photo: Tami Weiss

LAND RESEARCH

The work ties together the relations between the geopolitical landscape and the physical body. On stage, five performers from diverse backgrounds take turns in solo acts. Through a series of physical tasks, each dancer undergoes an individual processes of transformation. Each solo is followed by a projection of images that depict local scenery. Shot by Israeli photographer Yuval Tebol, they capture the Israeli/Palestinian landscape. The images reveal the presence of concrete bearers within the landscapes, and allude to similar yet unpalpable bearers between each performer's personal narrative.

Land-Research began with interviews of the performers, conducted by cultural researcher Anat Cederbaum. The interviews included a set of questions that examined the congruence and conflicts between each performer’s personal and national narratives. The same questions were later brought into the studio and served as the starting point from which each solo was created.

Land-Research was premiered at Fabrik Potsdam in the frame of Tanztage Festival, 2012.

Credits & Collaborators

Choreography Arkadi Zaides Research, guidance and artistic collaboration Anat Cederbaum Dramaturgy Joanna Lesnierowska Performed by Raida Adon, Asaf Aharonson/Yuval Goldstein, Sva Li Levi, Yuli Kovbasnyan, Ofir Yudilevitch/Gilad Jerusalmy Photographer Yuval Tebol Video design Daniel Landau Music Tom Tlalim & Chen Wagner Light Bruno Pocheron Artistic advise Felix Ritter Costumes Nadav Svetlov Prouducer Hila Kaplan Co-produced by Theatre National De Chaillot (FR), Ballet National De Marseille in collaboration with KLAP (FR), Fabrik Potsdam (DE), Art Stations Foundation (PL), The Polish Institute (IL) Residency support The Acco Theater Center (IL), Amsterdam Master Of Choreography (NL)

Past Events

25—26 May 2012

Premiere at Fabrik Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

7—8 July 2012

Performances in the frame of Julidans, Bellevue, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

1 November 2012

Performance at Suzanne Dellal Center, Tel Aviv, Israel

19—21 April 2013

Performances at Theatre National De Chaillot, Paris, France

24—27 April 2013

Performances at Firehall Arts Center, Vancouver, Canada

12 May 2013

Performance as part of Dance Festival Weimar, Noationaltheater, Weimar, Germany

24 August 2013

Performance as part of Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital Of Culture, KLAP, Marseille, France

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Articles & Reviews →

Land Research – Arkadi Zaides

by Ayelet Dekel, Midnight East Blog, 08/12

In Land Research, Arkadi Zaides presents a stark landscape: images projected on a large screen at the back of a wide stage empty of all props, except a mic stand at the front left. Land Research was performed in Israel on July 30, 2012 as part of the Summerdance Festival at Suzanne Dellal in Tel Aviv, continuing his process of developing an artistic dialogue with artists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, into this landscape enter performers: dancer Yuli Kovbasnyan who immigrated alone to Israel from Russia in her teens, Ofir Yudilevitch, a dancer with an extensive background in acrobatics and Capoeira, Palestinian artist and actress Raida Adon, performer and video artist Sva Li-Levy, and dancer/acrobatics practitioner Asaf Aharonson.

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Dance that is Live and Kicking in 'Land-Research'

by Ruth Eshel, Haaretz, 08/12

For a few decades now, the body has turned into a place where dance is written. It's not a body telling a narrative with a libretto, not a body in the service of the whims of the soul, but a body of bones, flesh and blood that speaks in its own voice. It's a body that shakes itself loose of dance genres, of phrases of movement, of rhythms; it sheds everything familiar, in a desire to produce only what the body writes. The body in Zaides' work cries out in distress. His movement is not humane, in not attentive to natural abilities or the desire for what is pleasant and good for the body; rather, it is cruel and screaming. All the solos are finely performed and characterized by a restlessness – one that projects the sense of seeking, with repetitive motions strewn within as a refusal, as the body's unwillingness to express itself "properly".

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22—28 September 2025

ET IN ARCADIA EGO, Residency at Montpellier Danse, Montpellier, France

4 October 2025

NECROPOLIS, Performance at Rialto Theatre, within the frames of Open House Festival by Dance House Lemesos, Limassol, Cyprus