Translated review

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"Nature of a Fall" is a masterpiece of virtuosity devoid of ostentation

The dancers In his work of Adi Boutrous find more and more ways to be together. The choreography is so meticulous that it seems that freezing it at any given moment would yield a spectacular image.

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Ran Brown
13:38 • 09 August 2026
Nature of a Fall
Choreography : Adi Boutrous
Additional creators : Ido Barak, Neshama Bazer, Naomi Ben David, Stav Struz Boutros, Uri Dicker, Ofer Laufer, Yael Venezia.

 

"Nature of a Fall", Adi Boutrous' new work, which premiered at the Israel Festival last week, is a masterful choreography of togetherness. It presents a tangible, sweeping, and astonishing embodiment of shared life and unparalleled mutual support. It seemingly takes place in a space devoid of time and place: the stage is bare, devoid of scenes, and the soundtrack is filled with winds blowing. Occasionally, a bell rings or a ship's horn is heard in the distance. But as the choreography unfolds, it turns out that nothing is more relevant to the here and now.

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The dancers join and separate, creating a common entity that spreads everywhere, a sculpture that appears one moment and disappears the next. They climb over each other, roll, surrender to those who hold them, offer their bodies to the one who will place his full weight on them, leap into the arms of the group, enter it. At a certain moment, the eyes want to let go and stop seeing each dancer individually. Instead, they see a multi-bodied entity-arms, faces, palms, fingers-bound and entangled. A head is tucked between the thighs. A foot step on a pelvis. A pair of arms grasp a waist and pull. A knee bends under a body that bears the weight of the one standing above it. Hands grasp the ribs. A palm bows the head down. A pair of shoulder blades rest softly in the hollows of the palms beneath them.

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It is a work composed of small allegories, physical acts that echo human truths: reaching out, embracing, supporting another, leaning, falling and getting up again. “Nature of a Fall” paints a compelling human picture of togetherness. Despite the seemingly peaceful execution, this is not a naive picture. It also acknowledges the possibility of failure. Disturbing images appear from time to time, especially when a dancer or dancers are left alone for a brief moment, lying motionless on the floor, but again and again the dancers insist on continuing. Boutrous seems to be trying to tell viewers that this is a possibility that is not self-evident, that it demands effort, dedication and relentless work. One that never really ends.

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Structures composed of the dancers' bodies appear and disintegrate, in a dizzying, flowing, unceasing sequence. The choreography sculpts the dancers' bodies into arches, stairs, strange buildings, human towers. The dancers ascend them again and again, with almost religious devotion, as if trying to reach God, to touch Him. But they only touch each other. There is no God. The dancers have only each other, and yet they manage to touch the metaphysical: not in the climb up, but rather in the fall. Or, more accurately, in the moment when a body is cradled by the hands that hold it on its way down. 

There is not a single moment in the work where the dancers dance for themselves - that is to perform steps, gestures, or abstract movements that have no purpose other than the dance itself, alone. On the contrary: the dancers act in the service of the common good. They perform only purposeful, seemingly anti-pathological actions, always in relation to one another. They support, hold, lift, drag, carry, lug. It is precisely from this series of concrete actions, in a truly alchemical act, that a wonderful dance emerges, moving, human, and sublime at the same time.

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"Nature of a Fall" is a masterpiece of virtuosity devoid of ostentation. The dancers find more and more ways to be together, in a choreography that is so meticulous that it seems that freezing it at any given moment would yield a spectacular image, every detail of which is predetermined, and not a single movement is left to chance. However, the feeling that one gets is relaxed, casual, almost natural. Even when it comes to clearly improbable structures in which a dancer hangs upside down at the top of a human pyramid. It is as if Boutrous found a way to reach the core of the dancers' humanity and intensify its light, so that it permeates about every encounter, every contact, every leap performed without hesitation, softly and peacefully.

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Towards the end of the piece, the fatigue is evident in the dancers' bodies. They make no effort to hide it and continue to perform with determined ease. Like Sisyphus, they climb up the human mountain again and again: placing a foot on a hip, then on the body leaning forward, to the shoulders at the top. Then, rolling back down, they fall into the arms that carry them out of a deep commitment - embodying in their bodies a responsibility to the other that has no end. Again and again, the choreography places statues that carry a monumental quality, as if to say: These are the statues that should be placed in the city squares, not generals on horseback, but structures teeming with life and concern for the other.

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At the end of the piece, a distance opens for the first time between some of the dancers who step outside. Behind them, they leave a trio that has turned into a horse. But without the help of the others, it is tired of carrying, and it collapses under itself. As mentioned, an allegory.

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"Nature of a Fall" by Adi Boutrous. Jerusalem Theatre, 7.8

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