Events are Events | nettaweiser

Events are Events Performance + sound installation
HilbertRaum Gallery, Berlin (2017)

On November 2017 composer Hadas Peery and performance maker Netta Weiser were invited by HilbertRaum Gallery, Berlin to facilitate a one-time performance event. Spreading over the two spaces of the gallery the artists devised a sound installation and performance which were followed by the film Ma'Loul Celebrates Its Destruction by Palestinian director Michel Khleifi.

“Events are Events” deals with the story of the ruined Palestinian village of Ma'aloul, focusing on an annual gathering of its exiled community.

The village of Maaloul was depopulated and ruined by Israeli forces in 1948. Today, part of the village's land is covered by a pine forest planted by the Jewish National Fund, in which the village's mosque and two churches are still standing. These churches lays empty and sealed all days of the year due to restrictions set by a neighboring Israeli military base, but once a year the exiled residents of Ma'aloul and their descendants gather in one of the village churches to celebrate Easter.

In February 2017 Weiser contacted the leaders of the exiled community of Ma'aloul. After gaining their trust, she was invited together with Peery, and photographer Shira Tabachnick to join the Easter celebration.

In "Events are Events" the artists retrieve, reconsolidate, and reconstructs fragments of that layered site and event they attended. The event included a sound installation blending soundscapes of a forest together with original recordings from the Easter gathering, reenactment of interviews given during the event to Israeli and Arabic media mediated by Google Translate, and movement sequences searching for traces of the event in the body, allowing the body to speak as a witness and site.

The event was sealed with Khleifi's film, presenting a Palestinian perspective upon the history of Ma'aloul.

Choreography and performance: Netta Weiser

Sound installation and performance: Hadas Peery
Duration: 25 minutes

Film: Ma'Loul Celebrates Its Destruction by Michel Khleifi
Duration: 30 minutes