“No one can be immune to the emotional charge of the choreography… [the] calligraphy of the body is stunning…” (New York Times)
Peter Handke’s play “Offending the Audience” (1966) challenges the notion of theatre as a space of pretense and representation, breaking down its mechanisms. Time inside the venue and outside it is one and the same. The dancers are simply the bodies they are, and the audience is an active and present partner in crime.
The use of the play deprives the viewers of the suspension of disbelief they crave. The audience becomes a body aware of its physicality, of being an active viewer, of its debasement, singularity, mental flexibility, and ability to undermine world orders.
The spoken, sung, written, and danced text spreads across the stage and comes together to form a concoction of beauty and pain. And when the rhetoric of “us” and “you” collapses, an endless stream of insults is hurled at the crowded hall.
Welcome, you pretentious lowlifes, motherland’s sycophants. You will be moving soon. Get ready.
* “The show contains profane language”
*Please note, the performance includes text in Hebrew without translation to English
Performed by the dancers of the Batsheva Ensemble season 2024-2025
Zoe Bayliss Nagar, Zachary Burrows, Jesse Callaert, DanDan Cohen, Victor Duval, Eddieomar Gonzales Castillo, Shira Kestenboum, Larissa Leung, Ori Manor, Maya Marom, Celia Merai, Chase Peterson, Leann Reizer, Kelis Robinson, Noga Sneh.
Apprentices: Amit Ben-Yesh, Roee Mazurik, Naama Morad, Toam Suissa
Lighting Design: Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi)
Costume Design: Rakefet Levy
Original Music: Karni Postel, Habib Alla Jamal, Shama Khader
Music: Samuel Barber, Carlos D’Alessio, P. Stokes, P. Parsons
Music advisor: Karni Postel
Sound editing: Frankie Lievaart
Text: Peter Handke (excluding the dancer’s stories)
Translation: Shimon Levy
