Conceived for an intimate audience, Ausencia is a solo performance that has been developed in the last months, while our daily lives ‘flipped’. It relates to the body and its absence, to the possibility of touch, and the difficulty to fulfil such possibility. Between the feeling of longing and that of frustration, dancer Ariel Gelbart acts and moves in the empty space as he communicates with things we cannot see. By subtracting the elements from which the movements were developed, the audience witnesses the body of the dancer being influenced and moved, without seeing the source of motivation for his actions. Such a scenario triggers the following questions: “Is the given environment – over which we have no control – causing his movement and the movement of everything else?”; “is he dealing with his own (invisible) demons?” The solo offers a wonderment rather than any kind of answer. It invites the audience to experience a state (or perhaps the current Zeitgeist) through one’s movement and gaze and in relation to the presence (and absence) of sound. 

Ausencia was conceived, choreographed and written by May Zarhy and performed by Ariel Gelbart with sound by Daniella Ljungsberg; the piece’s dancers-creators are Moran Muller and Ariel Gelbart.

Ausencia by May Zarhy is supported by the Fund for Independent Artists at the Ministry of Culture and Sport.

The event will be held in accordance with the current health regulations.

Still from Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain

The first of Adam Curtis’s six-part documentary television series “Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World”

Broadcasted by BBC iPlayer in 2021