Beyond ages and branded masks, while the world crumbled into itself and the land floated above us, cold and alone, some of us hoped that it would be the end, and some embraced the uncertainty like a wrapper around a candy. The Graziellas, unsure whether they are a choir or a cult, have been chanting around their dark imaginary altar, recalling an unfulfilled erotic dream. This is an invitation into the stalactite caves of the crowded consciousness, where the mind’s own voice is silenced by the flux of the tumultuous audience within, the countless mental voices gathered from memory, data and encounters of the outside. Between the city of Jerusalem and the desert cave of Haritoun, a man attempts to clear his mind of those voices and find his own, only to reveal that the sole voice is constructed of many. The return to the physical experience of singing together had brought not only comfort but also confusion. What is my voice in contrast to the others? The work attempts to answer this with poetic, physical and digital means – deconstructing a choir into grains and re-constructing it into a composition of shared voices.
Video
En Tehom, Musrara, the Naggar School of Art and Society, Jerusalem
Credits
A collaboration between Excessive Productions Collective and Musrara Graziella Choir. Written and directed by Eyal Lally Bitton, Marco Milevski Tomasin and Tomer Damsky
Director of photography and editor: Eyal Lally Bitton
Sound recording and mix: Marco Milevski
Tomasin Choir conductor and supervisor: Tomer Damsky
Executive producer: Pagit Bar Zel
Protagonist: Amir Meir
Additional composition and programming: Marco Milevski Tomasin and Carmel Riboch
Musrara Graziella Choir: Yaara Haim, Sam Braverman, Ron Dahan, Sapir Sharon, Carmel Riboch, Gilli Amar, Tamar Balas, Adi Ben Pazi.
Compositions by Yaara Haim, Gilli Amar, The Body, Assembly of Light, Roberto De Simone, Moondog. Arrangements by Carmel Riboch, Tomer Damsky, Shlomit Strutti.
