While the audience is still settling in and a few latecomers are looking for a seat, the dancers one by one replace each other, while they stick one by one to an upstanding blackboard. There is a person with a spatula (in German and Yiddish: “Spachtel” or “Shpachtel”) slowly and methodically detaches their hands, arms, legs, feet and their head from the board. All you here is the scraping of the spatula. All you see are the newly detached people, walking off stage and still slightly keeping the position they where in being scraped down and the person with the spatula beginning the Sisyphus-work anew.

An interactive performance to which the audience can contribute, that can be viewed from four different sides and that always leaves room to discover more from a different perspective. All of this and more is offered to the audience of “Shpachtel” by the choreographer Eyal Dadon and the members of Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company 2 (KCDC2).

Training and growing in the same Kibbutz, Kibbutz Ga’aton in the North of Israel, as KCDC, this group of new talents exhibits similar high standards and love for movement as their main company. With their amazing dance abilities and theatrical performance alone, it would have been a pleasure to watch but the comments on group mentality and decision making, made the performance an even more memorable experience. The use of facial expressions underlined this beautifully. Additionally, the group dynamics created within the choreography inspired us to question so much about human interaction and how most of our actions are reactions and interactions.

The artistic precision with which the choreographer walked the line between presenting and critiquing the before-mentioned issues, was one of the things that made the production unique. Personally, I loved that a moderator, who was one of the dancers, was implemented in order to continue asking the audience questions, such as: “Right or left?” or “To the front or to the back?”, which then directly influenced the performance. Furthermore, I enjoyed how the audience was involved in the performance without feeling overwhelmed, insecure or self-conscious about the part they played within the performance. This is certainly part of the special charm with which all performances by KCDC2 are conducted.