We Could Be Heroes

Upcoming performances:

Saturday 18.01.2020 at 21:00 and 22:00 at Nightlight Festival, Neve Shaanan, Tel Aviv. Click for additional information. All performances take place in public space, there is no need to reserve tickets (free entry)

We Could Be Heroes is a pop-up installation of live human statues exhibiting everyday scenes, minutes before a crisis or disaster. It deals with tension between body and material, performance and plastic art, observation and involvement of the audience, empathy and pure survival instinct.

For 45 minutes, performers remain ‘frozen’ in the public space, allowing the passers by to meticulously observe and speculate on the presented scenes and reflect on all possible outcomes, before deciding to act, or simply stand back and watch another human increasingly suffer.

Under stress, we tend to allocate our body’s resources to one of three possibilities: fight, flight or freeze). The instinctive mechanism to stay motionless when under threat is at the center of this performance-installation. Each installation will contain a contrasting material that will dissolve, melt, clot, dry, evaporate or otherwise transform over the course of the presentation, a constant reminder of the passing of time and an additional challenge to the performers to not move or interact.

Viewers are given the opportunity to intervene in the scenes. Throwing the statues a coin buys them a few minutes of resting their bones. They can become heroes, offering temporary release to the performers and absolve themselves from apathetic spectatorship.

Creation & design: Idit Herman | Concept development: Ariel Bronz | Artisic assistance: Gal Volinez | Movement design: Artour Astman | Participants: Anael Blumental, Artour Astman, Rafael Haugas, Ilana Bellahsen, Maayan Horesh, Michal Katzir, Or Lev Ari, Gal Levinson, Kazuyo Shionoiri, Tsvi Peterkovski, Elian Valaji, Anna Zakrevsky | Graphic design: Matan Shalita