It is almost a sin to describe a “Performance” by Adina Bar-On. Any description will only enable a reconstruction of its visual aspects. Even an attempt at interpretation will express no more than reactions to what had occurred in the “performance” and speculations about symbols and meanings that the viewer –a single person in the audience – with have discovered.
And yet the description is important for the purpose of illustration. I asked Adina about her studies at “Bezalel” and about her first “performances” in the academy:                                  “In my third year at “Bezalel” I presented my first performance. I arranged seats for fifty persons in the yard. The atmosphere: outside, five o`clock in the afternoon, dusk. A friend directed the audience to their seats. Everyone sat and waited. With no stage, no lighting, a performance with frontal seating that is alien to the school, to our studies, our environment. I entered through the audience, wearing black, makeup, just a bit more than usual, nonchalantly. When I reached the front, I turned around to the audience. I said Shalom to every one of them. I was aware of my form – I greeted with Shalom, a genuine Shalom, openly, smiling you out.

It causes embarrassment. You sit expecting the actor to come out with what he has to say rather than to draw you out. When I turn to you with an innocent face, you are not sure if I did not intend to ridicule you. You begin to notice how you feel, how I look. You begin to examine me in order to check-out how you look in relation to me – what is the situation which I have initiated. In this manner, something which has a visual sensibility lowly slowly begins, and thus a “situation” begins to be defined.
After her graduation, Adina performs in various settings: Graphics 2 Gallery, The Technion, Rothschild Center in Haifa, Tzavtah Theater, Julie M. Gallery in Tel Aviv, “Open Workshop” exhibition in Israel Museum in Jerusalem. In closed spaces, an audience and Adina Bar-On in front of them, amongst them. A half an hour, an hour, four hours, silent, moving at a slow or fast pace, an arm raised forward, fingers crossed or parted, a hand touches upon an object, face frozen or smiling, looking inward or at someone`s eyes, a rustle of footsteps or syllables enunciated.

It is seemingly a Body art. But perhaps dance? And maybe pantomime?
” I studied pantomime for one month. It has to do with what I am doing but I have no need for pantomime as a style of a form of an expression.  I have nothing with style, I do not dance, I move”.
In fact, an art that escapes definition because it is a means of conducting information that changes with the changing circumstances of the place, surroundings, audience, time. A Body art?  In truth, yes, but more than that, the artist`s presence in the audience is like the presence of a statue, however a statue that is present in the complex context of those circumstances. That is, a presence that is physical, (the body, the movement) and psychological (behavior) all at the same time. The movement, acting, facial expressions, are all tools of a “hot” performance, a performance that has no substitute – unlike Vito Acconci, whose performance is preserved on video.  The imagination –  “the inspiration” – are nurtured by the presented images.  Adina says “information”: the information here is two-way – from the artist to the audience and from the audience to the artist – by its content and by its form (“more or less natural, more or less formal, more or less pretentious, young, mature, easygoing, emotional, etc.”).

Adina Bar-On does not present something nor does she represent an idea. “The performance, she says, is a frame-work, a frame in which I relate to the audience, but has not the refined difference between “I relate to you and expect you to react” and “I do my thing and you must react”. I relate primarily to the space and in the most abstract way”.  The presence, the behavior, as the circumstances dictate them, the ambiguity that is a part of any information that is not literal, is, one can say, a work of art in every sense. The actions which Adina makes do not create a plot. Though it is true that the viewer`s interpretation may turn them into a plot.

I ask Adina for meanings and symbols. She compares the performance to music: “The performance is linear. What can one line symbolize? A direction in the space, a complex consisting of sections, of time intervals, where each section, each period has its own independent value in relation to the whole, as in the orchestration. It has signs: the smile as a sound or a cult. This is a minimalist element, meaning common, obvious, familiar.  The question is when do I smile, what comes before I smile, and what follows my smile, what is the meaning of the smile within the formal setting no less than the narrative setting. And so the smile is mocking, malicious, sexy, romantic… And it involves what I am doing, and is related to who is standing in front of me, who I am smiling at, etc. The actuality of the performance, its uniqueness, is a result of this combination of a specific element with other specific elements.
Another word about Adina Bar-On and audience. The structure of the performance is a consequence of a sequence of decisions: “My decisions opposite the audience`s decisions. When I’m hiding behind a wall, it’s my decision. If you follow me, it’s your decision. I am performing. I Move, act, to some extent write and direct my-self, perform my own moral judgments, exposing myself as in any art. All other decisions are yours, and you determine to a large extent what I will do”.