Dance group brings down the ‘House’

Israeli dance company L-E-V will fuse hypnotic movement and eclectic sound in its second-ever performance in the United States at Memorial Hall Wednesday night.

L-E-V, which was founded by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, will perform “House,” an innovative piece that uses striking aesthetics and vibrant, dynamic music to create a unique experience for the audience as part of the Carolina Performing Arts season.

Emil Kang, UNC’s executive director for the arts, said L-E-V appealed to him because of its intense creativity and inventiveness.

“When I first saw the company in December in Tel Aviv, I knew I wanted to bring it to Chapel Hill,” he said.

Kang said he appreciates Eyal’s masterful performance and strength not only as a modern dancer, but also as a choreographer.

“It very much feels like it comes out of Sharon as a human being. It is a direct transmission from her to the audience,” Kang said.

Eyal choreographs in the modern and eclectic Gaga dance form, which was created by renowned Israeli dancer Ohad Naharin. It focuses on movement of individual body parts and their relationships with each other and the surrounding space.

Behar produces live music in Tel Aviv for techno raves and various artistic events, and contributes to the technological aspect of the performance.

The company is made up of several other dancers, many of whom vary in age and background.

Olivia Ancona, 24, hails from Portland, Ore., and has been performing Gaga since 2010, after studying dance at the Juilliard School for three years. Ancona said she was initially drawn to the Batsheva Dance Company, which is the company that begot L-E-V, after seeing some of its performances.

“They were so incredible in their performances and I wondered, ‘How can they move like that?’ They looked superhuman in their skin,” she said.

Ancona now dances with L-E-V, which formed as an exodus from Batsheva under Eyal and Behar. She said she liked that the material was always changing and that it made for better audience experiences.

“Don’t expect anything. I hope a lot of people come away with an experience,” Ancona said. “My sister saw it and she said, ‘That was amazing. It made me so uncomfortable, but in the best way.’”

The team at CPA believes this show is a great opportunity for the arts to act as a lens through which students can see culture, innovation, discovery and tradition in action, Kang said.

“Our ideology is that the arts can provide this way of seeing that might not exist anywhere else,” he said. “The goal has always been to elevate the artistic experience to be beyond entertainment.”

Kang said in choosing works to present to the Chapel Hill community, the CPA team asks itself, “How do we represent the contemporary performing arts world in a way where you can really traverse the world in a meaningful way?”

L-E-V fits the bill as a group that can transport audiences across time and space to immerse them in a rare artistic experience.

Joe Florence, CPA’s marketing manager, expressed excitement to see L-E-V in person at Wednesday’s show.

“Our mission is to provide a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and this is just the type of experience that will do that,” Florence said.

“If you say, ‘Tell me about L-E-V in a sentence,’ I would say, ‘It’s going to take a paragraph.’ I hope that people will come to the performance and write that paragraph themselves, because it’s just that amazing.”

arts@dailytarheel.com