Past festivals

Six Years Later

Six Years Later is a duet for a man and a woman who find each other after a long separation. The fluid movements keep the dancers in constant contact or proximity, as they seem to rediscover a long-lost intimacy. It is a love duet full of restraint, alternating movements of great physical energy with tiny gestures of affection and love. In a string of daring contacts and inventive lifts, mirrored movements, pairs dancing or popular dance, the piece explores all the facets of a love affair. Potency, attentiveness and vulnerability are all wrapped into the heart of a work seeking unison and harmony, a balance and suspension. Roy Assaf plays with the complete grammar of choreographic virtuosity, inspired by the theme and the music: Beethoven, Arvo Pärt… Music that speaks to the soul, with a whole new freshness.

The Hill

The Hill is a strikingly different piece: a male trio, in a commentary on Israeli politics. The dance starts with three young men in colourful garb, dancing to military music. The music is joyful and enthusiastic, like a carnival. The dancers move in unison, a light-hearted smile on their lips. The crafted and sculptural dance continues in a second sequence, with the music of Givat Hatahmoshet, a very famous nationalist song commemorating the victory of the Israeli army over the Jordanians in the Six Day War of 1967. The virtuoso contemporary dance language is combined here with religious dances, as the piece reaches a climax to the tune of I started a jokeby the Bee Gees. The exhausted bodies begin to falter and Roy Assaf casts a light on the absolute vanity of a combat to which youth has beensacrificed.