Artist Statement
As a maker I like to think of myself as a translator, a mechanism-maker, an alchemist, a storyteller, a listener, an observer, an inventor, a hacker.
The idea of passing on is central to my work - a delivery or transmission from hand to hand in a kind of lineage. I feel in my right place when I am in response to something, when I continue a chain of passage, or a sequence of translations: Hellen Keller writing a letter inspired by the vibrations of Beethoven's 9th Symphony; Gustav Holst composing his "Planets" based on observations from an astrology book his friend gave him. I culture around communities of historical transmitters
My processes are often inspired by inventions and inventors - these moments in human history when a new possibility was introduced, a new sensitivity. There is something mythological about the invention of the telephone for instance, or the radio, the phonograph etc. Observing these moments allows me to see the poetic, cognitive, emotional, social and political implications these new abilities, that are now invisible to us, hold.
In my work the relation with the audience revolves around perception and communication. The pieces often take place between the sensory, cognitive and emotional systems of the audience and the performer(s). In this line of communication I linger on the journey between the moment a signal is sent from the stage to the moment it arrives to you and is decoded. What happens in the distance? What gets lost? Can this gap ever really be abridged?
My creation processes are often fueled by long research periods. This is sometimes evident on the surface in the end-product, and in other cases stays as invisible scaffolding. This becomes a period of absorbing where I collect anecdotes, images, texts, ideas. These findings intersect until I feel like the conceptual or intellectual web is stable and has an internal logic, which is when the performative research starts. In the studio I am busy translating findings, anecdotes, observations from the research process into performative practices, images and ultimately a set of skills that this specific exploration compels me to develop. I often invite other collaborators to explore these performative mechanisms and I observe how they respond to these proposals and what phenomena arise by practicing them.
In the “lost wax” casting technique, wax is used as a mediator between the original material and the new replica material. But when the process is finished and the new material is cast - the wax melts away and disappears.
I'm interested in thinking of my art in the same way - the element in between the artist and their audience; a mediator, an element that gives temporary form to the negative space, allowing us to notice something or each other, and then disappears again, leaving us with a new sensibility.
Performative Mechanisms
The main axis of my entire research, on all its levels, is listening. It is through the real, pure action of deep listening that I wish to calibrate and tune mine, and my performers’ bodies into different performative “mechanisms” that allow a synesthetic alchemy of the senses to take place - sound transforms into movement, touch into sound etc.
The practice I am developing revolves around these mechanisms, which are in fact performative improvisational scores that have clear, almost mathematical rules as to what is your input, what is your output, and in which pattern they function.
Consequently - simply by applying these rules - soundscapes, movement and drama are created, and dense inter-relational structures emerge.
I spend a long time observing and listening to these sessions, and in so doing, I witness the phenomena that they expose - about the body and its limitations, the nature of language, voice and perception.
These mechanisms grow into “scenes” in my pieces, and the dramaturgy involves the creation and establishment of each set of rules, as well as the transition between one mechanism to the other. The conventions, or the instructions within each mechanism, always carry a poetic echo - they bear a dramatic essence in their very definition.
The other side of this work has to do with the presence of the performer within these mechanisms. With this practice I wish to bring the performer to a hypersensitive, fully receptive and reactive state. Through a listening that involves the entire body and an alertness that hunts for the live impulse, I grasp the performer as a translator, whose artistry is shown by his skill and wisdom to receive input and create output in a clear, transparent setting in which he is exposed and fragile, but at the same time very present and fully free to create and to interpret the instruction.
About me
Ari Teperberg - ארי טפרברג
Maker, opera director and performer
Ari was born in Jerusalem 1989. Apart from some vocal studies and violin training of 10 years, he graduated from the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem (2013) and is the recipient of the Jerusalem Foundation Prize, 2011.
Rosenblum Prize laureate 2022, Ari holds a master’s degree in fine arts and design from Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam, in the Re:Master Opera department under Mr. Sharon Minailo. Alumnus of the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem, recipient of the Jerusalem Foundation Prize, 2011.
His independent works have been presented around the world and throughout Israel - Untitled Document, The Soft Hum of the Dial Tone, And my Heart Almost Stood Still, Jonathan and the Blue Table, I Want to Dance, Kate!
In 2019 Ari created the video work ״You Need to be Ready to Let Go of What the Eye Sees״ for the acclaimed ethnography exhibition “Veiled Woman of the Holy Land” at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, for which he also worked as artistic advisor.
Together with Inbal Yomtovian, he founded the “Golden Delicious” Ensemble, creating and touring with object-theatre shows in numerous festivals around the world - Germany, France, Thailand, Brazil, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia and more.
In opera and and music-driven performances, Ari directed the pieces: Shalem at the Jerusalem Mekudeshet Festival - a concert for an orchestra of 110 musicians playing broken instruments; Peter and the Wolf with the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet; Cosi Fan Tutte, Hansel und Gretel, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Le Nozze di Figaro, Dan the Guard - The first full production of what is said to be the first Hebrew opera written in 1943. This was a a site specific production in the National Library of Israel.
In 2019 Ari won the Audience Prize at the 'Nano Opera' competition for young opera directors at the Helikon Opera, Moscow.
Ari Worked as guest director at the opera workshop of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and taught movement for singers at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music for 5 years.
In theatre he directed and mentored a number of productions, and in 2023 the one-woman show Louisa awarded him with the ASSITEJ prize for best children’s theatre director in Israel.
As a performer he worked with Yonatan Levy, Sharon Zuckerman-Weiser, Ana Wild and since 2015 is dancing at the Yasmeen Godder Dance Company, in the pieces Practicing Empathy #1 and #2by2, COMMON EMOTIONS, Simple Action and Practicing Empathy.
Ari works as artistic director and did so for the opening event of the new building of the National Library of Israel. In 2021 was associate artistic director of Tzomet Lev by the organization ‘Mekudeshet’ (also known as ‘FellBeit’) - an organization directed by Palestinians and Jews realizing cultural projects for a shared reality. This was a series of large outdoor artistic events taking place on the seam-line between east and west Jerusalem, free of charge and accessible for Hebrew, Arabic and English speakers.
In art-pedagogy Ari directed frameworks for young makers as well as for teenagers, and taught in institutions such as the Tel Aviv University, Haifa University and in the Jerusalem Academy of music and dance. His workshops sharing his working method which he calls Performative Mechanisms travelled to institutions such as the School of Visual Theatre; Störung/Hafraa project by Yasmeen Godder company; Potsdammer Tanztage; Westfluegel Leipzig; B-Motion Festival in Bassano del Grappa, Frascati Theater Amsterdam, and more.
He works as Dramaturge, artistic advisor and Hebrew teacher.