Location: Off Broadway Theater
41 Broadway
New Haven, CT 06511
Open To: General Public
Admission: Free
Description: Based on footage filmed by volunteers of the B’Tselem Camera Project. Performance followed by discussion
The artist’s related installation Capture Practice will be on view at the Off Broadway Theater Thursday, March 5 - Saturday, March 7.
Hours:
- Thursday - Friday | 3 - 8 PM
- Saturday | noon to 4 PM
Presented with support from the Council on Middle East Studies, Macmillan Center for International Studies; the Department of Theater Studies; Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale; Office of the University Chaplain; Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights,Yale Law School; and the Program in Judaic Studies.
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The dancer and choreographer Arkadi Zaides presents his new work, Archive, based on video filmed by volunteers of the B’tselem Camera Project. B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, distributes cameras to Palestinians living in high-conflict areas. Participants document human rights violations and expose the reality of life under the occupation. Through his appropriation of gestures and voices, Zaides engages with the materials and embodies them, turning his body into a living archive.
Notes:
B’Tselem is The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. In 2007 the organization initiated a project, in which video cameras are distributed to Palestinians living in high-conflict areas. The project aims to provide an ongoing documentation of human rights violations and to expose the reality of life under occupation to both the Israeli and international public.
In his new work Arkadi Zaides deepens his artistic exploration of the ongoing conflict in Israel/Palestine. Materials filmed by volunteers of the B’Tselem Camera Project are selected and reviewed. Zaides brings the viewers’ attention to the bodies of Israelis (settlers and soldiers), as they have been depicted on camera, and to the physical reactions to which they resort in various confrontational situations. The Palestinians remain behind the camera. Nevertheless, their movement, voice and point of view are highly present, determining the spectator’s perspective.
Although the materials filmed by the photographers reveal the local reality, Zaides wishes to discuss a broader, more universal question: what is the potential for violence embedded in each individual body and what price does the collective pay for controlling the other. Zaides extracts and appropriates gestures and voices, he engages and identifies with the materials, gradually embodying them. Questions of participation and responsibility are opened as his body transforms into a living archive.
Credits:
The project is developed through a dialogue between choreographer Arkadi Zaides, video artists Effi & Amir (Effi Weiss and Amir Borenstein), sound artist Tom Tlalim, light designer Thalie Lurault, artistic adviser Katerina Bakatsaki, technical manager Pierre-Olivier Boulant and producer Yael Bechor, Special thanks also to Myriam Van Imschoot.
The project’s concept was developed during Zaides’ studies at the Amsterdam Master of Choreography program at the Theater School (NL). For this project he has received a prize from The Emile Zola Chair for Human Rights (IL). Our utmost gratitude to the B’Tselem team for their important work and contribution to the piece.
Produced by: Arkadi Zaides; Co-Produced by: Festival d’Avignon (FR), CDC Toulouse (FR), Théâtre National De Chaillot (FR), CNDC Angers (FR); Residencies at: CDC Toulouse (FR), CNDC Angers (FR), STUK Leuven (BE), Théâtre National De Chaillot, Paris (FR), WP Zimmer, (BE), AHCh Theater School, Amsterdam (NL); International Distribution: Key Performance
Premiere: Festival d’Avignon, 8 July 2014