In 2024, MART collaborated with the 63rd Israel Festival, supporting the program OFEK — Original Israeli Productions
The Israel Festival provides a platform for outstanding artists who have developed a personal artistic language. With the help of MART Foundation, the festival offers a prestigious spotlight, and a springboard for their continued professional development.
Never-ending Mourning by Nurit Dreamer
A fable about the wondrous and endless movement of grief.
One bright day, when Nurit was a little girl, her mother died. Over the years, her loss appeared in countless human encounters, but remained private, making her feel isolated from others.
In her work, Nurit has meticulously retraced key characters from her personal story of loss, and invited them to join her on stage, and to tell their own story. With a unique artistic language and the ability to look at the most complex aspects of life with humour, Nurit breaks the wall of loneliness that comes with grief, and tries to weave a bigger story, one that connects all the women on stage.
An orchestra of stories unfolds, as does the possibility that grief, like life itself, is always in motion.
Wednesday 18.9, 19:00
Thursday 19.9, 19:00 & 21:30
Rebecca Crowne Hall
(Jerusalem Theatre)
A Place to Live by Amitay Yaish Ben Ousilio
A multidisciplinary theatrical work that stems from the Gaza Envelope.
"A home is the place where a person 'feels at home', where nothing is foreign to him. Therefore, it is also the proper place to begin the history of being-in-the-world."
Dr. Boaz Neumann, historian
What makes a place a home? Where can a person feel at home? What happened to our joint home?
The group of actors and creators of the Otef HaNegev Theater, which also includes survivors and evacuees, developed the piece to explore the personal journeys of the residents of the Gaza Envelope. Through WhatsApp messages, first-hand testimonies and personal experiences of the actors, a multi-layered stage piece is created, that includes movement, video and live music. An original production that was born out of that Saturday morning, and seeks to delve into the feelings and thoughts that have accompanied us since then: to take them in, observe them, and look for the way back home.
Otaf HaNegev Theatre mainly focuses on documentary theatre. On 7.10 the theatre community experienced tragedies like many around it. Since that Saturday, the theatre team has been working with the residents of the Envelope in workshops, writing sessions and various plays as a tool to try to heal the soul a little. A Place to Live is a layered stage adaptation of the testimonies that resulted from this process.
Wednesday 18.9, 19:00
Thursday 19.9, 19:00 & 21:30
Ulpan Hall
(Jerusalem Theatre)
Shura by Roee Joseph
Reservist and playwright Roee Joseph spent sixty days in Shura military base, somewhere in the center of the country. For sixty days, he partook in one of the most complex tasks known to the human mind — identifying victims of a massacre.
For long hours, Roee and the other soldiers recruited for the mission looked for any identifying marks that would facilitate recognition of the dead, and allow burial. On his breaks, Roee took out his computer, and began writing. He wrote what he saw, heard, experienced: thoughts, moments that had unfolded before his eyes, an exact transcription of what was said around him, and spontaneous interviews with the ones who were there.
Shura is a deep, poetic, honest and sometimes funny observation about hardship. Shura understands that in order to bury something you need to know what it is. Shura is a brave and exposed attempt to allow us all to understand what was there, and, perhaps, to put it to proper rest.
Thursday 26.9, 20:30
Rebecca Crowne Hall
(Jerusalem Theatre)
