Vertigo presents US premiere of One. One & One at Baryshnikov Arts Center March 5-6
Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jerome Robbins Theater
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
March 5-6, $25, 7:30
646-731-3200
bacnyc.org
vertigo.org.il/en
In 2017, Israel’s Vertigo Dance Company celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with One. One & One, a soulful, energetic production imbued with spirituality and immersed in a connection to the natural world. The company, based in the Vertigo Eco-Art Village in Kibbutz Netiv HaLamed-Heh in Jerusalem and dedicated to social and environmental awareness, will be in New York City March 5-6 to present the U.S. premiere of the work at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The sixty-minute piece, choreographed by troupe artistic director and cofounder Noa Wertheim, is set to an original score by Avi Belleli performed by violists and vocalists Galia Hai and Oud Eliahu Dagmi and vocalist Ilai Bellelil. Ten barefoot dancers (Sian Olles, Liel Fibak, Sándor Petrovics, Shani Licht, Etai Peri, Daniel Costa, Hagar Shachal, Jeremy Alberge, Korina Fraiman, and Yotam Baruch), dressed in white or gray shirts and dark pants (the costumes are by Sasson Kedem), move about Roy Vatury’s stage, which ranges from a chessboard-like appearance (the lighting is by Dani Fishof — Magenta) to being covered in dirt, creating an ever-changing ground of abstract shapes and patterns. “In the last few decades, some wonderful dance artists have established an important place in Israel’s cultural landscape, and Vertigo Dance Company is among them. Vertigo’s excellent dancers express a distinctive voice through an impressive movement quality — visceral and raw, but with a surprising, acute sensitivity,” BAC founder and artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov said in a statement. The title comes from a quote from Yoma, Chapter 5, Mishnah 4: “And thus would he count: one, one and one, one and two, one and three, one and four, one and five, one and six, one and seven.”