This book came into being out of and in preparation for Yasmeen Godder’s participation in the exhibition Confidence-Building Measures in the Petach Tikva Museum of Art (curators: Drorit Gur Arie and Avi Feldman, June-Septemer, 2014).

Yasmeen Godder, a leading Israeli choreographer active since 1999, was invited to create, for the first time in her artistic career, a site specific work for the museum’s space. This process was accompanied by numerous discussions between Godder and the book’s editor, in an attempt to formulate an archival mapping of the extrema (maximum and minimum points) which could be said to identify Godder’s language of movement, as it has been formulated during her 15 years of work. The book traverses the intermediate space between an artist’s book and a work of non-fiction. As an entangled narrative whole, shifting between extrema and climaxes; between new and early works; between German Expressionism and queerness; between Tracey Emin and Israeliness, and as a product of couplings between the political and the walls of the museum; between David Lynch and Max Ernst; between the collective and the private – the book establishes a conceptual space, grounded in a visual proximity to Godder’s multifaceted work, as well as to the various sources of influence that fuel her artistic activity.

About the author: Itzik Giuli is a dramaturgist, joint artistic director of Yasmeen Godder’s Company and creator of dance and theatre works. He is the artistic director of both Curtain Up Festival and The Israel Festival, Tel Aviv.