Leviah

/ U-Halle, Talstraße / Performance / english / 14+ yrs / 

“Leviah” is a memoir about vulnerability, power, and the loss of agency. Consisting of a collection of memories from service in the Israeli military, the play sheds light on the rarely discussed emotional trauma and despair experienced by female soldiers in subordinate positions. In the male-dominated, hierarchical structure of the military service, many women lose control and develop eating disorders. They must appear tough on the outside, but are simultaneously subjected to sexual harassment. Coping mechanisms are widespread: conscious forgetting, black humor, drugs, apathy, and occasional, pronounced sexuality are all common. The performers embody the extreme range between vulnerability to control, as well as the transformation from human to machine in a socially and militarily charged environment. “Leviah” shows the gradual but constant toll that political groupthink takes on the individual psyche. The play will be shown in a hall formerly used by the military.

Choreography & Text: Reut Shemesh. Performance: Reut Shemesh, Hella Immler. Music: Simon Bauer. Light, Video + Photography: Ronni Shendar. Costume: Dario Mendez Acosta. Dramaturgy: Daniel Rademacher. Production Management: Sabina Stücker, Sandra Jasper.

Works by Reut Shemesh have already been shown in Mannheim at EinTanzHaus.

Funded by: Stadt Köln, Kunststiftung NRW, Ministerium für Familie, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kunsthochschule für Medien (KHM) Köln.
Supported by: iDAS NRW und TanzFaktur Köln.

Reut Shemesh is an Israeli choreographer and media artist living in Cologne who is funded by the state of NRW as part of the Spitzenförderung programme.
Her works have been shown at the Tanzplattform Deutschland, the Impulse Theater festival, among other international festivals and theaters in Europe, Israel, Singapore, Switzerland and the USA. She was a guest at the EinTanzHaus in Mannheim with the productions ATARA and Cobra Blonde. Her commissioned works include ANACONDA (2025 Theater Gießen), ESTHER (2024 Explore Dance /HELLERAU, fabrik potsdam, FokusTanz München and K3 Hamburg), and Bad Mothers (2022) for Theater Oberhausen. In between 2020-2022 Shemesh was a factory artist (resident artist) at tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf, where she will show her latest production ELECTRAS set to premiere in November 2025.
www.reutshemesh.com

Photo: Sasa Huzjak