If you were to stand with your feet slightly apart and point your fingers above your head, you’d be appropriating an iconic disco move. If you say “doo” when you stub your toe on the corner of your bed, you’re probably referring to Matt Groening’s Homer Simpson. If a person with long hair uses a pencil instead of a hair tie to hold up their hair, some people might say that they are appropriating Chinese culture.
Our daily lives are full of appropriations, references, and quotations from other images, artworks, and cultures. Whether these memes were stolen intentionally or by accident, very few actions are completely new or unique. However, certain appropriations are considered offensive and others are ignored.
In his work with the Batsheva Ensemble, acclaimed choreographer and performer Hillel Kogan attempts to draw a line under these distinctions. Appropriation, which premieres in mid-March, will feature the cast of Batsheva Dance Company’s young troupe in all their glory. The production was scheduled to premiere in October 2023, but was postponed due to the Israeli-Hamas war.
Cogan coined the term “ballet” to describe the piece, unashamedly appropriating its patented format into the realm of contemporary dance.
“I call it ballet because ballet plays an important role in the work. In a symbolic sense, ballet is the main appropriator. Ballet is where all the wrong things meet. Body image, age discrimination, gender, the working relationship between boss and worker, relationship to history, exoticism and foreignness, condescension, whiteness, Europeanness, colonialism. “We don’t think ethnically, like Russians or French. That ethnicity is invisible,” Kogan says.
Ballet was one of the many movement languages sampled and decontextualized during the appropriation process. The creation began in a completely different space, led by Kogan and dramaturge Sharon Zuckerman Weiser, who explored the dancers’ personal material and stories.
“My process always begins by searching for materials in the field or space I am working in,” explains Kogan. “We walked through the lives of the dancers and thought about who they were and what it was like to be a dancer in Bathsheba. We talked about whether they competed or not, and whether they had a background in ballet, street dance, hip-hop, etc.”
The first process that 21-year-old Kelis Robinson encountered when she joined the Batsheva Ensemble was appropriation. Mr. Robinson, a native of Canada, is familiar with the debate over eminent domain, but he never expected to be fighting it so quickly in Israel.
“We were exploring tricks and optical illusions, and at some point the discussion around cultural appropriation started to become an issue. We started digging deeper into it. The work took a big turn. did.
“Appropriation happens in a different context here than it does in the United States or Canada. Hillel wanted to emphasize the negative, offensive side of appropriation,” Robinson says.
Among the various styles brought to the table are ballet, breakdance, be-boying, voguing, wacking, Chinese dance drama, jazz, musical theater, various folk dances, gymnastics, capoeira, and more. For much of the process, Corgan guided the dancers through improvisation sessions.
“In these improvisations, we have fallen into a trap. Is it permissible to talk about the ‘other’?” How to quote? refer? How to dance hip hop? How to fight? How to do voguing? How to take it from here and there? In the composition we encounter this trap, which generates a discourse.
“The conversations and the way I work really involve the dancers. We talked with them about where these traps and questions come across. We’ve talked to a lot of different people who come from Canada, the United States, France. People of color… it becomes part of the job.
I don’t want to put dancers in a place of blind obedience. And then a problem arises. Is it okay to touch these different materials? Thus, we have arrived at the elephant in the room of appropriation.
“Instead of making it something we avoid or fear, we say let’s hang a sign on the wall to make it clear that this is our subject and this is the issue we’re dealing with. That’s what interests me, in my work and in my encounters with them. So, appropriation came up, and if you’re talking about it, everything comes into focus through this lens.” says Kogan.
Although the word “appropriation” may have a negative context, there is nothing offensive about this work. The dancers are all young and talented, spinning, leaping, flipping, twerking and belting in simplicity and in its fullest glory.
Even in the moments when Kogan deliberately provokes by stealing endearing excerpts from classic pieces, the eye can’t help but feast on the dancers’ forms and features. Kogan humorously quoted Riki Gal’s song “Weak for Dancers”, pointing out his long-standing obsession with the role of dancer. And Gal is not alone. For centuries, artists have evoked dancers as muses and immortalized them in sculpture, painting, and photography.
“Dancers are superhumans”
“Dancers are superhuman. They don’t walk on earth, they walk on a stage. They are beyond what humans can do. They are objects of observation, clay in the hands of their creators. What is it like to be an object of observation? Sculptures do not know that they are being observed. Dancers know that they are. “They dance for attention,” says Kogan.
To bring the piece to life, Kogan called on collaborators including art director Laetitia Boulud, lighting designer Nadav Barnea, costume designer Evelyn Tardiman, and mask artists Matan Meilson and Raz Sintova. .
Kogan brings his signature wit and sharp criticism to this work. As established in previous works such as “We Love Arabs” and “Thisispain,” Kogan is not one to shy away from issues, but rather applies an almost Ayurvedic pressure to society’s sore spots, which he uses in poetry. Add until it changes to .
Appropriation marks Corgan’s first commission for Batsheva, having spent years working in a variety of roles with renowned theater companies alongside his international career as a choreographer and performer. .
“I’m plagiarizing the Batsheva Dance Company. I’m using the Batsheva Dance Company as my property. They’re appropriating me and me to them. There’s no company. Dancers like this. No. I was invited to take on the definition of appropriation, which is to take over the power, property and wealth of a company and make it your own. Am I making a piece for Batsheva? Instead, I’m making work for Hillel Kogan.”
“Appropriation” will be performed by the Batsheva Ensemble at Tel Aviv’s Suzanne Dellal Center on March 18, 19, 21, and 22. For more information, please visit www.batsheva.co.il.