Merav Dagan & Stav Marin | TSENA URENA
We came here to beat, to birth a present body from bodies that we never studied and from those that we never dared to imagine. We are assembling and dismantling building blocks and live matter- moving through our Hebrew mouths and the history of our female, dancing bodies. In the end, everything is a pulse, beaten between us, inside of us, that would stay and perhaps, through it, we could dance the future.
TSENA URENA is the second collaboration by Stav Marin and Merav Dagan. The work continues their common research exploring representations of the female body. Through physical and vocal work ranging from meditative mantras to rap and pop songs, they return to their personal and bodily history, as well as to Yiddish – a language that Hebrew culture sought to silence and exclude from the Israeli verbal landscape.
Merav Dagan is a choreographer, performer, and dance and yoga instructor. She is currently the co-Artistic director of Intimadance Festival with Stav Marin. She is a graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Dance and is working on her M.A. in the interdisciplinary art program at Tel Aviv University. Her work has been presented in Israel and around the world on various platforms. Merav won the award for Best Actress in the Acco Theatre Festival 2012. As a choreographer she received The Israeli Minister of Culture Award for 10 years of creation (2019). She won first prize in Shades in Dance Festival with the piece I Can See Them Coming and received the Out of the Box award at Gothenburg Fringe Festival for her solo piece Bloody Mary (2019).
Stav Marin is a choreographer and a performer. She is currently co-Artistic director of Intimadance Festival with Merav Dagan. As a dancer and performer, Stav participated in dozens of dance and theater productions performed in Israel and abroad, and has done collaborative work with a variety of choreographers, dance companies and artists. In the past decade she has created her own works which explore the physical-verbal connection. Her work Cut. Loose won the Israel Festival Award and won the Stage Language award in the Israeli Fringe contest of 2017. In January 2019 Mejinik won the Best Play and Best Directors Golden Hedgehog awards for Independent Theatre.
Choreography: Merav Dagan and Stav Marin
Dancers: Merav Dagan and Stav Marin
Dramaturgy and artistic advicer : Neta Weiner
Costumes: Tamar Ben Cnaan
Voice instructor: Roy Hason
Lighting: Yoav Barel
The piece premiered as part of Curtain Up Festival. Supported by the Mifal Hapayis Cultural Council, Stage Workshops Center, Kelim Center, Suzanne Dellal Centre, Habustan Dance and Theater Studio, PIMOFF Theater Milan.
Photo: Yair Meyuhas, Ophir Ben Shimon