STORY WATER

One of the best French dance companies and one of the best contemporary German orchestras come together in a vibrant choreography of bodies and minds. [...] As usual, Gat's dancers engage in extensive improvised sections that always seem to have been rehearsed to perfection. Such is the natural harmony between these performers, who know each other intimately and form a perfectly organic ensemble.

With Story Water, Emanuel Gat reaffirms his singularity in the contemporary dance landscape. A complete artist—dancer, musician, scenographer—he continues to develop a choreographic language that is both subtle and profound. [...] The dancers’ technique [...] is remarkable, but even more striking is their presence, their total commitment to the performance.

Created in the Cour d’Honneur of the Palais des Papes during the last Festival d'Avignon, Story Water is defined by the Israeli choreographer as a live dialogue between dance and music. [...] An ambitious and demanding piece for the audience, Story Water does not shy away from a certain dryness but still manages to draw us into its world.

Ultimately, Story Water is indeed a masterful ode to dance—an act of faith and a testament to the artistic maturity of a creator who has reached the height of his craft. [...] One senses a choreography constantly being tested, open to shifts in flow and the call of the unexpected. This demands an impressive level of commitment from the dancers at every moment.

Emanuel Gat delivers a dazzling gesture in the Cour d’Honneur with the support of Ensemble Modern. Inspired by a Sufi poem about water, the choreographer elegantly shares the stage between dancers and musicians, all dressed in white—a striking image bathed in golden light. [...] The execution is masterful… the setting is perfect, everything is invented, created, and then disappears.

The second performance presented in the Cour d'honneur of the Palais des Papes after Thyeste by Thomas Jolly, Story Water—an ambitious yet stunning piece by Emanuel Gat—takes the audience to the heart of choreographic and musical creation. One of the must-sees of the 72nd edition of the Avignon Festival. [...] Emanuel Gat firmly establishes himself among the greats.

A compelling collaboration between choreographer Emanuel Gat and the Ensemble Modern. [...] Emanuel Gat almost achieves the impossible, because the choreography tells nothing, draws no characters, and is dance for dance's sake. On the other hand, it conveys a specific atmosphere, allowing "Story Water" to subtly let messages seep through like water.

The Israeli choreographer Gat [...] developed the very unusual and very exciting three-part evening STORY WATER with the musicians, which was now presented as a German premiere. [...] Such a structure presents a real challenge to the choreographer and dancers, but they face it in a brilliant way. [...] A magnificent evening, which was appropriately honored by the audience at the opera house.

Let's say it right away, Story Water is a success. It’s not that Emanuel Gat "tamed the wall" of the courtyard, as is often the case. He plays in front of it. He uses it as a screen to present, throughout the piece, information about the performance's progression, but also, as we will see, about the situation in Gaza, and from an Israeli artist’s perspective, that’s quite audacious.

Gat insists on the empowerment of his dancers. He wants to test micromanagement. To disappear, just a little. So, what unfolds is the improvised expression of formidable technical prowess—a sequential taking of the floor by each of the ten dancers, forming an ensemble, on this white stage, at times draped in shadows, glowing with luminescent beauty.

Beneath its initial appearance as a calm and steady stream, Story Water carried within it the seeds of a courageous rhetoric, subtly introduced. Gat ascends the heights of a recurring landscape, where purity of form transcends into something greater than itself.

"Story Water casts a deep and serene gaze into the space where music and choreography meet, offering intermediaries toward a space that everyone can traverse, as one crosses a garden." This phrase could summarize the feeling as we leave the performance, a sensation that will remain and continue to infuse us. To receive this gift, one must be patient, wait for the last minutes of this performance, and thus experience the power and strength of Story Water.

Emanuel Gat, between political message and visual beauty. [...] The Israeli choreographer based in Istres surprised with the creation Story Water, which blends genres. [...] One feels the strength of the collective, the result of Emanuel Gat's atypical work. [...] A very poetic moment, very white, very plastic. [...] Water is a political issue, and Story Water tells this too.

The starting point for STORY WATER is a Sufi poem that praises water as the carrier of messages “between fire and your skin,” a metaphor open to multiple interpretations. The dancers' bodies and the music become “water carriers” that nourish the shared imagination of the dancers and musicians, constantly exchanging, actively engaged, and on equal footing in the Cour d’Honneur.

The energy on stage is so intense that the dancers seem to make the first rows of spectators vibrate. [...] Emanuel Gat delivers an energetic and vibrant choreography, stepping into a politically engaged space where he might not have been expected. It has been a long time since a dance performance has been this captivating in the Cour d’Honneur of the Palais des Papes.

Water, bath, and fire. All of this blends in the music as the Ensemble Modern, under the direction of Franck Ollu, a specialist in contemporary music, dives into the tumultuous "Derive 2" by Pierre Boulez. [...] Unrestrained forces are unleashed, which must be contained. And so, Gat does something here that is unusual for him. In the complex choreography [...] he defines every detail precisely.

Nailed to their chairs, seized by the purity and modesty of Gat’s dance, the spectators have only one desire: to rush on the stage. We come out smiling, remembering why we so often go to the theatre: to experience those rare and short moments when a joyful meeting takes place as we are united by Art. Gat inscribed his name on the pediment of the greatest choreographers who have played in the Cour d’Honneur.

The artist [...] draws here from a universally referenced choreographic universe. [...] He does not copy, but rather fits into his time, signing a gesture of wild contemporaneity. Everything dissonates, everything comes together; he plays with humor as much as beauty. [...] The further the piece goes, the more coherent it becomes in an allegory of a functioning community life.

There is an inherent rupture between music and choreography – yet it is precisely the obsessive element, the repetition of gestures and movement patterns by the ten dancers, that enters into a stark but challenging dialogue with the audience and listener. This happened during the performance in France in a vibrant discourse between the musicians and dancers on stage.