On its 25th anniversary, Vertido Dance Company releases a new work, “One. One & one.” by co-founder and choreographer Noa Wertheim. The piece sums up her artistic journey, witch a down-to-earth, individualistic duet and ended with her being the artistic director of the fourth largest dance company in Israel, and is a spectacle, danced on earth-covered floor.
Like all of her pieces,Wertheim’s new creation is veryaesthetic and fashionable.
Outfits by designer Sasson Kedem have a cleverly styled look in neutral and earth tones, capturingprecisely the promoted image and basic essence of the company; an earthly spirituality.
This new creation is freer and fresher than ever. It shows off new energy and an assured hand, perhaps partly to do with the spirited Israeli-Spanish choreographer Sharon Fridman, who was invited to workwith the company twoyears ago.
The production enjoys a strong cast of eight dancres, and as expected maintains that sleek, well-polished touch of trained hands and established artsticperception, and less indoctrinated rhetoric of spirituality. We savored a few exeptionally beautiful scenes, including Tamar Barlev’s solo, which ended with there men pulling her long hair and braiding it while they changed positions behind her. Aslo, the prolonged duet of Tamar Barlev and Shani Licht, wich displayed a delicate intimacy and poetic quality.
The clever, seamless way in wich the choreography integrated this duet back into the ensemble showed high craftsmanship.
Earth,as mentioned,was central element here, both metaphorically and in actuality. First it was spead in parallel furrows, then poured all over for all to breath. By the end,the sweaty dancers looked like vagabonds.
This, and materials likesand, water, leaves, grass, etc., are highly effected visually, and sometimes functionally as well. Stages cevered with such materials pop up periodically ever since Pina Baush’s Rite of Spring used peat as a conceptual statement. 40 years later, the effect had lost its luster.