Some quiet in all this noise

by Merav Yudolevich

Spurred by postmodern culture's pollution of the human spirit with mass information and noise, choreographer Noa Wertheim wishes to return to the source. An interview about dance, ecology and culture

The new work by the Vertigo Dance Company deals mainly with doubt. It casts doubt on modern life, questioning the departure from the essential, the earth and the backbone of individual identity amidst the hustle of social life. "White Noise" is the name of the new piece and at the risk of using big words it is, in many respects, existential in nature. This is the first time that choreographer Noa Wertheim, who previously focused on more intimate, almost chamber works, has worked with such a large group of dancers. "It was a fascinating experience for me to work with such a mass," she says, "something about it requires a wider perspective -- to extend beyond the individual, to communicate in pictures. It was a different energy that I was interested in exploring."

The long, winding and creative path of the Jerusalem troupe founded by Noa Wertheim with her partner and spouse Adi Sha'al 16 years ago is quite impressive. Today, with 10 dancers and an eco-village recently founded in Kibbutz Netiv Halamed Heh in the Elah Valley, the company miraculously maintains its characteristic intimacy and honest approach without spreading too thin.

The new work stays true to Wertheim's unique movement vocabulary and is accompanied by a remarkable score composed by the company's musical director Ran Bagno. It seems like Wertheim takes more risks while steering clear of the noisy arrogance that she challenges in the piece. "The work deals with the conflict between an inner sense of quiet, a complete surrender to gravity's pull, and the noise that society inflicts on us," she says and talks about a reconnection with an all-encompassing universe, with the life force that binds us to the earth and to people as well as the need to be part of the whole without gaining control of it.

The show's press release contains an excerpt from "Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America," a book by media activist Kalle Lasn, who confronts the ills of postmodern culture -- the pollution of the human spirit with mass information that estranges people from themselves. Lasn talks about how the sound of the natural world has been subsumed by the noise of corporations, the media, consumer culture and mass information. This overshadowing of the natural world is exactly what prompted Wertheim and Sha'al to leave Jerusalem and take up residence in the kibbutz where they established a dance center that explores the relationship between ecology and dance.

The gradual reconnection with the natural world began approximately four years ago when Wertheim was creating the piece "Birth of the Phoenix," a poetic ceremony dedicated to the natural elements, performed in a geodesic, bamboo dome erected in open air. Wertheim used soil as the starting point – acting as the surface from which the dancers emerge and on which they tread.

A year later the company was in talks with Kibbutz Harel about an eco-village, an initiative that ultimately fell through. The current endeavor is still in its early stages but it seems like it has already taken root. The mud-built, solar-powered center is committed to recycling, and enforces the connection between movement and nature, proposing an alternative lifestyle.

"The move to the village heightened the dissonance with modern life and the white noise that is an inseparable part of it." says Wertheim. "So yes, the works deals with the noise that is a given in the age of computer technology and with the search for a sense of inner calm, the lost tribe, real dialogue, touch and connections that are all part of the human essence." Inspired by Lasen's contention that the global economy is taking over modern society and so must be stopped and reprogrammed, Vertigo offers audience members the opportunity to take part in a barter market before the performance. "Recycling decreases consumption, lessens the reliance on the Earth's natural resources and reduces the amount of waste we produce," they say. "That is the reason why we decided to ask that audience members bring with them objects that are collecting dust which others may find useful. What one person doesn't need may be a treasure for another and vice versa."