
VR Dance 2021
The global pandemic has imposed upon all of us a new reality. In response, this past June MASH hosted our very first Virtual Reality Dance Festival – presenting dance works, filmed using 360° technology that were viewed through VR headsets, providing an interactive performance-viewing experience. Over the past several months, we have been working with our team to create a version of the VR experience that will be accessible not only to local audiences, but to anyone across the globe.
On Thursday, October 14th we invite international dance house and festival managers to an online event that we are hosting, in partnership with the Cultural Diplomacy Bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which we will launch a new platform for internationally presenting Israeli dance works in an exciting, interactive, immersive, and innovative manner – VIRTUAL REALITY. During the event, we will offer a taste of our work-in-process project – a VRDance experience – using VR headsets, sent to the homes of those who register prior to the event.
Following this event, we plan to continue to share with our international partners the growing archive of Israeli VR dance and to seek new ways to virtually collaborate, internationally.
If you would like to be in touch and take part in the VR platform please contact our producer, Gabby Foster: prod@mashdancehouse.com
How to activate the VR Headset?
To open the 360 test clip, click here.
Be sure to open it on your smartphone and view it through your headset.
The 360 performances

NARKIS by Irad Avni
About creature and entity A letter to NARKIS:
There is nothing in this world but myself.
Everything lies beneath me. I fulfill light and beauty. I have a rich
inner world. I am love and perfection.
Only my reflection exists, I reflect myself reflecting through myself reflecting myself. I am a protected flower.
You might feel clean and free of psychology but at the same time also dead in some sense.
When you visit life you envy her, her totality. You will always have lack of totality I promise that your reflection will not bring death upon you but a peek into your innermost layers, the hidden sides that emerge and erupt every so often;
Give up on creating attempts to uphold your persona.
Don’t show everything at once, leave some room for curiosity.
But you, you are not exactly a classic Narcissus.
I hope that when you leave, you will love yourself and let go, you will be complete.
Choreography and performance: Irad Avni
Costume design and artistic advising: rosello shmaria
Original lighting design:eyal daniel
Music: Gioachino Rossini, antonin dvorak, Felipe Villanueva, Kazaky

Nature by Lotem Regev
A close-up to human nature. Emotional experiences translated into movement. A dance of elusive harmony, in the meeting point between two men.
Choreography: Lotem Regev
Performers: Evyatar Omessy, Lotem Regev
Costume desing: Noah Sancho, Lotem Regev
Music: Mattheus Van Rossum, Thomas Walschot, Rare Silk
The piece was initially created for Curtain Up Festival, with the support of the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sports

Castle by Rachel Erdos
An intimate duet in which the dancers are trapped in a square of 2.5 x 2.5 meters. Coloured fluorescent lights demarcate their territory and they inhabit it. The audience sit close to the performers on all 4 sides of the square.
In today’s society space, or the lack of it, is an issue. Wars are fought over small pieces of land and borders are constantly changing and defining who we are. We live in overpopulated cities where the price to rent a tiny apartment is huge. The work was created in reaction to the current political situations and living conditions in many places in the world. As the cost of living grows we are forced to inhabit smaller and smaller spaces.
This work questions whether the walls make us prisoners in our own castle or protect us by keeping others out. Are we trapped or are we free? Free in our minds, our homes, our lives, our countries?
Commissioned by MASH, Machol Shalem Dance House, Jerusalem, Israel
Choreography and Concept: Rachel Erdos | Creative performers: Ori Lenkinski, Tomer Giat | Set Design and Construction: Alon Birger | Original Music and Editing: Yoav Atzmon | Music: The Boo Radleys, Echo Lake, The Caretaker | Artistic advisor: Oded Graf | Producer: Tali Konigsberg | International | Communications: Katherina Vasiliadis | First presented as part of Mahol Shalem Festival, September 2014

Aliza By Ravid Abarbanel
A couple on a journey, deals with the challenges and fragments of thought and memory. Two characters who live in a world that is not necessarily physical, part of which exists only in their minds. They want to help one another, to bolster one another, to succeed together- however, their journey together is wrought with solitude. Suddenly it is unclear where they are going and why. Good intentions are engulfed by vast confusion.
Choreography : Ravid Abarbanel
Dancers : Tomer Giat , Ravid Abarbanel
Sound Design : Ivan Shopov
Photo by
Deganit Artman
Artistic manager : Shlomit Fundaminsky
The piece was developed within the frame of Derida Dance Center’s Residency Program, a project part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2017, with the support of The Israeli Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The piece premiered on September 2017, at the "Shades dance" festival in Suzanne Dellal, Tel Aviv - Israel

Sisypha by Yoram Karmi
A new productions from the project “Wind Connections” by Israel Festival 2021
Inspired by MORJAN ABU DEBA's work, choreographer Yoram Karmi wishes to explore the temporal dimension, the power of nature and the endless cycle that can be seen as Sisyphean and reparative but also as optimistic and meditative.

Pshutot by Ronen Izhaki
A productions from the project “Wind Connections” by Israel Festival 2021
In 1963, film director David Perlov made “In Jerusalem,” a lyrical documentary about the divided capital of the young state. One of the interviewees, an anonymous Orthodox woman who later became famous as the poet Zelda, caused an unintentional provocation when she stated that “In this city, every beggar could be the Messiah,” an accurate observation indeed about biblical and everyday life in Jerusalem.
Perlov’s portrayal of these beggars and self-declared messiahs displeased the “Israeli Film Service” that funded the production, prompting them to demand its reshoot – a demand that was met with backlash and demonstrations. The protests reached then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who ruled that the film can return to the screens.
Jerusalemite choreographer Ronen Itzhaki contemplates the film, the scandal that surrounded it, and the revolutionary and daring figure of Zelda. He centers his work around a new group of women – potential messiahs, refugees, beggars. Using their bodies, they express the turmoil, contrasts, and blend of languages that distinguish this city, its stories and conflicts, and eventually also the appeal for balance.
Choreography: Ronen Izhaki / Dramaturgy: Tammy Izhaki / Music: Gideon Lewensohn / Dancers and co-creators: Kornelia Lech, TalShalom Sack, Inbal Ronen, Viola Gasparotti, Talia Vaknine, Neta Henik, Maor Alfasi, Naama Avni / Rehearsal manager: Karin Lederman / Production manager: Hadas Kidron / Costumes: Neta Henik / Texts: Amichai Chasson.

Laxity By Noa Dar
A productions from the project “Wind Connections” by Israel Festival 2021
Photo by Tamar Getter-Slingshot Girl
In “Slingshot Girl,” a video work created by the artist Tamar Getter in 2004, a wounded girl slings a rock at a figure outside the frame. Taken from a Kung Fu film, the scene – which originally is only a few seconds long – was digitally manipulated and extended into an 8-minute action.
Noa Dar was drawn to the link that Getter made between the stretched slingshot and the stretching of time. Using the elements of the event captured in the video, her solo moves on an axis that stretches between edges of tenseness and laxity, advance and retreat, accumulation and depletion, defense and attack, movement and stillness.
Choreographer and performer: Noa Dar
Rehearsal director: Yael Venezia /Artistic consultant: Michal Samama
Costume design: Michal Bassad /Sound design: Elad Shniderman
Premiere: 15/6/2021, Israel Festival, Artistic Director – Itzick Gulli

