Page 143 - תיאטרון 46

Smadar Yaaron: Refutation from within.
On thirty years of provocation; an interview with the high

priestess of the other theatre in Israel

Interviewer: Gad Kaynar Kissinger

For over thirty years now, there is one performer in Israel, who literally
embodies the notions of 'political and sensual provocation', 'interventional
theatre', 'total theatre', 'creative co-existence', as well as the character of
Zelma and other notions: Smadar Yaaron, founder – together with her ex-
husband, Dudi Maayan - of the bi-national, Jewish-Palestinian, Akko
Theatre Centre; Smadar – the Holocaust, collective memory, Israeli
militarism and power-drunkenness, its attitude toward the Palestinians,
refugees and labor seekers, Israeli folklore, etc.. For years now, titles
such as Memories of second generation in the bosom of the old city,
Arbeit macht frei mitoitland europa, The Anthology, Wishuponastar
– a fatal love story; the trilogy Akko My Love - denote some of the
histrionic projects intrinsically associated with Smadar's name pertaining
to the mythology of the Other/Alternative Israeli Theatre.

Yaaron's politically-imbued Performance-Art Theatre transcends the
peaks of artistic bravery, and infringes upon any moral and social taboo
on behalf of any moral and social taboo. Her projects – either as a solo
performer, or with fellow artists – constitute a theatre in which the
boundaries between actor and private person – the persona and the person
– as well as between performer and spect/actor, are completely erased; it
is a theatre in which aesthetics, history and actuality merge in an extreme
and unique estranging mechanism that challenges the audience by
slaughtering any sacred religious, political, cultural and ethical cow, yet
always refuting from within, meaning: Smadar scourges herself to the
same degree as she does her audience, and with her biting irony, she is
the first to be bitten.

On the eve of the premiere of her new enterprise – Hawaga Bialik – inspired
by Roni Somek's poem by that name on an Arab girl reciting a poem by Bialik,
the Israeli national poet, TEATRON went to meet the "real" woman behind the
mythical character of Zelma, the Holocaust survivor; the bad girl of the Israeli
theatre, who says what many a performer who turned her self-mutilation into a
manifest, the 'holy' and 'profane' agent of subversive messages concerning of
us think, but dare not utter.

141  ‫ ת י א ט ר ו ן‬46 ‫גיליון‬