Maayan Cohen Marciano
Describe your image
Still, Guernica
How much will we need to slow down to watch ourselves observing tragedy?
How long must we freeze time to deconstruct memory?
How long must we pause and step back to find the universal within the national?
As a contemporary artist, I can only return to tradition, to the commemoration of human brutality. Tradition resides within us; it doesn’t belong solely to the past—it is both witness and prophecy.
The piece, still Guernica; remains an open discussion on tragedy, on how we observe it, on situational morality, on the stance of the bystander, and on the possibility of compassion. This work exists within the rugged boundaries between visual art and choreography, between performers and audience, and between the distant gaze of the observer and the active participant.
As in previous works, this choreography insists on a meticulous and well-defined mechanism, on reduction, and on choosing slowness and stillness to create a space for an active gaze within the piece.
Choreography: Maayan Cohen Marciano | Dancers and creators: Yehuda Dromi, Gal Levinson, Avigail Kochavi.
The work was created in a residency program at Tatarbutkm and supported by the Mifal Hapais Council and the Rabinovich Tel Aviv Foundation for the Arts. It premiered at Diver Festival 2024/ Hazira Theater JLM.
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: Nadi Yoel and Ouri Perez.
The work raises the question: What occurs when the nude male body is positioned as an object?
The artwork aims to navigate between two perspectives, simultaneously playing a balancing act. On one side, the materials are deeply embedded in cultural significance; the male body serves as a living repository within the art tradition, potentially leading one to believe that the work encourages this interpretation. Conversely, the choreographic approach, based on stillness and slowness, directs attention inward, towards the body's material essence, its vulnerability, the nuanced efforts of the male physique, and the challenge of sustaining oneself on an unattainable pedestal.
The work plays the subtle underground sounds of the Middle Eastern culture through the nude male body. It eschews notions of fraternity and tribalism, portraying power as both blunt and elusive, perpetually on the verge of dissolution. The object placed on the pedestal gradually deconstructs itself in a living manner, transforming from object to subject, as it attempts to understand itself.
Choreography: Maayan Cohen Marciano | Dancers and creators: Outi Peretz, 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 piece was presented at the "Shishi Be Orah" events and in the International Exposure at the Suzanne Dellal Centre, Tel Aviv. The work is supported by Rabinovich Tel Aviv Foundation for the arts.
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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.
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.
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.
Maayan Cohen Marciano, is an independent dancer, choreographer and a leading agent in the current ‘new wave’ of dance and art in Israel, she has presented her work in varied festivals, museums, and galleries.
Maayan holds a B.A in movement and choreography from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, she also studied M.A. studies in the interdisciplinary Program in Arts, Tel Aviv University. Maayan is a guest lecturer at TLV University, Kibbutzim College of Education, and The Israeli Society for Dance Research.
Maayan uses liberty and artistic courage in order to create new aesthetics based on deep research and a careful listening during the process, Her works span across the axis between body art and the plastic arts.
Her works develop an embodied discursive sphere in which she relates to the body captured in the traditions of plastic arts and photography, while the living body dissects them, reacts to them, and conceptualizes its present position to the tradition that shapes it.
Maayan uses well-formulated movement mechanisms which based on reduction, a minimalist movement choice, and excessive use of it, purposely intending to allow the movement to dig deep into the body and expose its cultural layers such that the body is revealed as a cultural palimpsest.
Maayan's objective is to direct attention through these enactments, to question art through the body, and to shape an autonomous space in which the body breaks apart and reassembles, releasing and reclaiming a wide variety of cultural and social contexts, and acquiring various essences and meanings.
