Adina Bar-On is considered to be the pioneer performer in Israel. Her first performances, did not go unnoticed and did not happen without causing controversy. After her first performance, at the courtyard of Bezalel Academy, in Jerusalem, she was asked to stop creating this kind of work and her teachers called a psychologist to examine what had happened there, seeking professional opinion about her psychic state and her work.

Following her second presentation, “Birds” (1973), Adina received a warning letter from the Director of the Academy, stating that if she wanted to continue studying she had to return to work in conventional media.

Her work is unusually complex though subtle. It arouses discussion on social and political conflicts using the factors of performance with a strong and tangible presence of the human body and of vocal expression which challenge contemporary dance and experimental sound and voice techniques.

Adina‘s apparent deconstructive approach to media has evolved into an inclusive and very personal non-language, which serves as an ethical vehicle to her viewers.

A non-language which focuses on a thoroughly acute concentration on the specific location and on the context in which she presents her work, the persons and their differences, the objects, the architecture and its acoustics.

In her work she creates connections between art and ethics through the integration of different media in an organic manner all her own: as the fusion of vocals and texts with plastic elements; as when dressed in a garment of a red color and holding a flag that is white she wandered in the city as a representation of the silent semantics of a political cause; as when a bed was installed, like a living picture, on a wall with her, the artist, in it, and underneath a display of several headsets where people could hear a sound piece as an organic scanner that maps the psychic involvement evolution of the performance.

Adina does justice to Robert Filliou’s concept “d’égalité des valeurs d’appréciation dans l’art” where, through principles of equivalence, she breaks the a priori of expectation of art as a spectacle. She has no aspiration of creating effects, or to exercise vocal technique, but rather surprises us by applying a mechanism of authenticity.  With her voice she improvises in cadence to the rhythm of presences calling for a moment of truth that induces and activates her audience to high levels of attention and awareness.

We know that Amália Rodrigues visited Israel in 1980 and met Adina Bar-On. Adina was then 39 years old. They met on the beach walk, the Tel Aviv “tayelet”, where Adina, after a race, did one of her voice exercises. Amália Rodrigues was very intrigued and wanted to know everything about Adina’s use of her voice. After the conversation, where Amália learned a little more about this world of performance, they had lunch and wine. When she returned to Portugal, inspired by this meeting, she asked Carlos Paião to compose the song “O Senhor Extraterrestre”* in 1981. It starts like this: “Vou contar-vos um história/ Que não me sai da memória/ Foi pra mim uma vitória/ Nesta era espacial/ Noutro dia estremeci/ Quando abri a porta e vi/ Um grandessíssimo OVNI/ Pousado no meu quintal/ Fui logo bater a porta/ Veio uma figura torta/ Eu disse: Se não se importa/ Poderia ir-se embora/ Tenho esta roupa a secar/ E ainda se vai sujar/ Se essa coisa aí ficar/ A deitar fumo pra fora” e depois de mais cinco estrofes acaba assim “E o senhor extraterrestre/ Viu-se um pouco atrapalhado/ Quis falar mas disse pi/ Estava mal sintonizado/ Mexeu lá no botãozinho/ Só pra dizer: Deus lhe pague/ Eu dei-lhe um copo de vinho/ E lá foi no seu caminho/Que era um pouco em ziguezague”.

* “The Extraterrestrial Lord” in 1981. It starts like this: “I’ll tell you a story / That I cannot get out of my memory / It was for me a victory / In this space age / The other day I shuddered / When I opened the door and saw / A very great UFO / Perched in my yard / I knocked at the door / Came a broken figure / I said: If you do not mind / You could leave / I’ve got these clothes to dry / And like this they will get dirty / If that thing stays there / releasing  smoke”, and after five more strophes it ends like this: “And the extraterrestrial lord / He seemed a little confused / He wanted to talk but said pi / He was badly tuned / He touched a little button / Just to say: God will pay you back / I gave him a glass of wine / And there he was on his way / forming a zigzag”.