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By Sahar Azimi &Tamara Erde

 

Cell in a Human Scale is a multi-disciplinary performance, a duet, based on a personal story. Sahar Azimi, a choreographer and a dancer and Tamara Erde ,a film director, met around art circles. Having been inspired by one another's work, they decided to collaborate. Parallel to their acquaintance, Sahar found out that he has HIV.

Cell in a Human Scale is driven by, as well as inspired by the confrontation with this information.

Cell in a Human Scale is an intimate visual dance piece that deals with the appearance of a devastating virus -a product of urban society -and with the way human beings cope with it. The two performers “live” inside a protected and sterile white space. In this space they examine their relationship with each other and their relation to the environment. This examination reveals different motivations such as fear and caution that lead the two performers to meld, sometimes to blindness.

The performance combines movement and video projections as well as a unique use of sound and lights. In this piece the artists wish to eliminate the traditional separation between stage and audience by using a synchronized system of lights -sound-projections.

About the performance space/ set design

The performance takes place on a white stage. The white sterile space is a metaphor to the way the futuristic urban environment copes with pollution –with the virus. The design of the space created by the video projections is inspired by the works of the Israeli-French artist Absalon. During the beginning of the 90's Absalon has created a series of “urban living units”, that were meant to be placed in several big cities around the world, and serve as a unique living space for the artist. It was planned to be integrated in the urban massive scenery, and yet remain protected and detached from it. Absalon died from the HIV virus before he managed to finish the construction of those various living cells. In the piece, The contagion, the spreading of the virus is represented by different images  on 3different “screens” - 2walls and the floor (built especially for the performance), illustrating different motifs of the physical transformation of materials, and thus the space, and its direct affect on the human body.

“Parallel universes”  serves as the source for the images that will sporadically influence one another as well as affect the performers. One universe includes abstract, isolated forms, mostly constructed by organic and physical natural organs and substances. The parallel universe includes documentary, urban, everyday-life's images.

 

Co creators and performers: Sahar Azimi, Tamara Erde

Lighting design: Dani Fishof

Original music and sound design: Didi Erez Japan by CocoRosie

Kiss Kiss by Yoko Ono

Art and costume design: Anna Waisman

 Texts: Sahar Azimi and Tamara Erde

 Styling: Ariel Cohen

Artistic consulting &rehearsal management: Anna Waisman

 Post Production: Eitan Malki

 Group scene participants: Amir Azulay, Yotam Bezalel, Asol Gendelman, Orin Gerstenhaber Rodik Dinisman, Yair Rainer

 Doctor's scene: Yuval Meskin

Sound ,lighting and technical production: Magenta Ltd

Production: Anat Radnay

Scientific video images: Thomas Huser, Ph.D., Department of Internal Medicine, and NSF Center for Biophotonics University of California, Davis and colleagues: Gregory McNerney, Deanna Thompson and Frank Chuang, University of California, Davis ;Wolfgang Huebner, Benjamin Dale and Benjamin Chen, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York

Portrait image by :David Adika

 

Documentation: Gadi Dagon and Arale –the Sizzling Shutter

Special thanks to the Israeli AIDS Task Force and its staff for its kind and generous support along the way.