Choreographers Bosmat Nossan and Roni Chadash were in the final stretch before the premiere of their joint evening for the Batsheva Ensemble when the current war abruptly suspended all plans, transforming a milestone moment in their careers into an indefinite wait marked by uncertainty and personal upheaval.
The project, scheduled more than a year in advance, dissolved overnight into the unknown when conflict erupted. Nossan said, "I was very stressed by the deadline, the date for the show that was set far in advance. All of a sudden, there is no date. 'The performance will happen when the war ends,' is all we know." The disruption illustrates how conflict reaches beyond immediate casualties to suspend the cultural and professional lives of artists, leaving creative workers without the stability of scheduled work or income from performances.
Living Under Constant Threat
Nossan's piece, Dome, explores the physical implications of living under constant threat. "The work began from a feeling, an everyday sensation of vulnerability, of knowing that everything can end at any second. I experience it as something physical. There is fear, violence, and fragility, but also a strong desire to live now. When the future is unclear, the present becomes more intense. The piece is about this place and how it lives in the body," she said.
The choreographer's personal life had also undergone upheaval. "I think everyone is experiencing this overlap between the public and the private. There is instability in every sphere. I am witnessing the unraveling of the home that is Israel, and in parallel, the unraveling of my own home," Nossan said. For over a week, it seemed as though all future plans had disappeared, and then, as restrictions shifted, the dance company returned to the studio, though performances remained indefinitely postponed. Nossan and Chadash were working in an interim space, able to create but without a set deadline.
Returning to the Body
Chadash said, "At the beginning, I didn't know how to return to the work. But the moment we did, something clicked. Being back in the studio brings me back to the body. It reminds me who I am, my identity, and of a kind of beauty, not external but internal. It connects." As the conversation took place, her newborn son slept in the next room and she received news that shrapnel had damaged her car. She said, "I'll deal with that later," and returned to the present moment.
Chadash's new work, Separations, uses all 19 dancers of the ensemble, the largest group she has worked with to date. "I wanted to engage with the physical language I work with, dismantling the body into parts. From there, the theme of separation emerged: separations within the body and within society. I am interested in the tension between the animal body, the organs, the raw physicality, and the socialized, contained human body," she said. Since October 7, this inquiry had taken on a new dimension. Chadash said, "I understood that I am perceived in a certain way. Even if I didn't define myself as Israeli or Jewish, that is how I am seen from the outside. I realized that I can't separate Israeliness from my body or from my work."
Movement as Resistance
Now back in the studio, Nossan and Chadash continued to work within uncertainty. Chadash said, "It's important to keep going. The studio balances the noise outside. It allows me to find simplicity, to feel grounded. When I'm dancing, I am temporarily cut off from everything else." Nossan said, "dance has always been the filter through which I experience life. I don't know that it's important, in principle, to keep dancing. But the body continues. There is always movement. And within that movement, I feel there is potential for something to shift. Not necessarily hope, just something that exists within survival, and sometimes within resistance. Without it, I feel I have no meaning. Right now, everything is focused on the present moment. There is no future; we are working for the moment itself."
Miriam's dance was not a distant story but an ongoing practice, "Not an act of celebration but of survival. Not a response to certainty but to its absence. In moments when the future disappears, movement remains, not as an answer but as a way to continue."
Why This Matters:
The suspension of artistic work during conflict reveals how war disrupts not only immediate physical safety but the broader fabric of cultural and professional life. Artists like Nossan and Chadash face economic instability when performances are canceled indefinitely, while their creative expressions of vulnerability and collective trauma remain unshared with audiences who might find meaning in them. The choreographers' experiences highlight the intersection of public crisis and private upheaval, showing how conflict compounds existing pressures on working professionals, particularly those in the arts who depend on scheduled performances for livelihood. Their continued work in the studio, despite the absence of performance dates, demonstrates the human need for creative expression and community even amid uncertainty, while also underscoring the precarious position of cultural workers whose contributions to collective processing and resilience depend on institutional support and stable conditions that conflict destroys.