Choreographing Chaos
Crossposted from Haaretz
The colors of twilight were descending on Tel Aviv last week as Rotem Tashach opened the door and apologized for the mess in his apartment, which he was soon moving out of. The living room and balcony were jam-packed; a visitor’s eye was drawn to a large canvas resting in the corner, an abstract drawing Tashach made when he was not so busy with dance. A quick glance at the pile of books revealed a selection including Foucault, Plato and Freud, atop other immortal thinkers. “I’m going crazy,” said the choreographer, 36, a bit dramatically, when I asked how he was doing. In addition to the pressure from working on “Paved Life/Hayim Merutzafim,” his new piece, which will be performed Saturday at Tel Aviv’s Tmuna Theater, his grandfather died a few days ago — and of course moving is not much fun. “Everything is concentrating into a specific moment in time. It’s hard to cope with everything at the same time,” he says. “But I hope that in another two or three weeks things will be more manageable.”
In the past few years Tashach has created quite a few works, while formulating an intriguing stage language that combines texts sharpened by illustrative movements. “Metamorphoses” ((2008, “Israelika” (2009), “Corporpolis” (2010) and “Hudud” (2011) were presented at festivals at Tmuna; “Monuments” was part of the Curtain Up festival in 2010, and last year “Polished Concrete” was performed in the Israel Museum’s Nekudat Maga Festival.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO