We’ll Take It From Here: Six Pop-Performative Études and a Talk with Ariel Efraim Ashbel and Friends Thursday, January 7, 2016 at 7:00pm With: Efrat Aviv, Jessica Gadani, Osnat Kelner and Jan-Sebastian Šuba, Ariel Cohen, Tami Lebovits, Smadar Yaaron Musical Director: Maya Dunietz Technology: Yair Reshef
Entrance: 25 NIS
The CCA presents an assembly of scenes from works created collaboratively by Ariel Efraim Ashbel and Maya Dunietz over the past decade. The event is the first survey of this dynamic collaboration and contextualizes the merging of two practices based on a set of strategies for building realities and constructing narratives. Ashbel and Dunietz’s collaborations address core questions around the complex relationships between image, sound, object, and body. Their works are composed from the clashes and tensions between different disciplines and a suspicious stance towards hierarchies, while not distinguishing between references to pop culture and experimental or “refined” traditions.
The collection of works is performed by Tel Aviv and Berlin based performers and features scenes from: 1982 (2005), JAWZ (2006), Chikos (2009), Friday (2010), All White People Look the Same to Me (2013) and Untitled (Trio A) (2015).
Ariel Efraim Ashbel (b.1982, Tel Aviv) makes performances. Originally a theater director, the work he has been creating since 2000 negotiates interdisciplinary proposals for stage events, located in the gap between theater, dance, music, and installation. In Israel, he worked regularly with Tmuna Theater (Tel Aviv) and Hazira Performance Center (Jerusalem) and showed work at the Akko Festival, as well as in other contexts such as artTLV, the Center for Contemporary Art, Levontin 7, HaTeiva, and more. Between 2008-2010 he was Associate Artistic Director of the IntimaDance Festival for Contemporary Dance. Since 2011, Ashbel is based in Germany, where he presents work regularly at HAU Hebbel am Ufer Theater (Berlin) and Kampnagel (Hamburg). Other venues in Berlin include Sophiensaele, HZT (Uferstudios), ausland, the Berlin Biennial, the Porn Film Festival, and Transmediale. His work was also presented in festivals and venues in Düsseldorf, Essen, Zurich, Frankfurt, and Munich. Alongside his work as a director he also collaborates with colleagues as performer and dramaturge. Ashbel is a graduate of the School of Visual Theater, Jerusalem (2006) and he holds a BA in History and Philosophy from Tel Aviv University (2010). He won the Akko Festival prize for alternative theater in 2003, annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation in (2003-2007), the Mayor of Jerusalem and the HaZira Performance Art Center prize in 2006, the Legacy Foundation scholarship in 2007, and participated in Goethe Institute and International Theater Institution’s (ITI) residency program for young theater directors in 2011.