June 2024
by Merav Yudilovitch for Habama Magazine
First Things is a choreographic masterpiece, a breathtaking philosophical work for an enchanting dancer who transforms the body and stage into a separate universe.
An interview with choreographer Michael Getman And before the words, silence. And before the silence, matter, body, movement, space, time out of time, and black holes, visible-invisible fragments cloaked in darkness and void. This is it.
Unformulated and formulated to the core, penetrating, present, tangible, elusive. And before the words, there is being and resonance. Flashes of the body between blinks. Michael Getman animates the dark matter from which
the body is made. It's beautiful and disturbing, and the visions swallow everything around.
First Things, a choreographical masterpiece created by Getman and articulated through the body of Ariel Gelbart –
a phenomenal dancer and a magician in motion – is nothing short of a vision.
This is not just another dance piece in the body of work of any creator but rather a refined text that miraculously captures and isolates the illusive, pre-lingual essence of the body moving in the world.
How do you speak it? The work asks. In stemmers, in not knowing, in wonder. What is the body?
What is movement? Everything and nothing. "Every attempt to speak 'it' collapses into itself," says Getman. "It is dark matter, as real as energy, that is intensely experienced but cannot be captured by language. It eludes coherent speech because language is not the right tool for this thing that
exists outside of it.
The essence of the completed work
After thirty years of writing about dance, I am aware of the difficulty of articulating body and
movement in language. Each time, it's a renewed struggle with the impossible, like cracking an enigma
or framing the wind.
"This is exactly how this work is constructed. We live in the symbolic dimension of language;
however, it is preceded by a pre-lingual dimension from which we all originate.
The body precedes language. We experience or return to this dimension at the extremes – in terror or in pleasure.
The work exists within this spectrum, pushing Ariel to the edge, somewhat like a trance. In this complete release,
the entire existence is contained in what occurs within the body. It's very intense."
First Things was conceived during the pandemic, in the lockdown days of COVID-19, a time of introspection. "Suddenly, there was time to ask questions about essence, go back to the beginning, to the primary place,
like a baby becoming aware of the body, gradually learning to walk, feel, imagine, acquire words, construct sentences, communicate. This is a topic I've been concerned with for years, and this was the opportunity
to approach it."
A video-dance version in which Getman performed a short solo, the essence of the completed work, was
screened that same year at the Suzan Dellal Center's International Exposure Festival, held online due to COVID-19 and isolation protocols. "I knew that my role as a performer would end with that video dance. You need to have the
desire to perform, and for me, it was clear that I wanted to continue developing the piece and pass it through someone else's filter." There are very few dancers like him. He defines his encounter with Ariel Gelbart as grace or miracle. "There is something very intimate about retreating into the studio. It's a place where you don't know, a place for thinking, imagining, brainstorming, searching. You cast wide nets, hoping to catch more ideas from which you can filter, and suddenly, you recognize themes, and something happens. This process demands a partner.
Collaborators are immanent in the creative act, and there's something both terrifying and magical about it.
I couldn't have asked for a more perfect partner for this work. I've discovered a rare individual and dancer with exceptional physical intelligence and an extraordinary ability to delve deep.
The creation passes through his body; he is its megaphone, and he's genuinely one of the most interesting performers in the country right now. There are very few connections like this.
There are very few dancers like him.
He defines his encounter with Ariel Gelbart as grace or miracle. "There is something very intimate about retreating into the studio. It's a place where you don't know, a place for thinking, imagining, brainstorming, searching. You cast wide nets, hoping to catch more ideas from which you can filter, and suddenly, you recognize themes, and something happens. This process demands a partner. Collaborators are immanent in the creative act, and there's something both terrifying and magical about it. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect partner for this work. I've discovered a rare individual and dancer with exceptional physical intelligence and an extraordinary ability to delve deep. The creation passes through his body; he is its megaphone, and he's genuinely one of the most interesting performers in the country right now. There are very few connections like this. There are very few dancers like him. Gelbart, in an internal dialogue that is sharp, intense, and unsettling, ultimately leaves the audience breathless by the end of the evening. He resembles nothing else, and for an hour, nothing else exists. Restrained, in control down to the cellular level, yet unbridled as if in a trance, he dissolves the world beyond the darkness, beyond the body, beyond the stage that transforms into a different planet, a separate universe. He deconstructs consciousness and trembles internal frequencies, and within zones of doubt, you find yourself transfixed by his presence. In the studio, they sought to isolate the body from place and time, transform it into an object responding to a rhythmic system, and explore the gap between language and behavior. "Language brings us closer to things but also distances us from them. We think in words, but talking about something isn't the thing itself. If we return to dance, there's a gap between the physical body and the experience of the body in the world. A baby looking in the mirror sees itself as a whole even though, physiologically and neurologically, it's still fragmented into parts. "I'm interested in this place where things collide –language with sensation, an idea with its manifestation. Take a physical movement like raising a hand that instantly translated into a symbol like 'hello' or 'Heil Hitler.' A moment ago, it was just a physical movement. There's a flow or fluidity of meanings. Therefore, anything can turn into something else, making me wonder. If everything is destined to change constantly according to context, is something primary that precedes everything? I don't have an answer, but this was the field we wanted to explore. We entered it with curiosity and flew far.
To enter the work's bloodstream
You've mentioned the importance of collaborators in the creative process. Several long-time artistic collaborators, such as Yael Venezia, accompany you in your current work as a dramaturg. "It's essential not to be alone in the creative process. I've always had the desire to talk to someone about the work. When you speak, you hear yourself. When someone observes the work, the process, you understand what you've created through their perspective. It helps refine both yourself and the work. I'm interested in the dialog with people, not just with the work itself. Opening up the process allows the creation to find its place in the world because, suddenly, it's no longer something private, closed within you. I've been working with Venezia for a long time. First Things is imprinted with her input and passion. "It started as a short video solo I performed, and then an external eye was critical. It wasn't even a question because it's impossible to be inside and outside simultaneously. The dramaturg's role is vital because the creative process doesn't start and end when you enter and leave the studio. "You think about it and contemplate it before, during, and after, and there are moments when you're consumed by it. It's easy to get lost because you have no perspective. The dramaturg's role is to enter the work's bloodstream and be your beacon, not letting you get lost."
Black Void
The work's first chapter occurs between flashes of light and darkness, where body pieces appear and disappear. Before the eye can adapt and the viewer can name what they've seen, light blinks cut off the thought. Getman creates an illusion by sculpting the body and painting in space. "At the beginning, we discover the body. It's very figurative. A hand is exposed, a foot, it seems familiar, yet alien. An illusion. An image. The intention was to confront us with the nervous system in the most powerful and unfiltered way. In the second chapter, the body learns to dance. Later, it discovers words." The lighting in the show is almost physical. How was the collaboration with Nadav Barnea? Nadav constructed a meticulous world –unsettling and sometimes raw. This is our first time working together, and I'm very impressed with him. We spent two months working in the Yaron Yerushalmi Hall, so we got to know and inhibit the space well. This allows for precision. FI knew that for the first chapter, I wanted darkness, a vacuum without reference to time or place, a black void into which a person is expelled, who could be the first or last human. "I wanted the body to be revealed slowly. I wanted us not to know but to feel the physiology and move from not knowing to revelation and focus. Suppose in theatre, the purpose of lighting is to illuminate objects and create an illustration, here. In that case, the illumination has many f luctuations, and the space changes, almost as if it were alive. There are subtle transitions between the three chapters of the work, and Nadav constructed them brilliantly within the constraints of the space.
"Today, I have many more tools."
Your works are highly stylized aesthetically but free from affectation. First Things also doesn't yield itself easily. "I don't think in terms of aesthetics. What interests me are the paradoxes in the body. I like to see the body think, which happens when a problem or conflict occurs. Aesthetics is the visible, finished product, but the creative process is hidden and touches on other places. Between the movements, there's more information, more layers. That's what draws me. There are many movements buried in the body and forgotten. I'm looking for the last genealogical layer. My role is to create a movement compost, and for this to exist, familiarity is required, which can only be established in a long work process. You can't produce it instantly."
Do you feel that age influences creation?
"The question is what maturity brings with it. I know more about work processes now. I have more patience and perseverance. I know that things grow and intensify within you, and if it doesn't happen today, it will happen tomorrow, so you can let it be. There's an understanding that creation exists in the unknown areas; it's born from the desire to discover. Today, I know better what I like, what attracts me, how to work with dancers, and how to be more apparent. Things become more straightforward, making me sharper, more specific, and more concrete. It's a place that allows you to penetrate deeper and enter different nuances and resolutions. "Today, I think I have many more tools. I understand that my search is for the unknown. That's where creation lies, where you discover – that's where it happens. At the same time, the challenge is to maintain the childlike channel that allows you to be curious and fascinated like before. In other words, to embrace the maturity and insights you've gathered, but to look at things with fresh eyes, to approach creation without preconceptions, with the frequency of freedom open.
A dreadful sense of detachment
These are crazy times, to say the least. Shall we talk for a moment about art in a time of war? " Last October, we were invited to perform in Croatia. The day after the show, held on October 6th, I turned on the BBC while getting ready to fly back home and was horrified. It took me about an hour to pull myself together. Evidently, all flights were canceled. We decided it would be best to go to Italy and wait for the Skies to reopen. "It was a dreadful sense of detachment. I felt neither here nor there, glued to the news yet feeling distant." I decided to organize a fundraising event for the communities of the Gaza Envelope and mobilize the local Jewish community. I met two extraordinary ladies in Turin and the Chief Rabbi, and somehow together, we managed to put a 90-minute event at the main Synagogue in Turin," he recounts. "We were able to raise donations. It may not have been millions, but I felt that some small thing was achieved amid all this chaos and pain."