After living for several years in the chaos of influences that is New York, the visual artist Satoshi Tsuchiyama realized that it is Israel that is the world’s hub for contemporary dance. His experiences of working with both dance and Jewish artefacts fused together. Questions arose in his head: Since the political situation has long been unstable in this religiously and culturally rich region, what kind of normal everyday life can be found there? What colours and scents does a country like this retain, and how do the dancers appear and move under the influence of an environment like this? He decided to go there to witness the extraordinary on a daily basis.
During his four visits to Israel and Palestine in 2017–19, he wandered in scorching sand and graffiti-filled streets, climbed to the collapsing top floor of the art school. He followed the desires of his eyes. The dancers he met came from all over the world, but they seemed to share the same mood, the same force that oozed out of the ground. And one and the same aura accompanied their bodies in a common direction. He avoided all the areas at high risk of terror, but death and the random character of life were present wherever he went. The energy of the inhabitants to survive was strong, and he experienced a singular beauty in this raw, tough and vulnerable ordeal of perseverance and adaptation.
