A series of events organised by Doris Kolesch and Kai Padberg, Research Area 2: "Travelling Matters".

This event will be streamed live.

To participate in the discussion, please register with Judith König (j.koenig2@fu-berlin.de) by 30 May 2021.

The eighth event of our series is an online talk with Noam Semel (CEO of the National Theatre Habima, Tel Aviv), Igal Ezraty (Director and founder of the Jaffa Theatre – A Stage for Arab Hebrew Culture, Tel Aviv), Lilach Dekel-Avneri (Curator, translator, dramaturg and artistic director of The Pathos Mathos Company), and Dana Yahalomi (Choreographer, Public Movement).
Moderation: Doris Kolesch

Igal Ezraty is a writer and director from Tel Aviv. He is one of the founders of the Arab-Hebrew theatre in Jaffa, one of the most important theatres in Israel, and organizer of the Jaffa Fest. He has mainly conducted plays on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with members of the Hebrew speaking theatre. Ezraty has received several awards, including the Tel Aviv Razablum Prize for artistic activity and the Margalit Prize. Since 1986 he teaches acting and directing at Tel Aviv University and at the Seminar Hakibbutzim Acting Studio. He is also the co-founder of the Theatre Artists Union Israel. He studied »Education and Community Theatre« at the Tel Aviv University and holds an MFA in Theatre Directing. He is the co-founder of Yesh Gevul (There is a limit/border) – an organization of soldiers who refused to serve in the Israeli army during the Lebanon war, and have refused to serve in the occupied territories since 1988. 

Noam Semel is the Director General of Habima, the National Theatre of Israel, and the founder and chairman of the Hanoch Levin institute for Israeli Drama. Semel is a known television and radio presenter, a moderator, and public speaker. For the past 5 decades Semel has played a seminal role in shaping and leading the Israeli Theatre, as the 25 years long Director General of the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv (1992-2017), the formal Israeli Consulate for cultural affairs in the USA (1988-1992), and the Director General of the Haifa Municipal Theatre (1980-1988) responsible for acclaimed productions such as »Ghetto« by Yohoshua Sobol, and the bilingual production of »Waiting for Godot« in Hebrew and Arabic. During his long employment as Director General, Semel received the 2005 Israel Prize on behalf of The Cameri City Theatre. He is known for his work with A list performing artists such as Yossi Banai, Shlomo Artzi, Rivka Michaeli, and more. He is the former Artistic Director of the Jaffa International Theatre Festival, on behalf of Gesher Theatre and the Tel Aviv Municipality, and Chairman of Kissufim 2019, an international conference in Jerusalem for Jewish authors, poets, and playwrights, at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. In 2019 Semel received the lifetime achievement award from the Israeli union of performing arts.

Lilach Dekel-Avneri is an Israeli theatre director, curator, translator and dramaturge. She is the recipient of the prestigious Rosenblum Prize for the Performing Arts, and the Israel Institute Visiting Artist program. She holds an MFA in Writing, Dramaturgy and Directing from the Department of Theatre, Tel Aviv University. She is the founder and artistic director of the award-winning theatre company Pathos-Mathos. Dekel-Avneri directed multiple award-winning theatre and performance shows, in Israel and abroad. Among her Site-Specific Events are »She will find solace«, »Chamber of Chambers«, »Lost Paradise«. She is the manager of the Hebrew committee of the international network EURODRAM. During the past ten years she served as the artistic director of several festivals is Israel, including »Mi-darom«, and »International Exposure«. She has published articles about theatre in various journals and translated plays by Sarah Kane, Falk Richter, Dennis Kelly and Sarah Grochala. Since the first lockdown, Lilach directed five productions via, or for, the web.

Dana Yahalomi is a choreographer and artist. A graduate of the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance and a Tel Aviv University graduate for philosophy and history studies, Yahalomi has led and created new Public Movement actions and exhibitions in many different platforms and locations. Among them are the Göteborg International Biennial, Guggenheim Museum New York, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Berlin Biennale, Asian Art Biennial Taiwan, Pinchuk Art Center Kiev, Impulse Festival Düsseldorf and more. Together with Alhena Katsof, Yahalomi wrote the book “Solution 263: Double Agent”, that was published through Sternberg Press in 2015. The group Public Movement investigates the creation of national, social, and political identities through public choreographies and the way they are performed in public space. The group, usually in uniform, began by reenacting commemorative ceremonies, formal exercises from the youth scouts, or emergency procedures in public space, in order to illustrate the choreography of collective civilian life and how it is ingrained in the cultural fabric. Public Movement came to international attention with their participation in the 2012 New Museum Triennial that showcased »SALONS: Birthright Palestine?«, a series of performative public debates staged as congressional sessions, summit meetings, visioning sessions, diplomatic consultations, secret gatherings, and demonstrations. 

It was the middle of March 2020 when Germany went into lockdown. Back then, there had already been a curfew in Wuhan, China, for several weeks. In many other countries in Europe and worldwide, public life was abruptly shut down. The consequences for the cultural sector have been dire everywhere. All over the world, theatres have had to shut down unexpectedly and most remain closed. Schedules have been cancelled. Professional existences are endangered. At the same time, public and cultural life has shifted to the digital sphere. Many theatres and artists are using this way to stay in touch with their audiences and are exploring digital spaces more than ever before. But what forms of community-building are even remotely possible for theatre and the performing arts? What is the character of the relation between local institutions and these transnational spaces, which might open up and expand while national borders remain closed? What does it mean for artistic practice if humans assemble as a virtual audience while being physically alone in their respective homes? In what ways will the pandemic change theatre? What will digital assemblies mean for theatres after the pandemic?

In the series of events entitled "Temporal Communities and Digitality – Theatre During the Pandemic", theatre directors, theatre artists and scholars from around the world will report on the practical effects on theatre operations and their work. They will examine the various strategies with which stage and theatre creators have reacted to this situation, online and offline. Together with researchers from the Cluster of Excellence "Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective", they will discuss how the global crisis of the theatre has created new temporal communities and to what extent these are created under the conditions of digitality.

This event is part of our series "Temporal Communities and Digitality - Theatre During the Pandemic".