Dancing Creatures in an Enchanted Forest
Crossposted from Haaretz
Thread is a prominent theme of the dance performance “Bombyx Mori,” the Latin name for a species of silkworm. In addition to the physical thread that crisscrosses the enchanted forest the stage becomes, the production also creates threads of memory that recall other performances by the same company.
The dog, like the clown with the painted white face and round red nose, are characters familiar to those who frequent the productions put on by the Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company. They are guests in the forest of “Bombyx,” which opened Friday and will be on (sporadically) through June 23 in several cities, and their presence encourages the audience to hark back to earlier works as they watch the fantasy puzzle unfold.
Although the black wall at the back of the stage is barely visible at first, it catches the eye because every dancer who wants to take part in the thread-spinning ceremony in the forest must first crawl toward the wall. This is a kind of visual conceptualization and prop setting that, in various guises, appears in almost all the works performed by Pinto and Pollak. Wondrous creatures enter, or are swallowed, within these cracks and openings in walls; the creatures appear to come from nowhere, and to be headed to no place in particular.
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!
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
-
Fast Forward Yarden Bibas says ‘I am here because of Trump’ and pleads with him to stop the Gaza war
-
Fast Forward Trump’s plan to enlist Elon Musk began at Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave
-
Film & TV In this Jewish family, everybody needs therapy — especially the therapists themselves
-
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.