The following is from the book: “Adina Bar-On, Performance Artist” by Idit Porat and Adina Bar-On, Published by Kibbutz Hameuchad Ltd., Herzlyia Museum of Art, 2001
Place:
The lawn in front of the old Tel-Hai wall; a summer day, five o’clock in the afternoon.
Duration:
About half an hour.
Dress:
Satin sport shorts, with a blue stripe at the side. A T-shirt. The face is covered with white make-up. There are blue circles around the eyes and the eyelids are painted brown. The blue circles spread sidewards in a strip of light blue that crosses the cheek bones to the ears, which are also painted blue. The lips are made smaller with the aid of red paint.
Description:
Two parallel strings extend from the wall to the center of the lawn, creating paths along which Adina moves.
The audience gathers in the performance area, some standing, some seated. Adina arrives at the center of the lawn and stands facing the audience, which is about eight or ten meters away from her.
Adina begins creating a wave-like movement of her torso, with her breathing guiding her movements; Her inhalations alternately expand her abdomen and her chest. When Adina contracts her abdomen, the ascends to her chest and expands the area; when she blocks the area of the chest to the air,she creates a concave form, and so on. The breathing is discernible in the abdomen and the chest as a large wave-like movement that directs the viewer`s attention to the front of her body.
Adina begins moving the area of the neck, the back of the neck, and the head: the back of the neck is thrust forward as in a motion of peeping into some place. Her movements are short, abrupt and angular.
Adina starts moving in the space, in relation to the audience, in several ways:
1. Erect, measured walking, in a straight line, with her arms extended forward. In this way she walks through the audience and divides it into two separate blocks.
2. Running in circles around the audience, which makes the viewers group together and form a closed, coherent block.
3. Adina stands inside one group of people, while the second group looks at the first. She creates a very distant, open, multi-directional gaze, which burst outward out of the density, to the open space.
4. Adina stands in the center, between the two groups of people. She constitutes a kind of compositional point, with her body bent downward, close to the surface of the lawn. From this position she begins to sing a lilting melody.
5. Adina leads the audience behind her and creates a long procession. Her gait is slow and ceremonial.
Adina concludes the performance with the position with which she began.
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
