On a wall, in a dark room, a looped video of a woman dancing the Hula Hoop naked is screened in a 320 x 240 cm format. The installation design is simple, relying on the impact of the luminous picture format in a dark space. The framing cuts the head and feet, focusing on the hips, undulating by the seaside. Very soon, marks appear on the body. With each flick of the hips, the naked flesh is violently cut by the hoop, made from barbed wire. The vulnerability of the nudity makes the image even more painful. A slight slow motion effect intensifies the impact of the hoop against the flesh. The audience is confronted with a performance that is both innocent and repulsive. The film shows Sigalit Landau executing this performance on the southern beach of Tel Aviv, at sunrise. The image frames the body with the line of the sea's horizon in the background. The scene has idyllic aspects, with the calm of the sea and the game that is both seductive and playful. The violence therefore appears all the greater, disrupting the carefree Hula Hoop game, and the sensation of freedom by the sea. It is absolutely a question of freedom. The sea is a natural border, particularly the Mediterranean, for Israel. Barbed wire is an aggressive boundary, evoking prison as well as borders. Innocence is trapped. The barbed wire is both a cultural and geographical symbol, it imprisons the body, also serving as a metaphor for the incarceration of the political body. The body executes this dance that is both childlike and lascivious, without reacting to the pain. For the artist, “suffering is evacuated by speed, which forms a shield; whereas the spectator recognises this suffering, even if the barbs of the barbed wire are turned outwards.” The rhythm leads the dancer into a state of self-forgetting. The state of forgetting underpins the performance, but is it not also a condition of human existence more generally? Here, this carefree innocence leaves scars. The persistent conflict in the Middle East informs generations of Palestinians and Israelis, raised in painful conditions. In this performance, the corporeal experience echoes this situation of children of war and terrorism. This circle of violence is part of everyday life in these countries, which nonetheless continue their daily lives, with moments of light-heartedness to overcome tragedies. The dénouement of the video prevents personal and geographic identification, in order to connect with a more universal situation. The looping of the sequence prevents any form of respite in the face of this violence, just as in war. In this self-aggression, these are the living conditions of all of the populations that experience the conflicts represented. Concerning her work in general, the artist says “my work is invaded by disturbing, concrete realities. I feel or breathe in the conditions of the world, and then I dance with them.” This invitation to dance stirs up painful thoughts.

Patricia Maincent