‘Boobi and Pooch’: A dance anniversary for Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor

Twenty years ago, in the midst of a creative process on a new duet, choreographer and performer Niv Sheinfeld picked up the phone and called his partner, Oren Laor. They had been dating for two years and, although Laor was active in the theater field, they had never collaborated on a project. Sheinfeld said he needed help with the piece and asked if Laor could come to rehearsal.

“I wanted to add humor to the duet, so I called Oren to come help,” says Sheinfeld.

“I love that I’m thought of as the funny one,” laughs Laor. “I came to rehearsal and, of course, I had things to say.”

Once Laor entered the studio with Sheinfeld, he never left.

“Oren became the dramaturge of that piece,” says Sheinfeld. “The next piece, we already imagined together.”

That first process led to the creation of the duet Co-Variance, which was presented in the 2004 Curtain Up Festival. The term was taken from Laor’s job as a statistics teacher, referring to the relationship between two random variables. The duet was performed by Sheinfeld and dancer Sivan Gutholtz.

Two decades later

Two decades have passed since that first crack at collaborating. Sheinfeld and Laor have created dozens of works, which have been presented to rave reviews around the world. The two have become leaders in the local dance field and are currently the curators of the dance program at Tmuna Theater.

Later this month, they will hold a celebratory anniversary evening as part of Festival Tmuna entitled Boobi and Pooch, which are Sheinfeld and Laor’s nicknames for one another. The evening will include a restaging of Co-Variance as well as short pieces created by the duo’s dancers.

“We knew that the anniversary was coming, but we felt it would be insensitive to hold a celebration, given the current situation. But then Erez Maayan (artistic director of Tmuna Theater) called and said we should do something,” says Laor.

It was clear to both Sheinfeld and Laor that the anniversary evening was the perfect opportunity to revive Co-Variance, which holds a very special place in Sheinfeld and Laor’s joint history.

“We were on tour with Co-Variance when I had my stroke,” says Sheinfeld offhandedly.

In 2006, Sheinfeld explains, he and Gutholtz traveled to Brazil for a multi-city tour. Sheinfeld experienced discomfort after two of the workshops they taught but didn’t think much of it. Then, moments before their final performance and the evening before their scheduled flight back to Israel, Sheinfeld’s symptoms took a sharp decline.

“I heard this beeping sound in my ear. I tried to keep going but I couldn’t.” An ambulance was called, the show canceled, and Sheinfeld was transferred to a hospital. Three weeks later, Laor and Sheinfeld’s father accompanied him on a medical transport back to Israel. “Good thing Oren insisted I get travel insurance,” Sheinfeld remembers.

Over the following year, he had to retrain his body to speak, walk, and eat. “The release letter from the hospital said not to go on roller-coasters and no dancing,” Sheinfeld laughs. Clearly, Sheinfeld chose not to follow the recommendations when it came to dancing.

And though the story of Co-Variance is interwoven with some of the couple’s darkest moments, the two didn’t hesitate to restage it.

“We don’t hold any resentment to the piece,” says Laor.

FOR THE RETURN of Co-Variance, Sheinfeld and Laor decided to try a new constellation: two women. Shira Ben Uriel and Avigail Shafrir will bring a new interpretation to the piece to open the evening. “It’s our most dancy piece,” says Laor. “We don’t make work like that anymore. In restaging it, we tried to think of how we would revive the work without making it feel like a museum.”

“We finished the process of restaging a month ago, but it felt like they were dancing the old thing,” adds Sheinfeld. “We asked them to run the piece while talking, exposing everything, and it really brought something new out. It really brought out their character. We got to see them, suddenly, as people outside of the composition.”

For the remainder of the program, Sheinfeld and Laor called on their recent dancers to create a five-minute piece that responds to one of their works. Performers such as Anat Gregorio, Tomer Giat, Uri Shafir, Sascha Engel, and Gilad Jerusalmy have each cooked up a surprise for Sheinfeld and Laor, which will be unveiled to all present, for the first time, during the show.

“We gave each one of them the freedom to respond to any of our creations, not necessarily one that they performed. We offered ourselves as outside eyes and will even perform in one or two of the works, but what they make is theirs. It’s going to be a delicious evening,” assures Laor.

Boobi and Pooch will take place on Friday, November 22, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.tmu-na.org.il