NABA
AN INTERACTIVE PERFORMANCE IN MUSEUMS
In NABA, every visitor hears a different performance.
NABA is an immersive dance work created specifically for museum galleries. Through a personal audio guide and headphones, each visitor chooses their own soundtrack while moving through the museum, shaping the way they experience the artworks, the architecture, and the performance unfolding around them.
Led by four unusual “museum guards”, the audience is guided through the galleries on a playful and mysterious journey. As the group moves through the museum, choreography emerges among the artworks and architecture. Paintings, sculptures, corridors, and display spaces become part of a living choreography. The museum itself gradually transforms from a place of observation into a space of encounter and movement.
At key moments during the performance, viewers are invited to select the next audio track on their device. The choice of soundscapes includes music, original texts, archival recordings, and unexpected sonic fragments that respond to the artworks and environment. Because the sound exists only inside the headphones, two people standing side by side may be listening to entirely different tracks at the same moment. Each visitor therefore experiences a different version of the same performance. What the audience hears inevitably reshapes what they see.
NABA is not simply presented in a museum; it is re-created for each institution in which it takes place. The choreography and audio materials are developed through research into the museum’s architecture, the artworks on display, and the narratives surrounding the collection. The creative team works in dialogue with the museum’s curatorial staff to gather materials, stories, and perspectives that inform the performance. Each edition becomes a unique response to the specific character of the museum and its exhibitions.
The work premiered in 2013 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and has since been re-imagined for various museums: North Carolina Museum of Art, Sala Alcala (Madrid), The Israel Museum, Ashdod Museum of Art, Mishkan Museum of Art, Design Museum Holon, The Museum of Islamic Art, and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art,
NABA is performed by four dancers and unfolds over approximately one hour as audiences move through the galleries. The work can be adapted to a variety of museum spaces and audience sizes and may be presented either with the original cast or in collaboration with locally trained performers.
Credits
Choreography: Dana Ruttenberg
Costumes: Inbar Nemirovsky
Sound Design: Dudi Sofer
Audioguides: Acoustiguide
Original Cast: Inbar Nemirovsky, Gil Kerer, Einat Betsalel, Idan Porges
“There was an exciting feeling of an underground experience less reminiscent of a visit to the museum and more like entering a desirable club after hours. There were beautiful moments in which the dancers brought the artworks to life, be it human, animal or statue. It all felt alive. Ruttenberg is a witty and original choreographer.”
“Naba 2.0 by Dana ruttenberg Dance Group is a surprising, experiential, enjoyable, amusing and pleasurable show. During the show, not only does every viewer choose what he will hear, but we also move around the museum space, taking an active part, whether standing, sitting or lying down. The soundtrack itself is also surprising and combines texts with musical works from varied styles. The museum’s space is an intergral part of the experience, and the works shown in it are treated in a way that allows the audience to look at them anew”
“The brilliance of the new version is based on the choice of space - the Israeli gallery of the Tel Aviv Museum - as the new meeting point, and to that aim Ruttenberg has created brand new choreography for four dancers. As in the past, she again succeeded in creating a polyphonic multi-faceted dance work, which very different musical scores illuminate in unique ways.
Ruttenberg explained that NABA was born out of the desire to “add a new dimension to dance”, to bring “audience that have yet connected to contemporary dance” closer and to turn the viewers into active participants, if not in the actual dancing on stage, then at least in determining the sounds and music they will hear during the piece.
To that aim, she supplied each member of the audience with an audio guide, such that is used in museum tours, and a pair of headphones. It worked and succeeded in awakening the audience from their pre-set passiveness…intriguing duets evolved, impressive solos and intricate group sections in a movement language expressing alienation, intimacy, tenderness, agitation, escape and even inner humor.”
