It’s All in the Game

An Israeli dance production Open Source gives a visual setting to the fears of a bride, moments before her wedding

Written by Debesh Banerjee
New Delhi | November 6, 2014 10:20 AM IST

3 min read

What happens moments before a bride walks down the aisle, wrapped in fear and joy all at once? In the hands of the Maria Kong Dance Company, these emotions take the form of a graphic landscape in a production titled Open Source. As the bride (Caroline Boussard) confronts her thoughts, the other characters — the boss, who is also the groom (Anderson Braz); a secretary (Luciana Castro Fontanella); and a messenger (Artour Astman) — become a window and medium to express her thoughts. “It’s that split second between joy and fear when all the stories and desires start playing out in the bride’s mind,” says Talia Landa, Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Tel Aviv-based dance company. On their maiden India tour, as part of the Delhi International Arts Festival, they performed at Kamani Auditorium on Tuesday and will perform in Mumbai next week.

The bride is part of a virtual world controlled by another character, the gamer (Ori-Ben Shabat). He is an invisible spectator watching the bride go through a range of emotions. Occasionally, Shabat manipulates her dreams wearing a pair of electronic gloves that controls the pace of the techno/ electro/ jazz music, which becomes an integral part of the performance, almost like another character. “At the centre of our performances, is the story. Music and the special effects are like embellishments. Though the pieces are choreographed, the music and the lighting makes each show unpredictable,” says Shabat, the Special Effects Supervisor with the Company and at times, performer, who has worked on movies such as The Incredible Hulk (2008) and Watchmen (2009).

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With roughly 15 members, all former members of Batsheva Dance Academy in Tel Aviv, the Company is a collective of dancers, painters, technicians, musicians and special effects supervisors, founded in 2008. This 2012-production has previously toured China, Peru, Poland, Israel, Serbia and Romania. The 60-minute production is lively, edgy, powerful and intensely physical as we see the performers stretch, lift, contort and throw their bodies around. The audience becomes a voyeur, as they watch the bride living out her fears and becoming a puppet at the hands of the gamer. “Open Source refers to a community of users where people share ideas and software in the virtual world. This applies to the show as well where the gamer can take control of the bride’s thoughts when he wants, but she is also playing a game in her head,” says Landa, a former member of the Batsheva dance company, who wanted to experiment with technology, music and theatre, which is the USP of the Company.

The bond between music, movement and the audience is evident in their latest production, Backstage, which is set in a club with DJs and musicians spinning tracks, where the audience is a default member. For Landa and her crew, each performance represents a “game”, not just a dance. “Our productions give a voice to our illusions. And these ‘games’ are built around the audience since they lend their own energy to it,” says Landa.