Art of Dance

Nikkal is inspired by an ancient text thousands of years old found in the excavations of the ancient city of Ugarit. The ancient text was sung at Canaanite and Phoenician weddings, and it is one of the oldest documented poetic texts in the ancient Near East. Another hymn to Nikkal, which was sung in her honor in temples, is the oldest song ever composed.

Nikkal, the goddess of orchards and daughter of the summer king, comes of age, and her father is looking for a match for her. He turns to the messenger of the fertility goddess, the Kotharot, and asks for their help. To everyone’s surprise, it is the moon who falls in love with Nikkal. Suen, God of the Moon, starts a negotiation between Nikkal’s father, Khirkhabi, God of the Summer, and Seun, for Nikkal’s hand in marriage. The moon wants her to stay with him in the night sky. After some back and forth, her father relents, and the engagement is sealed.

In the text, Nikkal, the bride in question, does not speak at all. Does she have no say in all matters of the match and the wedding? Was she a gentle spring-like maiden, or perhaps a goddess of the night to whom the stars, the moon, and the night itself bow down and heed her command? Perhaps her presence was so enchanting that the moon itself fell in love with her?

And what about women today? When do they have the opportunity to voice their opinions, and when is this right still denied to them? Are women who live, act, and think outside the box Goddesses, or are they immediately framed as dark figures? And if we were to turn to such celestial deities with feminine titles, would all monotheistic cultures look different?

The mother Goddess, the creator, had many names in different cultures and periods – Asherah, Belit-Ili, Ninhursag, Tiamat (Amiqa), Gaia and Hera, Ma’at and Isis, Tinnit, and more. Powerful female deities, mothers of many gods, among them goddesses of war and love, who rode lions, grew like trees of life, negotiated among all the gods of the heavens, crowned human and divine rulers, and carried the requests of humans to the halls of the gods. How can we hear their voices and what line can be drawn between the ancient rituals in nature and the urban lives that surround us? What advice would the ladies and queens of the heavens give us today?

‘Asherah – Tree of Life She is,’ is a video dance filmed in two different locations: a grove and an urban warehouse. The four dancers perform a dance segment that alternates between the different locations, seeking to explore how one can find the figures of the great goddesses, the creators, even in an urban, fast, and dynamic world, where the noise makes nature hard to hear, just like the inner voice.

Cosharot (Kotharot) is an interdisciplinary work that combines modern dance, poetry, and video clips, named after the ‘Cosharot’ (Kotharot)– the Canaanite fertility goddesses, the ‘swallows’ that heralded blessings soon to come. The work raises questions about the place of women in ancient traditions, the evolution of these questions in modern society, and their impact on women in everyday life in the twenty-first century.

In ancient cultures, the feminine divinity was usually embodied through three figures: the Mother Goddess – the figure of wisdom and fertility, the Lover – the goddess of beauty and sensual love, and the Warrior – the battle-hardened goddess of war, hunt, and battle. Do they exist within us even today? As women, can we choose only one character or another? How does the balance of power between all these traits exist within each woman and society? Should we celebrate them or shy away from them? What did the monotheistic religions do with these goddesses?

The purpose of the creation is to stimulate a social discourse about these ancient influences that shape the contemporary perception of women in society and the perception of women towards themselves, even in a society that may outwardly appear secular, liberal, and egalitarian.

Following the performance, it is possible and advisable to hold a discussion with the audience, and the performance can also be accompanied by writing workshops and movement workshops that allow for internal dialogue and reflection on the questions that arise in the creation.

“Who is this coming up from the wilderness, like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant?”
(Song of Songs, Chapter 3, Verse 6)

In the past, in the ancient realm of Canaan, they would incense myrrh and frankincense to the local goddesses on the outskirts of the deserts and settlements, in the intermediary space between human settlements and the place where nature and wildness take over, and the goddesses, Asherah, Astarte, and Anat, were connected to everything – both the world of nature and the world of humans.

The years and flourishing of monotheism covered the ancient worship of goddesses in the sands of Canaan, excluding women from sacred worship and erasing their temples, the priestesses, and the priests. Therefore, The path to the goddess is never easy. But what if, there are those who once again hear the call? What if the priestesses and priests of the goddesses, who were as restless as they were in the world, are once again responding to the call of the ancient goddesses in the realms of Canaan and are setting out to search for them in the sands that covered them, gradually uncovering them once more?

A solo piece that deals with the most important and primary relationship we have every day of our lives – the person with themselves, before they step outside and meet the world. Your struggle with yourself and with the experiences the world offers you comes before everything else. It’s not always possible to organize all the internal chaos, but it’s possible to try to dance it out with music and talk it out with bare words.

In ballet exams, in childhood, they tell you that you’ll get five bonus points if you smile. Whether there is truth to it or not (to this day I haven’t been able to find out), the point is that in the long run, you don’t learn facial expressions, but only to smile, even when everything inside is scratching, no matter how you got on stage or what happened to you that day in interactions with other people. After all these years of ‘five points on a smile,’ one must approach emotion slowly, and gently, like the human soul. To avoid startling the emotion, we will meet different women in the video clips, like ‘guides,’ who tell you things they know, that you will learn later, and that sometimes you just need to hear when you stand at a crossroads. You can approach the emotion carefully, so it doesn’t become fearful and withdraw into itself.

‘Dynamics of Movement’ is a video work of dance, words, and melody, showcasing a creative process in development and an artist’s self-exploration in three settings: in the studio, within the walls of the home, and outside in the open space.
During the quarantines, many artists found themselves in three different situations: rehearsing in the studio while the situation around the world became unclear and chaotic, confined within the walls of their homes without space for movement and rehearsals but only with endless space for thought and planning, and stepping back outside in a storm of emotions, when it was once again allowed to move and seek the proximity of other human beings.
It was a strange time for artists, especially for movement and writing artists, whose work is so greatly influenced by their encounters with the world. But in retrospect, it was a period of limitless self and artistic exploration, without a schedule, without criticism. Only the artist and their endless questions, art versus existence, and the desire to create in any situation, regardless of the conditions. A new creativity was born during this period, laying the foundations for works that burst forth with the renewed encounter with the world. The movement and the words were the music that led to a renewed creation, to an artistic voice that sought to see the world differently, to experience it and tell it in words and movement, which are the music that drives it.