A-Genre invites us in to the backyard
The theme this year is “The Backyard,” and the question of what it means in today’s fraught world. Is it a place of security and light, where we hang the swing and play pretend when we’re little, or is it weed-infested, rank, the place we toss out stuff we’ve no place for or are ashamed of? Do we need to redefine it?
The 13 performance pieces in this year’s A-Genre from April 25-28 take a close look at their own versions of the backyard and invite us in, starting with an onstage collaboration among Polish painter Henryk Chesnyk, musician Irak Viascik, new-wave poet Tadeusc Dabrovski and Israeli actress Alit Kreiz.
Other works include The Last Arab, a joint Palestinian/Israeli venture with avant-garde actress Smadar Ya’aron, and described as “apocalyptic”; Asmarovnegosha is an Eritrean asylum seeker. He’ll hand you a pen. “What do you think of me?” You write the answer on his body; On the Spot is a sound piece from Ma’ayan Tzdaka that looks at the conditions for the children of asylum seekers living in places “not fit for kids”; No Lion Out There is a sound and light installation by Yoav Barel that asks: “Now really, who’s to say there ain’t a lion out there?” Hatikva 69 by Alex Ben-Ari and Faye Shapiro offers 69 versions of our national anthem.
A-Genre means expect the unexpected, the jolting or even the weird, and all hail to Tmuna for going there.