ARI TEPERBERG

I'm standing in front of you with my eyes closed.

The sounds you make bring me to life.

Can we experience the world with utmost sensitivity, allowing even the smallest sensation to become connection, communication, pleasure?
Can we extend our senses together?

​

The trigger for this creation process was a letter sent by the famous deaf-blind author and intellectual Helen Keller to the New-York Symphony Orchestra in 1924, in which she describes how she “listened” to their performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony, simply by touching the radio’s membrane and feeling the vibrations.

Ari takes the viewers on a journey into his own world of nonverbal, sensual communication where even the subtlest of sensations becomes full of joy, pain or beauty. Inspired by Keller’s observations and by the connection she felt to Beethoven, who was himself deaf, this piece celebrates music’s power to communicate beyond boundaries, disabilities and loneliness.

​

The piece attempts to generate a space of heightened sensation, in which an alchemy between the senses takes place. The text by Keller, as well as Beethoven’s haunting music, appears and disappears through different mediums and vibrates like a suppressed volcanic force, seeking to erupt. We are granted a close-up look into the body of the performer, who calibrates himself to hypersensitivity, seeking for an alternative language through which to communicate.

​

Maker, performer: Ari Teperberg

Performer, musician, creation partner: Avshalom Ariel
Sound design, creation partner: Tomer Damsky
Lighting design and scenography: Omer Sheizaf
Costumes: Dor Frank
Production and international relations: Katherina Vasiliadis

Photo: Yair Meyuhas

Image design: Harel and Maayan Studio

The piece is a co-production with Westfluegel Theatre in Leipzig, Germany and the Independent Theatre Makers' Association in Israel

​

​

​

​