Dance Grad Student and Master Lecturer Collaborates with Craft Alum in Frankfurt

As part of the 2019 Jewish Cultural Weeks and in cooperation with the Jewish Community Frankfurt am Main, Nitsan Margaliot, MFA candidate and master lecturer (Dance), will be premiering his new work, Returning, at the Frankfurt LAB this November. The piece is commissioned by Jacopo Godani, artistic director of Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company.

In Returning, Margaliot and acclaimed cellist Steuart Pincombe undertake an abstract journey through past and present, exploring different dimensions of time. The work is presented as an ongoing collaboration with Pincombe and Manuela Benaim BFA ’19 (Craft & Material Studies), a Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary artist and current artist-in-residence at UArts.

Dance talents and emerging choreographers from Tel Aviv, including Roni Chadesh and Gil Kerer, will be presenting works alongside this exciting program on Nov. 2 and 3. Described as poetic, vibrating and virtuously exploring, this group presentation follows the successful guest appearance of the L-E-V Company two years ago. 

By examining weight, continuity, linearity and intimacy, Returning alludes to cycles of impossible utopias intertwined with longing, time loops, and the never-ending process of healing and adjusting. Through the sensorial exploration of skin as a protective layer, this work invites the viewer to contemplate what they cannot leave behind and the impossibility of being absent from their “envelope.”

Manuela Benaim’s latest bodies of work manifest these themes as unnervingly realistic skin wearables created from body lifecasts. By creating a second layer of skin, she creates an ephemeral moment and asks the viewer what it means to be separated from one’s outside layer. Benaim’s work has won multiple awards, including the Rosalie Borowsky Belkin Award, the Surface Design Association Outstanding Student Award and a scholarship for Students of Exceptional Talent at University of the Arts. 

Margaliot teaches improvisation and workshops regularly in Berlin and Philadelphia. He most recently worked as a rehearsal director and led a student trip to Israel with Jesse Zaritt, and is currently preparing for an upcoming European tour. He will be completing his masters degree in Dance in summer 2020 as a part of UArts' international residency in France.

Learn more about the Dance MFA at UArts.

Learn more about the Craft & Material Studies BFA at UArts.