Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Big Mouth.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Dance In Israel: What is your relationship to Curtain Up?
Niv Sheinfeld: We made several pieces [for the festival].  I was doing work for the Batsheva Ensemble and the Kibbutz Dance Company in the beginning, but it was part of Curtain Up.  And then I did Co-Variance, Pig, and Jorona for Curtain Up, together with Oren.

Noa Shadur’s Into the Night.  Photo by Jewboy.

DII: What drew you to invite Noa Shadur to be the choreographer to share the bill with you?
Oren Laor:  I suggested Noa’s name, and Niv immediately said “Yes, that’s a good idea,” because we saw Noa’s work in the past, and among many Israeli independent choreographers, Noa’s sources are the ones that we feel are the best.  She looks at humans; we saw it’s never just strictly movement.  She’s an explorer, like we like.

Noa Shadur’s Into the Night.  Photo by Jewboy.

NS: I think [it was] also the fact that we had a good dialogue with her.  We started seeing her work and talking to her and checking things out, and we found that the language of the dialogue was fluent, and it gave us a good base.

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Big Mouth. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

DII: Can you tell me a bit about how your new work Big Mouth started?
NS: The beginning was not from an idea; it was from working with Keren [Levi], because Keren is a good friend of mine for more than 25 years.  We went to high school together, and I got to know the dance world from her.  She was talking about coming to Israel; we said maybe we’ll make a solo for you.  We started by joking about it.  And then we invited her to get into the studio for two weeks in Tel Aviv, and interesting things came up for us.  Then we went for Amsterdam for the second period of work.

Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Big Mouth. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

NS: We were touring sometimes in this period, and we weren’t in Israel a lot, and somehow I think it affected this work. [Also] the fact that Keren left Israel, it made the piece somehow with reference to the Israeli culture.  It’s only a reference.  It’s from a very personal point of view, from our connection, this trio.  This solo became a trio; of course we found ourselves drawn in.

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For listings of Curtain Up performances, please visit the Dance In Israel Calendars page.

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor: An Interview with Dramatic Dancemakers (Podcast)
• Exploring Israeli Society through Dance at International Exposure 2009
• Israeli Dance: What’s Happening in November
• What is Israeli Dance? Two Festivals Hold Some Clues
• Curtain Up 2009: Celebrating 20 Years of Israeli Premieres
• Curtain Up 1: Nimrod Freed Hosts Anat Grigorio and Dafi Altebab
• Curtain Up 2: Vertigo Dance Company and Noa Wertheim Host Elad Shechter
• Curtain Up 3: Yasmeen Godder Hosts Iris Erez
• Curtain Up 4: Tel Aviv Dance Company and Yaara Dolev Host Michael Miler
• Curtain Up 5: Noa Dar Hosts Maya Brinner and Irad Mazliah

Related Links

• Suzanne Dellal Centre
• Jerusalem Theatre
• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor