The Shapira Festival, 06/04...ESI YOFI.
Yesterday we set out from the Karov to the Shapira neighbourhood, 3 minutes' walk South of the Tachana Merkazit but longer with:
- the Karovmobile (not a car, a wooden box-office type contraption on wheels)
- Rafi "Doktor Cultura" Adi
- Linor "naughty schoolgirl (complete with satchel, handbell and hair-ribbon)" Kruzuk
- Me with corset, rabbit ears etc, and
- Liron
Shapira is the new old Nevesedek where there are lots of kids everywhere and small front rooms and grocers turned into public galleries and hang-out spots for the "festival". For the first couple of hours we were the only attraction, singing, dancing and re-enacting the spontaneous "Clinica Cultura" with Rafi the Rofe (doctor). Passers-by - children and adults and pets etc - were all really interested in the Karov and open to the on and off-street Karovian antics on offer. More so than in England. It was a Royal Mile just for us.
Yesterday I didn't have much koach having been up so early to take my dad to the airport et al so my bestest part of the day was playing with the children. There were three huge metal punch bags on chains hanging from a tree and you could bash them into each-other to make a noise. The neighbourhood provides wooden sticks with which to hit the metal punchbags and lo pasabamos bomba!
We stayed to promote the Karov in Shapira for four hours and had beer and cigarettes. Here were the three most beautiful things about it, I thought:
1. Rafi gave out sweets, all the the children as well as the interested adults, and everyone took them.
2. If you smoke and drink whilst promoting at a festival in Shapira it is not seen as derogatory or lazy or immature in relation to your cause. Rather it reflects an affinity which is even more attractive to locals.
3. Today I had an amazing conversation with Linor (naughty schoolgirl) who is the longest serving Karov persona except Nico and she lives in Shapira and said that to see it in festival mode and linked with her work enforced her love of living there.
For those of you living in Israel, we have a membership deal of 4 plays for 100NIS (about 15pounds). You can find more info here or post a comment and I'll get back to you.
Last night I cooked dinner and talked lots with F about the difference between North and South Tel Aviv - how South TA for me is the Israel of the future with its cultural diversity and laid-back welcome so inherent on days like yesterday.
There were a lot of art-recycling projects. Linor's favourite was the one with burnt chairs, reinstalled to become free-moving mechanisms which drew on a white wall with their charcoal remnants. I really liked the dismantled massive cardboard boxes and white paint next to where we were. So many children were going crazy and the way their freedom and inhibition came out in the patterns and sculpture-type things they made was just amazing.
Shapira looks a lot like an Israeli Kennington but without the yuppy wank. If I stay here beyond June I will def live there.
