Nearly 25 years ago, two female artists came together for a moment of collaboration. They were both 26, at the beginning of their artistic journeys, and would go on to be celebrated in Israel and around the world. Now, a lifetime later, each having conquered their respective fields, singer Dikla and choreographer Yasmeen Godder reunite to present Shout Aloud this month as part of the Israel Festival.
The piece, which premiered earlier this year in Germany, boasts a cast of 18 performers: musicians, dancers, and one singer.
“In 2000, I made Hall. It was my first full-evening creation. It was a period in which I was not in Israel a lot,” recalls Godder, who at the time was participating in a program at The Kitchen, in New York.”
Around that time, Yasmeen heard Dikla’s album Ahava Musica for the first time. “The Dikla’s whole package touched me. The song ‘Boker Tov’ (Good Morning) caught me in a way that other Israeli music didn’t,” she recalled.
“There’s a very interesting combination of Eastern and Arabic influences in Dikla’s music. In her voice, I could hear that she had been through something. I became addicted to Dikla’s music. I went to her concerts a lot back then. I asked her permission to use her music for the piece and she agreed.”
Godder left for New York with a few talismans, with which she intended to create Hall. “I took the song ‘Boker Tov’ and a second-hand dress that Dalia Lieder, who worked in the Batsheva Dance Company costume department at the time, brought to me; she said she saw it and thought of me. I was doing research and I had the song and the dress.”
The piece, which portrays a forgotten dance hall and the nostalgia-wrought souls trapped inside, begins with a recording of “Boker Tov” and ends with Dikla singing live alongside the dancers on stage.
Twenty years later, as COVID eliminated the possibility of international travel, Godder found herself in Israel for the longest stretch in years. “During COVID, we couldn’t fly and a lot of things got canceled. I thought about who my audience is. There was a lot of work on the local aspects,” she says.
At the time, Godder was working on Practicing Empathy, a three-part performative engagement that has been performed around the world. “I wanted to meet the body in a more immediate, less conceptual place. I met with Tamar Kisch in the studio for these short rehearsals. Tamar, as a collaborator, deeply understood my approach to movement.
“A lot of movement material was generated. I started to use songs from Ahava Musica. We weren’t dancing to the music. Something in the separateness of the movement research and the music – in the Eastern, Middle Eastern, Arabic, pop sound with the abstract, intuitive movement – created this magic.”
Building on her ongoing research both on stage and in her community in Jaffa, Godder felt the need to expand the research with Kisch to produce a larger-scale performance. “I wanted to take all this material with Tamar and make it something big and celebratory.”
She enlisted a cast of female dancers: Kisch, Inbal Aloni, Anat Vaadia, Dor Frank, Nur Garabli, Mor Demer, Ilana Sarah Claire Bellahsen, Ofir Yannai, and Yael Wachman, whose ages range from mid-twenties to mid-forties. “I really wanted it to be as diverse a group as possible. It was important to me that there would be a range of ages and life periods, identity, on stage; each one who she is and where she’s at,” says Godder.
She again reached out to Dikla, who jumped at the opportunity not only to perform but to record the entire album with new arrangements. The new renditions of the songs are performed live by Dikla as well as nine musicians.
The project came together over three years of funding applications, trips abroad, and countless rehearsal hours. Godder called on a long list of collaborators: lighting designer Nadav Barnea, acclaimed costume designer Shahar Avnet, stage designer Ofer Laufer, and dramaturg Anna Wagner, among others.
Shout Aloud is a production by Kunstler innenhaus Mousonturm, Shauspiel Frankfurt and Yasmeen Godder Company, and co-produced by HELLERAU European Centre for the Arts. The piece received funding from several German and Israeli sources. “It was a dream that we couldn’t do here,” Godder observes. “My company is small and my budget can’t cover this kind of production.”
October 7
FOLLOWING OCTOBER 7, Godder paused to consider if and how she would continue the process. “I questioned whether I could move forward with it. What kept me going is that it’s not about me. It’s about a community, a group of people. It’s a work for people; it’s a way for people to leave their houses to be the artists that they are. It’s an option to live our identity.
“I had this moment where I understood that doing rehearsals, making a piece, and moving together is an act of insisting on giving ourselves places, but mainly others – to give people a place to do the thing they’ve dedicated their lives to.
“When we went back to the studio, there was a lot of crying. We couldn’t dance at all. There is a part of the piece that is like the warm-up. That was basically all we could do. In the end, it’s a big show, a spectacle, with costumes, an orchestra, and a singer. But it also invites people into compassion and caring, a place to be with the pain.”
In June, the piece took Germany by storm. “It’s absurd that this very local production – at a time when being an Israeli artist abroad is not easy – in Hebrew, premiered abroad. But during the shows in Germany, I saw that people could connect to it.”
Godder was thrilled to be invited to hold the local premiere as part of the Israel Festival. “Presenting the show in Israel will bring a whole other element,” she says. Those who will see the show when it comes to Jerusalem will have heard Dikla’s album and have their own relationship to the songs. Godder says that her personal appreciation of them has amplified exponentially over time.
“Through the work, I discovered the songs even more. The meeting with movement creates new emotional layers. When the album came out, we were both 26. Today I’m 51; so is Dikla. It’s really interesting that these songs were written by a young woman. I am 51 and only now can I understand what the songs mean. Back then, I couldn’t say or understand so much of what she says there.”
Shout Aloud will be performed on September 19 at 9 p.m. at the Jerusalem Theatre. For more information, visit www.yasmeengodder.com
