Gilad Ben Ari

Vertical Partition #1 - BODY
The Israeli performer and dancer Gilad Ben Ari (1982) visits the borders of such disciplines as visual art, dance and theatre from the standpoint of ‘performance’. He studied Dance at the Matte Asher School for the Performing Arts (Israel) and at P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels) under Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and followed residency programmes at NRW KULTURsekretariat (Wuppertal, Germany), FLACC and Potsdam Fabrik (Potsdam, Germany). He currently studies for his Master in Choreography at the Theaterschool (Amsterdam School of the Arts)

Vertical Partition #1 - BODY
From Middle school Gilad would travel by 2 public buses (lines 8 and 9 or 28) to the other side of Jerusalem, where his school was located. He would pass with the bus the border of his neighborhood and the Palestinian neighborhoods of Arab alSawahira and Umm Lisun, almost every day for 6 years. To this day he never visited any of these neighborhoods and he doesn't remember their names without looking at a map.

Vertical Partition #1 - BODY
In his work he looks at the systems that control society, often unseen. He projects those systems onto his own body and incorporates them into his performances so as to make them visible. The political situation in his homeland Israel frequently plays a critical role in his work. He abstracts the theme by extracting main principles of political operation that when arriving at a performance, can be applied on his own body to propose a question through experience and support social criticism.

Vertical Partition #1 - BODY

Vertical Partition #1 - BODY