Listening to the Planets

A satellite solo. A struggle to locate oneself.

About the show:

I am listening to The Planets (1917), an orchestral suite by the British composer Gustav Holst.

Can you hear it through me? It transforms into words, images, movements.

I try to listen deeper and hear the artist writing it, navigating a brutal war to which he did not enlist. His music turns on stage into matter in motion – it orbits, gets distorted, disappears and reappears.

I listen again and hear his attempt to address a stellar system so much mightier than him, wishing for perspective and distance from the violence and despair of his own kind. His music becomes a vehicle with which I travel far into the distant ends of the universe, past the threshold of perception.

I split and extend myself to measure the various distances around and within me, tracing the delay between the sending of my messages and their arrival. Am I the satellite or its planet?

Listening to the Planets is a bare solo piece that combines text, sound, movement and object animation, weaving together historical research about a composer and personal texts of the performer written in sleepless nights.

Bios:

In his works Ari constructs performative mechanisms that take place between the sensory, cognitive and emotional systems of the audience and the performer(s). Fascinated by distance, voice and the eternal struggle to communicate, his research-driven works invite for a world of sound, movement, action and object.

Rosenblum Prize laureate 2022, Ari graduated from the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem and since then has been touring internationally with his works.

He collaborated for many years with ‘FeelBeit’ in Jerusalem – an organization directed by Palestinians and Jews realizing cultural projects for a shared reality.

Continuing his career as director of musical performances and opera, Ari obtained his master’s recently from Sandberg Instituut in the department Re:Master Opera.

As a performer he collaborated with Yonatan Levy, Ana Wild and dances in the Yasmeen Godder Company.

Ari taught in theatre, dance, opera and puppetry frameworks, and gives workshops sharing his working method.

Credits:

Maker and performer: Ari Teperberg

Sonic dramaturgy and design: Nathan Marcus

Light design: Paulina Prokop

Costume: Caz Egelie

Dramaturgy: Ricarda Franzen

Outside eye: Isadora Tomasi

Object animation advice: Thommy Kraft

Artistic advice: Sister Sylvester

Thank you: Inbal Yomtovian, Sabine Pendry, Noa Roei, Oded Yadin Rimon, Sjaron Minailo, Dor Frank, Sonia Kazovsky, Sandberg Instituut

The first version of the piece was presented as part of the Sandberg Instituut graduation show, concluding the master’s program Re:Master Opera.