Two worlds in 25 mins

Israeli artistes Jill and Amnon Damti dance not just because it’s their passion but to convey the message that everything is possible, says Angela Paljor

What is more novel than an ensemble of Two Worlds — a deaf dancer and a hearing dancer-narrator sharing the same space? What exactly do the two polarities mean for Jill and Amnon Damti? It translates into a multi-modal performance with dance, narration and pantomime.

“Originally we called it ‘two worlds’ because Amnon is a modern dancer and I’m a gymnast and a water ballet dancer. But the first time we performed together, some twenty years ago, people saw it as the world of sound and silence. When we performed in Israel for the first time, given its context of Arabs and Jews, it became a dialogue of the religious and the non-religious. It’s always interesting to see how people interpret ‘two worlds,’” shares Jill as we sit in the green room while the sound check goes on upstairs at Kamani Auditorium.

For the duo, dance is a way of celebrating their lives. Their performance is   always centered around their life — how they work together with Amnon feeling the vibrations and demonstrating how he processes them for the audience to understand, to the various fragments Jill has written. The most recent one is on world peace which has been recorded in the UN disc. They also go back into their childhood with Amnon’s choreography — he was separated from his family at very early age to be in an institution for the deaf but he always wanted to be free like a bird. To make sure the audience understood, they narrate the story prior to the performance. “Our audiences differ everytime we perform — from children to adults, prisoners in Israel to the President of the US, and so does our performances. We keep an array of options as we don’t know how the audience will react. But we bring people into our world by sharing our story while becoming a part of theirs. Thus the two worlds come together in the real sense.”

Personally, the husband and wife, who are  parents to two lovely children, have a world of their own to balance. “It’s not easy to be married to an artist, especially when the other shares the same profession. But I think we both fit into the puzzle — with Amnon’s flawless choreography and me giving him cues while I’m narrating our story to the audience.”

The duo met in Tel Aviv, Israel when Jill was pursuing film and television and Amnon was part of dance school. “We started meeting each other as Amnon was teaching me sign language and we kept on meeting even after our lessons. But Two Worlds started when I finished studying and Amnon left the dance group, Sound and Silence. He came up with the idea of choreographing a performance which would tell our story — our own two worlds,” shares Jill with constant inputs from Amnon whose artistic journey began when he was a five-year-old and his parents moved him into an institution for deaf. When he was about ten, he saw Porsche ballet on the television, something he had never seen before. It was at that moment he decided that dancing is what he wanted to do. “But he couldn’t hear and he wasn’t sure if he could ever become one. At 15, he was introduced to a dance group for deaf and from here, he started taking classes for ballet and modern dance. Within a year, he became a professional dancer, performing around the world,” shares his wife.

Reminiscing his first performance, Amnon says: “First time I flew to America was for a huge conference for deaf. I was really young and everything took me by surprise.” But years later they have together built a world that others look up to. Another memorable moment they cherish together is a performance around a year back in California with a whole orchestra playing Bach music. “When we were told about it, we were confused as the music is all strings and no bass, which meant that Amnon won’t hear anything. We met a professor of music who narrated us the whole thing and we made it. This was the first time in 26 years of our marriage that we danced as equals.”

Throughout the years, the duo has been strong both on personal and professional front. “We hope that people across the world understand that creativity is not limited by any physical flaw. Rather they should be given the space to discover what they are meant to be,” shares Jill and Amnon as they get ready for their first performance in India and are yet to discover our culture for which the duo is really looking forward to.