And Presence, respectively at 7.30 pm and 9.00 pm. Both performances will be held at the DASTE Spazio Eventi in Bergamo, and will last 25 and 55 minutes respectively.
Israeli born in 1984, she completed her studies in Rotterdam and Montpellier, and today lives between Tel Aviv and Berlin. From 2009 to 2014 you were part of the dance collective Mamaza, which you co-founded in Germany, and then worked as a freelancer mixing choreography, performance and sound arts. From 2021 to 2023 she was the director of the postgraduate program of the Kelim Choreography Center in Bat Yam, as well as having held courses and workshops as a teacher at the Visual Theater School of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Academy of Music & Dance.
Ausencia
Conceived during the Covid-19 pandemic, the first performance aims to stimulate a reflection on the absence of the body and the lack of physical contact during lockdowns. The dancer on stage interprets a choreography originally conceived for two, but intended to be performed by a single body, influenced and guided by the memory of the other’s presence. Between desire and frustration, the performer acts driven by a presence that the audience cannot see, allowing gestures to emerge to which it is not easy to attribute the source of the action. The absence of the second dancer creates a negative space and tension that contributes to the choreographic composition.
Presence
In the second case, central themes are movement and memory. The repetition of the movements on which the dance is based is imbued with personal memories and daily experiences of the dancers, who unconsciously transport their experiences into the gestures on the stage. The performance is accompanied by a soundtrack composed of recordings of the sounds produced by the dancers’ movements during rehearsals, further emphasizing the memory of the process. Presence is based on deep listening and explores how personal feelings can be shared intimately with an audience.
