Maayan Cohen Marciano
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Body View
This is a physical, tonal and vocal act that uses the nude body to discuss its inherent tensions. Nudity, being, on the one hand, awash with cultural content and yet of a presence closest to fundamentalism, materiality, and tangibility, allows observation and research on the physical and social-cultural human body.
Through the continuous motion of vibrating the flesh, the body unravels and reforms, embraces and strips away a wide range of cultural and social contexts. The body in its materiality becomes an infinite space, inside which we are able to transform our resolution of observation, create various motion mechanisms, dissect the body and the gaze upon it. The physical motion produces a tonal act which subjects the body to various transformations and playfully eludes the audience's gaze upon it, the body creates a polyphony that merges with the motion, creating a space where the body changes its role, its presence, becomes a tool, a sound, invites endless imagery and strips away its social-cultural performance in real-time.
By: Maayan Cohen Marciano | Artistic director: Ari Teperberg. The piece premiered at the A-Genre Festival 2017, Tmuna Theatre and has been supported by The Ministry of Culture and Sport and Machol Shalem Dance House. Body View performed at the Habait theatre, International Exposure and in the unique Pasaz exhibition inspired by Walter Benjamin work. Maayan was invited to share her special practice and ideas in the BIDE events Barcelona.
H O U S E
in a collaboration with Snow
House dance is a sub-style of hip-hop culture, which was developed in the late 80's in New York. At the time, the city streets were awash with homophobia, violence, rape, crime, and racism- which made life in those times complicated and tumultuous. House style grew within the Lofting and Club culture. These were underground studios where dancers from all walks of dance could come and express themselves.
Tap, Ballet, Hip-Hop, Martial Arts, Capoeira, Break Dance, and Jazz are just a few of the disciplines that were displayed. The dancers would arrive at night and dance until the morning light in order to break free from the discrimination that faced them daily. These underground spaces gave them the chance to express themselves without criticism from the outside world.
Regardless of gender, skin color, or class, everyone was welcome to dance. It was a space of growth were all forms of dance blended together. During this period, House music was developed and the DJ became more and more popular in the clubs, He was the G-d who never broke the beat and kept the dancing happening all night long.
This performance is based on house style and inspired by the loft's and club's scene. The choreography in this piece serves me as a tool to deconstruct and reshape House into a dance event; which requires the audience to take a close look at Hip-Hop and House culture, through the groove, the energy, the body movement and the ecstasy that ignites the audience and the performer.
Choreography: Maayan Cohen Marciano | Dancer and creator: Snow Art. The work premiered at the 'Heaven and Earth' festival and supported by the residency program at 'Sadnaot Habama'.
As part of our collaboration we host lecture-workshop events deal with house dance culture.
H O U S E lecture-workshop
This is a lecture-workshop event dedicated to House dance culture and the piece, H O U S E within the context of contemporary dance. This is a unique and rare opportunity for dancers, choreographs and the dance community to expand what we know of dance and to be exposed to previously untold pieces of history and information that is hard to find independently.
The event will include a historic overview of the genre, we will discuss questions such as how and when was it formed? Which styles have contributed to the mix? We will research and study the elements of house: Tap&Bepop&Basics, Footwork/ Jacking/ Lofting.
We will talk about dance immigration, how has the style spread around the world? In what formats is it danced today? When and how throughout history has the style appeared on stage, in theater within the context of contemporary choreography.
We will play excerpts from documentaries on the genre, showcase segments of the work, discuss through practical and verbal experience the question of how contemporary choreography provides an anthropological angle on the dance style developed in clubs and on the street, and how contemporary dance can expand into various dance spaces.
No man's land
In the piece, No man's land, I return to work with the nude body, this time alongside: Adi Shildan and Michal Samama.We use the nude body's ability to be always present, within and between different territories simultaneously. By using well-formulated movement mechanisms, our bodies will break apart and be reassembled, release and reclaim a wide variety of cultural and social contexts, and acquire various essences and meanings. Thus we will create a temporary autonomy in which we redefine the bodily, feminine, architectural, sound and performative space.
Choreography: Maayan Cohen Marciano | Dancers and creators: Michal Samama, Adi Shildan | Artistic director: Ari Teperberg.
The work has been created in a residency program at Kelim Choreography Center and supported by the Mifal Hapais Council and the Rabinovich Tel Aviv Foundation for the arts, the piece premiered at Diver Festival 2021.
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Whom of a kind
In Whom of a kind, maayan cohen Marciano continues her ongoing research on the nude body, this time she has chosen to work with the male nude body, alongside the collaborators: Nir Vidan and Nadi Yoel.
Maayan uses body art and plastic art in order to reduce the masculine body to a playful material, to transform it to various essence and meaning and to ask how the body itself can rebuild new masculinity through its materiality. This is an ongoing visual discussion on the male body, its culturally-constructed perceptions, and in the relationship of those with art.
Choreography: Maayan Cohen Marciano | Dancers and creators: Nir Vidan, Nadi Yoel.
The work has been created in a residency program at Kelim Choreography Center, and Tights: dance & thought programs. The work premiered at ‘kelim’ festival/ Bat- Yam, and ‘Diver’ Festival/ CCA, TLV. The work is supported by Rabinovich Tel Aviv Foundation for the arts.
Maayan Cohen Marciano is an Israeli independent choreographer and dancer. She is an M.A student in the interdisciplinary Program in Arts, Tel Aviv University, she holds a BA in movement and choreography from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. She also graduated from the Haifa Training Workshop for Dancers and Choreographers. Maayan has presented her work in varied festivals, museums, and galleries such as Diver Festival, Intimadance and A-Genre Festivals, Tmuna Theatre, Habait theatre, Kelim Choreography Center, Hangar Adama, International Exposure, Heaven and Earth Festival, OYM festival, (Eindhoven Holland), Bible Lands Museum The unique pasaz exhibition (TLV) inspired by Walter Benjamin work. Maayan has been selected to participate with a full scholarship in the BIDE events Barcelona.
Her pieces are spread over various creative channels, such as body-based art, Hip Hop culture, and performance art. What draws her in her artistic path is the motivation to learn and create new aesthetics based on deep research and a careful listening during the process. Maayan is fascinated by the tension inherent in the nude body for being culturally washed on the one hand and pure and elementary on the other, as such it offers a real-time visual discussion dealing with the human feminine social-cultural body. Another field of her creation is in a ‘parallel universes’ to the ‘artistic dance’ such as; Hip Hop culture and Folklore dance.
Maayan discusses the question of how such spaces can exist within the context of contemporary dance and how choreography can function as a tool to uncover the richness of these styles and expand or stir the term "artistic dance".
Maayan recently collaborated with the international House dancer, Snow Art for the piece H O U S E which premiered at the ‘Heaven and Earth’ Festival.
Some of her works include: Body View, H O U S E, Mud, The whale and the crow , No man’s land , Whom of a kind - work in progress.
