YOU, ME AND THE LAST WAR
Live performance, 2021 (12’)

Concept, text, choreography and performance | Joy Bernard
Footage inside the video | Oren Ziv and Tomer Appelbaum
Videography | Adi Shraga
Video editing | Danielle Kaganov and Shir Lusky

The work was commissioned for and performed at the exhibition “Square 1,” Lotan Gallery, Jaffa, September 2021. (Curators: Lital Megidish and Joy Bernard)

Through this work, I attempted to ask: What happens to the dancer whose choreography is based on the violent movements of the masses? And have we as a society become anesthetized due to overexposure to violent images?

In the summer of 2021, yet another war broke out in Israel, where I reside. Violent Israeli airstrikes on Gaza were accompanied by barrages of rockets fired at the country from the Strip, against a backdrop of ongoing lockdowns imposed due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.

Responding to these events, I created a broadcast for a live audience in which I took on the role of the news broadcaster, reporting on the war, civil unrest and the complications of the plague. As a news anchor, I found myself at a loss for words; instead of reporting, I started moving in response to video footage of real events that were projected on my body. Those videos were taken by activists and professional photojournalists. By dancing in response to them, I was composing a duet with my past as a news editor.