Individual Project

A performance by Li Lorian deconstructing and reconstructing an historical interview, conducted by Israeli cultural figure Helit Yeshurun addressing Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

In the performance 'Exile: an Interview', which is based on the meeting between text and audience, Helit Yeshurun’s interview with Mahmoud Darwish is turned into a musical score in which the language is given life and choreographic expression. The performers sit in a circle among the visitors and perform an act of reading. They pass among them roles, paragraphs, questions, and answers. Their act of reading is double: on the one hand, a personal and intimate act, on the other, the circle makes it a political, collective act.

Exile as an experience of existence is discussed in the interview and recurs as a keyword throughout the performance. The Scattered Shared Space is given a physical embodiment in the performance’s reading circle and in the new interpretation created through the constant undoing and reforming of the text.