Two room apartment

Two room apartment – Oren Laor – Niv Sheinfeld – Recorded at the Centre national de la danse in Pantin 29 November 2013

Choreography by Oren Laor and Niv Sheinfeld, based on the work by Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal

Two Room Apartment allows Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor to express on stage a reflection in a duo on the unique and creative relationship that they enjoy.

This choreographic work, both personal and political, examines the question of limit through a variety of contexts, thus tackling those physical boundaries that delimit countries, regions or quite simply rooms in an apartment, but also intangible boundaries, like that separating a show from real life, or limits that an individual can impose on him/herself.

The statement made by Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor, using a simple choreographic language and a minimalist aesthetics, suggests a certain idea of life, seen here as the privileged setting for the expression of ordered and even compulsive habits and behaviours. 

This new work by Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor emerges as a novel and completely contemporary reinterpretation of the original show created twenty-six years ago in Tel-Aviv by Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal. Two Room Apartment became the symptomatic example of a new choreographic trend, a trend that at that time was seeking to create a choreographic vocabulary that was both unprecedented and daring and thus to stand out from the language adopted by more famous companies with greater means (such as the Batsheva Dance Company, the Bat-Dor and the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company).

When it premiered in Tel-Aviv in 1987, at the Shades of Dance Festival, the duo formed by Liat Dror and Nir Ben Gal marked the birth of a new reflection in terms of dance, aimed at increasing the scope of the spectacular experience, encouraging spectators and artists to abandon their preconceived opinions and, above all, disrupting the monotony of the world of dance in Israel.

This was the context in which a wave of independent choreographers was to emerge, eager to seek for new means of artistic expression that would allow the choreographic “process” rather than “product” to be put into perspective. 

Having thus marked a significant step in the development of the Israeli choreographic landscape, Two Room Apartment was acclaimed by all the international critics of the time, going on to win many awards, including first prize at the Concours chorégraphique international de Bagnolet (1988).

This new version of Two Room Apartment, into which Niv Sheifeld and Oren Laor have injected the richness of their personal and artistic experiences, emerges as a resolutely contemporary choreographic work, linking the past to the present while respecting the intentions of the original choreographers.