Portrait #2

In 1977, Ruth Eshel produced an unprecedented, avant-garde solo evening, in a period in which all professional dance work was channeled through major companies. What we call independent artists today did not exist then, nor did fringe dance. This evening was so unconventional that authorities instructed Eshel to include it in a formal platform immediately. One of the five solos she performed in that evening was Portrait of a Demagog by choreographer Rachel Kafri. In 2017, Ori Lenkinski invited Eshel to assist her in restaging this work and, along the way, a duet emerged between the two. Both women, though forty years separates them, are dancers, journalists and mothers.