Portland independent dance company The Holding Project presents the evening length mekudeshet (תשדוקמ), a world premiere directed, performed and choreographed by women. It opens November 14-17, at Shaking The Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., beginning at 8 pm. The performance is the result of a year-long rehearsal period, and the dance is a gentle and treacherous work.
Seven dancers perform in a pale, dim, and boxed-in landscape, unfolding through a world of sensation, ritual, and urgency. The performers move in configurations ranging from groupings of two to linear pathways of seven, enacting ceremony, effort, resistance, and challenging repressive religious standards through a culturally Jewish lens. The dancers create dialogue between the catastrophic and the steady.
Choreographed and directed by Israeli-born Artistic Director Amy Leona Havin. Company dancers include Jennifer Seung Hancock, Heather Hindes, Annie Leonard, Carly Nicole Ostergaard, Elle Crowley Sevi, and Whitney Wilhardt, the performance begins with the Torah’s ‘Shema Israel’ prayer and dives into a kaleidoscope of grapes, wigs, and rebellious Judaic and Holocaust-driven imagery through the Middle East meets ambient West soundscape.
The Holding Project (theholdingproject.com) is directed by Israeli born choreographer Amy Leona Havin and founded in 2015. Tickets are $25, $20 artist, $15 for students and online at bit.ly/2NnVAlc
