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Last update - 13:04 14/05/2008 Batsheva Dance Company, Japanese animator collaborate with Israeli fashion designers to create truly symbiotic performance By Ilit Mainemer Tags: Furo, Batsheva The show "Furo," by Ohad Naharin, the Batsheva Dance Company and the Japanese animation artist Tabaimo, features the creations of Israeli fashion designers Mirit Weinstock, Sasson Kedem, and Alla Eisenberg, as well as dancer and choreographer, Sharon Eyal. Such collaboration among fashion designers and choreographers has been taking place for some time now. Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and even Versace, who designed for Maurice Bejart, are only a few of the designers who have been designing for dancers. "The symbiosis between these disciplines is absolute," says Sasson Kedem, who has collaborated with Nir Ben Gal, Liat Dror and Rina Sheinfeld. "We deal with concrete material, everyone transmits an experience. Through movement, one can discover many things about the clothes - to what extent the fabric, stitch and design can be stretched, what use the body can make of them." Advertisement "Furo," Japanese for bathhouse, combines Japanese-style video clips by Tabaimo on three giant screens, dance segments performed by Batsheva dancers wearing Western-style designer clothes, and a lovely soundtrack by Ehud Fishoff that mixes East and West. The performance was commissioned by the Jewish Theatre in Stockholm and is now being performed in Israel, in a special temporary pavilion designed by Giora Porter on the Tel Aviv Port boardwalk. The designers' creations are integrated into this hypnotic spectacle. In a relatively short, open creative process, each one drew inspiration for their costumes from a different source. Each designer chose to work with different material, and the result is fascinating. The work includes more than 20 pairs of dancers, who appear for a total of 45 minutes. The duos are not always wearing clothes by the same designer, but in the combinations amid this chaos, there is a kind of order. The men's clothing designer and project manager is Alla Eisenberg. This is her fourth time collaborating with Ohad Naharin (the first time was for "Playback" last year). "The working assumption was that they have to be different," she says. "That it won't look like a preplanned combination. Our connection is built around the fact that Ohad wants his dancers to look like real people, and not like dancers in ballet clothes." Each of the designers dealt with the question of where the dancers and the video art connect, since it is clear that the dances and Tabaimo's work are separate, independent creations. Mirit Weinstock posed this question to Naharin. The encounter, he answered, is in the imagination. In the fusion of the moment when they meet, something new happens. "What guided me was the color," says Weinstock. "I chose colorful and graphic elements from the video, while constantly remembering that the outfit was meant for dancers, that it had to be functional and lead the dancer's body and power. It had to serve the motion and strengthen the body; not to dirty anything or interfere." Sasson Kedem, in contrast, disconnected from the video and chose to focus on Naharin and his minimalism, the outlines of the body. "They don't dance inside an animation, they dance separately. I wanted to let the animation live and let the dancers breathe. The intention was to create for the dancers a territory of their own, without a dialogue between them and the screens, because they aren't part of the screens, they create their own world, and the symbiosis is actually their viewing of the performance." Eisenberg concluded that the connection between the dancers and the video is essentially built "around the non-connection. Each one exists separately, and together they create something whole. When I tried to analyze it, I realized that the dancers are the ones who are preserving what is happening in the world of the screens. That's why the clothes I created are a little stiff, a little military-like. Nonetheless, I felt it was right to use colorful animations." The result is an encounter of opposites: A stiff military appearance meets living color, short fleece skirts with blouses that zip up in the back. The body plays a central role in the designs of Weinstock and Kedem. Weinstock's choice of transparent tulle fabrics highlights the body, a dancer's most important tool, and establishes a dialogue with it while communicating with the visual colors of the video art. The transparent tulles are surprising in their intense colors, including electric blue, pink fuchsia and canary yellow, and match the colorful shorts. The silk collars Weinstock designed for the tops are an expression of her personal signature. "These color combinations are not trivial for me," she admits, "a blue top with a loud purple collar, or a combination of grass green and olive yellow, turquoise and bordeaux." Yet the result is fascinating. For Kedem as well, the intense color doesn't come naturally. His designs use Lycra fabrics sewn in different shapes around the body. "Lemon yellow and purple, green and red constantly shout out and create contrasts that disturb you deep in your soul. It's the statement of this performance." He says he was interested in every part of the body. "There's no back, front or sides; as far as I'm concerned it's the same unit. The back is no less important than the front." "Furo." At the Tel Aviv Port, from May 16 through the end of June, on Mondays and Thursdays (6 P.M.-11 P.M.), Fridays (11 A.M.-5 P.M.), Saturdays (noon-9 P.M.). Tickets: 60 shekels. Bookmark to del.icio.us   A few good celebs Some of Hollywood's top guns congratulate Israel in a clip played in Times Square. 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