Dance as Documentary: Conflictual Images in the Choreographic Mirror

by Frédéric Pouillaude, Dance Research Journal, 08/16

In a solo performance entitled Archive (2014), the Israeli choreographer Arkadi Zaides offers a physical and choreographic interpretation of videos collected by the Israeli non-governmental organization B’Tselem within the frame of an operation called “Camera Project”. The footage projected on stage shows only Israelis, but the viewpoint is Palestinian. Starting from this material, Arkadi Zaides performs, by extraction, imitation, and repetition, a (self-)analysis of the contemporary Israeli body,

Choreographing Violence

by Ruthie Abeliovich, TDR, 02/16

Israeli choreographer Arkadi Zaides’s solo dance performance Archive investigates the somatic impact of transgressions performed daily in the West Bank by Israeli fundamentalist settlers against Palestinians. The performance, which premiered at Festival d’Avignon in July 2014, activates the enduring habits of Israeli violence by weaving together two concurrent threads: video projections from an archive assembled by B’Tselem, 1 an organization that documents human rights violations in the occupied territories, and Zaides’s live performance in which he embodies the physical and vocal gestures in the video in order to re-present the Israeli aggressive position.2 While Archive has been performed in different venues around the world,3 it generates the

Arkadi Zaides, Archive, Salle Maurice Béjart

by Nicholas Minns, Writing About Dance Blog, 02/15

The Palais de Chaillot in Paris is where, on December 10 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Palais de Chaillot is now the Théâtre National de Chaillot, and in its basement theatre — Salle Maurice Béjart — Arkadi Zaides is performing Archive in which he borrows a Palestinian perspective to view transgressions of human rights by Israeli soldiers and settlers against the indigenous Palestinian population.

The significance of the place is not lost on Zaides but he doesn’t reveal it until the post-show discussion: the context of Archive is undoubtedly human rights but it is not the main focus of this work.

The Palais de Chaillot in Paris is where, on December 10 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Palais de Chaillot is now the Théâtre National de Chaillot, and in its basement theatre — Salle Maurice Béjart — Arkadi Zaides is performing Archive in which he borrows a Palestinian perspective to view transgressions of human rights by Israeli soldiers and settlers against the indigenous Palestinian population.

Taking over the Occupation

by Dana Shalev, Erev Rav Online Magazine, 10/14

Arkadi Zaides' work "Archive" brings the Occupation from the territories to the stage. By processing the reality as photographed in the Occupied Territories into a work of dance, Zaides asserts the impossibility of severing the ties between "here" and "there", between "reality" and "art", between "Left" and "Right". The Occupation exists in all our names, and thus it is necessarily omnipresent. The sense of responsibility prompts Zaides to a closer look at "the other" – settlers and soldiers. Instead of blackballing or ignoring them, he wants to get to know them.