ELISH
Performance, stage, costume | Tamar Borer
Music | Bar Eran
Live video | Yael Ben Shalom
Sculpture | Avinoam Sternheim
Light design | Tamar Orr
ELISH seeks to present different perspectives on the same shared reality:
The performance presents a world within a world, both empower, complement and are vital to each other.
The image that accompanies the work, both poetic and scientific, is the life cycle of metal. A cycle that begins as stardust in space, slowly dropped on and into the ground. There, it turns into mineral crystals that slowly erode, and finally, rise back up to space as dust.
On stage, different types of metals in different configurations are spread, hung and laid on the ground.
Tamar Borer's performance reflects constant transformation moves, a kind of a journey on earth, between metal crystals, coal particles, stardust and lava surfaces. It represents the human gaze on the layered reality. A reality, which she explores while stretching the boundaries of body and voice, and which, combined with the multi-faceted material installation becomes a world that is in constant metamorphosis.
The world created by the performance and the materials of the installation on stage is documented with live video by Yael Ben Shalom and projected in a closed circle, in a vertical inversion. At the same time, Ben Shalom operates objects in real time, such as water in a glass bowl, powders and lanterns, to create changing landscapes using the cameras' extreme close up lens.
The musician Bar Eran weaves rich and complex sound surfaces. She uses field and voice recordings, manipulates feedback between microphones and speakers, taps on various metal objects, sings and plays the violin.
The name "Elish" is taken from the Babylonian creation story (Anuma Elish - Babylonian: When from Above), which was discovered between Nineveh antiquities in 1849 on clay tablets.
The sculpture created by the sculptor Avinoam Sternheim, is made of remnants of stanza and depreciation of ready-made metal objects. The sculpture symbolizes a focal point for observing from above what is happening below. An ancient epic perspective on things as they occur today.
A quote from a review by Ruth Eshel
“To see Borer, is to see a sensitive and a deep artist, a philosophet of life and movement. Always exciting, and perhaps the questions that remain unresolved are part of the mystery”.
