On the Invitation it was written that Adina Bar-On will perform a Visual Theater in Julie. M. Gallery. By word of mouth I was told that she is a Graduate of Bezalel Academy.

People gathered in the gallery, and Adina Bar-On performed amongst and within us. An especially delicate situation, even a bit scary in light of precedents.  In some manner, an invitation to Hand to Hand Combat in which only one side knows the rules. Will she use her relative advantage in as  player opposite audience – as too familiar experiments in the new theater – ridicule us, force us to be active participants in the show, turn us into Circus Bears? Or perhaps the opposite – as the well known experiments in Contemporary art – she will expose herself in an awkward and embarrassing manner, she will make an Apotheosis of her perversions, of her complexes, she will break taboos, will cause us to pity her or to mock her, according to our natural inclinations?  All Academic questions (what it there in theater for a Bezalel student?) were pushed to a second priority in view of this frontal meeting performer – audience.

Adina Bar-On  chose neither of the options, from the manner in which the speechless performance

developed  it was obvious that she is very well aware of the emotional luggage the audience carries and made use of it. The show was a series of abstract situations and images (here, her background of Plastic art was apparent) that Bar-On performed with her body and face while she related to the people surrounding her, the gallery’s space and to the walls. An abstract pantomime without a plot.

“- What are you doing, Adina, What is it called?” – I asked her.

I am doing something that has not yet been named, I have not found it a name. In the Invitation I termed my art “Visual Theater” but this is not accurate. Perhaps Theater-Situation-Image. Perhaps, it is still difficult for me to phrase exactly what I am doing. I began writing, to myself, some things and to search possible sources in books. I have found a connection with the”Sacred Actor”of Grotowski, with

Brecht’s alienation, with the Kabuki theater and still this is so different.

“- Do you write a text before the performance?”

It is not exactly a text, it is a Score, a sequence of movements, situations and images, that develop

on location, and to which much improvisation is added in accordance to what I receive and sense from the audience while I perform. The performance that you were in was a long one (about a half an hour) because I felt that it was not long enough for you, there are shorter performances.

” – What does a Score look like? What is written in it?”

I can try and reconstruct one according to the performance I presented  last night at the gallery. It starts out with the coordinates of the location, the walls, the colors, the perspective, assumed amount of people, lighting. A gallery, a small number of persons, a lot of light, small objects, on  the  walls, which do not enclose the space.

I begin. Adina, you will be by the side wall opposite the entrance, after the corner, with your face to the corner. Here  notice-ability will be  “under zero mark”, marginal, not in focus (though it’s interesting that precisely this Minus may invoke a Plus). Get up and  everyone will notice that you are getting up. It will be slow. You will be alienated but the audience will relate to you with Alert, “She is now starting”. Take them with you. If you look straight at them they can be frightened. Don’t look. Show them your back,. Let the body express the state of tension.. Have them notice that you sense their presence at your back, and they will begin to define the situation that they are in: a theater without a stage, without spotlights. The audience does not know what is its stand in relation to the situation. They must make their assessments. During the performance, each one will make his own decisions. It is difficult. I know, but I will signify, define, create a spacial-sculptural reference with my hands. Something Aesthetic, a point to start from, a neutral link of human terms. But, still, since it is a young woman who is standing here, singly, in front of the audience, questions arise, even as gossip. How does she look?  – Very initial  judgments – The Score continues, resumes. You stand with your face to the entrance but be in the center between the two walls. Walk to the entrance and   continue outside. Come inside. Describe the entrance. Here there will confusion. People will ask themselves if the entrance is physical or symbolic. I will be aware of this and here the acting between us will begin and evolve from their reactions. I will act – an image, a sculpture, a sensation. I will enter again. Slowly I will create a focus. Perhaps I’ll return to the floor. This will be easier for the audience. I will lay on the floor but the floor will repel me. The floor is not pleasant – this is a situation and image. The audience will remain, for me, I  run towards them. There is, a constant  dynamics between the concrete and the abstract. In such a way it goes on without a plot, with various peaks.

“- There is no plot and no continuity of situations. There are jumps that seem intentional from a “hazy” situations to sudden laughter.

This is a sense of alienation, which is at the base of this work. People say to me “You are doing Group Dynamics”, this is not it. As I result of the alienation I prevent you from wholly identifying. The discontinuity reminds you that I am merely acting, that I am attempting to transmit something, an atmosphere, a system of values. When I am crying I leave it open. I permit you to identify or to say “here is a young woman acting crying”. Some times I laugh a laughter which says “Oh`, this is ridiculous, what have I done”.

“- It appears that your true text is the relation to the audience – this is the theme”

I am familiar with the audience of today and I make use of it. I divide the anonymous group into individuals, also physically, inside the gallery’s space, and this has consequences on the general attitude, on the judgment, since a specific structure creates a specific attitude. Today Catharsis can not be aroused  from mythology’s sacred truisms as in the religious theater.  Today the audience is more private, individualized, when it come to mythology. Belief is an intellectual convention and not an emotional one. I here suggest the possibility of alienation as an escape to the intellect. I suspend the tension of decision making. I leave the images open. From my view, it is impossible to appeal to the audience with a mythic situation, one that is not real as a symbol to “basic human truth”. This has been “bank rapt”, lost its sharpness, because the audience is not a unified group, because of its individualism. In order that my viewer will awaken to some kind of involvement I must begin as an equal to him. The start is neutral. The beginning is a nothing.

“- So, does this explains the performance without make-up, the clothes that are not costumes?”

I am not a prime-ballerina. At the most I am a Bad dancer and I want this to be conveyed to the audience. There is some neglect in the personal appearance so that the sexual view will not be aroused since I am not interested in it. It is a risk. A young woman crawls on the floor, rolls on the floor and makes all sorts of movements that may arouse associations that I am not interested in. I usually succeed in arousing respect. I perform in a wide and simple skirt and in a comfortable blouse, nothing special, no costume, no make up. One could say that I under play my role as an actress and overplay my role as a “human being”.

“- The inevitable question is how did you get from painting to a theatric performance?”

I painted well but empty, I painted abstract. One could say that my father and mother were abstract, but I was born after all all that. I managed doing it but I did not feel, it was beautiful yet – empty.

I also tried to paint figurative: women, symbols but all of a sudden I realized that I could do all that with my presence, in front of you, and to make sure that it communicates, and if not than I will

improvise and try another way. Of course, this does connect to the era we are in. Today in the Plastic arts there are artists who perform, though I do not feel close to them in my attitude, and there is “Dada” of course, and facing this is me, my personality. I want to see you, the audience, in actuality, not by the telephone and not “to make out” alone in a room with a pencil. What is more real, primitive, than a person standing there’ in front of you and saying something with her body pertaining to classic human situations. I give a lot of myself and I want this to be felt, maybe this is my reaction to todays art.  If one would say: “ Oh`, how much work she has put into it, hasn’t pasted two to elements on the wall and termed it a manifest” I should be pleased. I am drained after every performance so perhaps this where the respect comes from.

“- Can you envision the performance broadened – an actors troop that repeats the same performance many times, as in theater? “

It is all based on my being alone with the audience. On this the text is based. If we will be two in a performance than situations will o cure between us and I want oneness. I have never repeated a performance, not to mention that the performance in a gallery can not be as a performance in a club. In a gallery I know that the passive audience has come to view pictures so I build a complete abstract formal  alignment. In a club I am prepared for an audience collaboration. I construct, in advance, a frame for the actual physical situation. Now, I “gobble down” images, I try, I test, examine, and any way, who wishes to repeat the same painting twice?