> 18-21 Sep Performance Art Platform & the Central Bus Station, Tel Aviv

> 23-24 Sep Barbur Gallery, Nachlaot Neighborhood & Machane Yehuda Market, Jerusalem

> 26-27 Sep The Adama (Earth) hangar, Mitzpeh Ramon

 
Participating Artists:

Marilyn Arsem (USA),Zhou Bin (China), Alexander Del Re (Chile),
Ko Siu Lan (Hong Kong),Yeh Tzu Chi (Taiwan), Sinead O'Donnell (Ireland)

Israel: Lior Amir-Kariel, Adina Bar-On, Efi Ben-David, Yaacov Chefetz, Guy Gutman, Yaron David, Beni Kori, Shachar Marcus, Tamar Nissim, Michal Schreiber, Ronen Shuker, Meir Tati

 Graduates of the Annual Performance Art Workshop: Haya Barsinski-Segalis, Gina Ben-David, Neta Elkayam, Shani Lotan, Kineret Max, Moran Rozenfeld 

 The Israeli artists are performing within the framework of the programme "No Man's Land"

 Artistic Director: Tamar Raban

Artist Organization: Yaron David

 
In September 2008 the Shelter 209 organization celebrates 20 years of activities with the "ZAZ Festival" of Performance Art – an international festival being held for the second year. It is a continuation of local and international performance art events that the organization has held over the years and the start of a future tradition. The festival is a unique initiative in terms of the way in which it is held over ten days as a dynamic laboratory of live art that travels between physical and human expanses around the country, in three different cities: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Mitzpeh Ramon.

   This event is part of the "ZAZ Project", which is being held this year within the framework of the "No Man's Land" programme. In the project, group of independent artists work with the aim of creating live artistic processes that are relevant to a reality outside of existing artistic contexts – actions that can be described as "peripheral" both in terms of geography and of their relation to mainstream artistic trends. This activity was created out of a worldview according to which our role as a place for live art is to continue and to facilitate processes, to react to contemporary reality in accordance to the spirit of performance art from its earliest days – as a dynamic and break through phenomenon and not as an art form found within the commercial mainstream.

    Participating in the festival are artists from Asia (the Philippines, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong); Europe (the Czech Republic and Ireland); the United States and Chile – all are artists who are active in the field of international festivals and in organizing performance festivals in their own countries, some are teachers and heads of departments at art academies. The Israeli artists include artists that are part of the "ZAZ Project" as well as guest artists.

For the public, the festival is an opportunity to see the wide range of languages and worldviews that exist in contemporary international performance art: conceptual feminist actions, body image, ritual actions, activities that interact with the public, formal connections between different mediums (video, photography, installation, text), and more. Along with all these, this year's festival places a special emphasis on the artists' immediate responses to the human and environmental characteristics of the various sites and to create a meeting between the participants coming from different cultures and the varied local communities. In addition to prepared works, the festival allows flexible and spontaneous artistic actions – both in terms of art spaces and outdoor sites.

    Those that choose to join us on this ten day journey will have the opportunity to experience the uniqueness of performance art as a field that is directly influenced by immediate, time and site specific contexts and as a process of live creation.

 

Additional information and tickets: tel. 972-3-5372096