Pondering Our Doom, Together and Apart

Image by Courtesy of Shagan Arts
An electrifying dance performance by Israel’s Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (KCDC) brought the audience to its feet on February 26 at Kanbar Hall at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco.
The San Francisco performance — the last of an international tour — was of a work titled “Ekodoom,” choreographed by Rami Ba’er, who also designed the sets, lighting and costumes.
Ba’er refers to ”Ekodoom” as an introspection on both a shared ecology and our potential doom. While it’s tempting to look for a narrative or to discover the choreographer’s intent, Ba’er said that “I don’t like to interpret the piece in words with a narrative or story. I want the spectator to connect to himself through the piece — through his own associations, memories, feelings, and thoughts.”
Ba’er’s 15 dancers, many of them Israeli-born, moved through a series of vignettes, interspersed with recurring robotic line formations with punctuating movements of the shoulders, feet, head and torso. Male and female dancers showed equal formality and physicality of movement and intention, driven by the musical score brought together by Ba’er.
When the costumes and lighting cast shadows, the dancers’ gender was nearly indiscernible. The women, without losing femininity, showed their strength in a way that Israeli soldiers might — with fierceness, force and confidence — to stand side by side with the men. When the spotlight highlighted a soloist, or a couple who moved outside the formation, we were reminded that unity is comprised of individuals with their own thoughts, inspirations, sensitivities and independence.
In Martha Graham-inspired use of fabric, dancers re-appeared in heavy gilded robes with hoods, shifting from metaphorical blindness to carrying the weight of the universe on their shoulders. With slight gestures, the dancers framed their eyes, reminding us of our own perspectives on the universe.
Rami Ba’er has been the Artistic Director of KCDC since 1996, after having danced with the company previously. The child of Holocaust survivors, he grew up in KCDC’s Dance Village in Kibbutz Ga’aton in the Galilee, where he has worked all his life.
“For me, it’s what I offer to the individual that comes to the theater,” he said of Ekodoom. “I hope that when he sits in the seat, I offer him to be part of the journey.”
Watch a performance of ‘Ekodoom’ at the Ga’aton Dance School:
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jerusalem Post editor Zvika Klein, arrested in ‘Qatar-gate,’ says he’s being unfairly prosecuted for his reporting
-
Fast Forward Trump fires national security officials, reportedly at urging of Laura Loomer, far-right Jewish ‘Islamophobe’
-
Fast Forward Display honoring Jewish women graduates of naval academy removed ahead of Hegseth visit
-
Yiddish טשיקאַוועסן: מיידעלע געפֿינט 3,800־יאָריקע קמיע לעבן בית־שמש, ישׂראלTIDBITS: Little girl finds 3,800-year old amulet near Beit Shemesh, Israel
אַן עקספּערט פֿון פֿאַרצײַטיקע קמיעות האָט באַשטעטיקט אַז די קמיע איז געלעגן אויפֿן אָרט פֿונעם אַמאָליקן לאַנד כּנען.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.