INFRARED
Written by Talia Baruch
Choreographed by Rami Be’er
Dance review from "International Exposure" at Suzanne Dellal Dance Center,
December 2009
https://www.kcdc.co.il/en/
A black garden illuminates.
An invisible world revealed in infrared light.
Black figures expose colors.
IN THE BLACK GARDEN
Lyrics and music: Rami Be’er
Transcreated from Hebrew: Talia Baruch
In the black garden
Red soldier. Watch
Blue soldier. Warn
Yellow soldier. Shoot all
(Back to the wall)
In the black garden
Red soldier. Respond
Blue soldier. Drop
Yellow soldier. Yell
(Get used to hell)
In the black garden
Red soldier. Reply
Blue soldier. Hush
Yellow soldier. Weep
(In the shit, deep)
In the black garden
Red soldier. Gape
Blue soldier. Loll
Yellow soldier. Hallucinate
(Feel the pain, mate?)
In the black garden...
A soldier stares
A soldier strays
A soldier errs
A deep voice delivers the weight of “In the Black Garden” to the taps of a black platoon. They open the scene and they’ll close it too, but not just yet. There's a tunnel to take first, to explore the tumbles of the human condition, to sink deep into its weaknesses, aspire to new heights through time and space.
Music is at the center of Be’er’s dance compositions. He writes the lyrics & tunes, mixes the electronic sound effects and plays the Cello pieces. The opening scene carries you over to another dimension, both locally familiar and exotically estranged. A wind storm echoes. Soft oasis ripples nibble, lulling you into a mellow Sahara mood, a blazing desert sweeping in like a yellow sea.
The drama sets off with bodies, humans and critters, pacing through. I jolt in my seat, feeling a sudden urge to stretch out my spine, when the four-legged body enters. You know she’s coming out when you hear the slow somber score greeting her cue, like in Peter & the Wolf. Her long black hair glides down to the floor, heavy, with every stretch of muscle elongating her back and limbs, like a preying tiger, graceful and ready to pounce. Her movement is from another world, arching, curving, hands turned backward, glued to the floor. She shifts back and forth, stretching like sticky gum out of its grip.
Another visual appears--a twitching cocoon, tightly swaddled: legs breaking out of colored paper wrap, muffling.
Soundtrack creaks:
-..I can’t dance it anymore
’cause my feet don’t touch the floor…-
The wireframe of this dance is a Chess board. And on it players make their moves.
Be’er was inspired by Sergeant Pepper’s album cover and commissioned the costume to reflect that 19th-century-European-soldier-uniform look, with long flap buttoned apparel.
"Pawns to e5"; "Night to c3" they move on the chess board in forward/backward horizontal/vertical taps, set in primary colors of red, blue and yellow. Then there’s black, absorbing all colors. And white, their void.