Meytal Blanaru
LUCKY TRIMMER Tanz Performance Serie # 14
"A climaxing attempt at making a single step."
LUCKY TRIMMER Tanz Performance serie # 20
- Berlin Premiere -
"A glimpse into the imaginary world of Aurora, a wild woman child."
Aurora is a poetic and delicate search for authenticity. The work arose from the stories of wild children (Feral children) that spent the first few years of their life with no human contacts; either raised by animals or secluded by abusive parents. While dealing with this subject, Meytal came across the story of Genie: a child that had spent the first 13 years of her life strapped to a potty chair in a locked room. After her discovery in 1970 she was moved around and studied by scientists and social workers alike.
Meytal says: “two things touched me strongly in Genie’s story: her physicality, her unique body perception and the almost inhuman manner she seemed to have of carrying herself but also her immediate, direct communication with people in a unique gentle way.” Meytal was so drawn to Genie that she dedicated “Aurora” to her.
Born and raised in a Kibbutz in Israel, Meytal felt personally connected to the stories she researched for “Aurora”. She grew up among other children meeting her parents for only 4 hours each day. Afterwards she would be brought back to the children house where she spent many sleepless nights. Meytal confesses: “There are many things that can be said about growing up in a Kibbutz. but more that anything, I remember the sharp difference between the day and the night. Daytime would have a diversion of distractions: The mixture of children, the noise of the crafts and the work held in the Kibbutz; Asphalt, grass and hot muddy soil to run upon; The green richness that meets your eyes wherever you look. But night brings loneliness. The grown-ups seem to have all evaporated from the face of the earth. The other children are deep asleep . You can hear your heart beats, your blood rushing in your veins, you wander between the children’s beds. You call for your parents, you stroll the empty loans of the Kibbutz, you wait for the morning to come. When morning washes the night away, finally life exists again around you. Reflecting on Kibbutz’s childhood, I think: you live in your little part of soil alone, in an island called a Kibbutz, on an ocean of land.”