Listen to Spotlight

“You can’t imagine what that piece made me feel… but, what is it about actually?” This sentiment is probably the most common reaction I get to my piece, Spotlight. “Surely, there’s an element of prayer here?” or: “the piece tries to juxtapose between the divine and the earthly… right?” It’s usually at this point that I find myself fumbling in words, trying to express possible meanings the piece might or might not have: “The piece is about high and low, and emotions… and yet, about nothing; I mean, it’s about the performers… and how they make sound… even when they aren’t making any sound… it’s about their reactions to one another and their reactions to the tape sounds, or, or, uhm… silence… it’s about their own emotions, or what it means to be a performer…” It’s usually right around this point that I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth in the first place. I mean, yeah, sure, Spotlight is about all of these things, but yet about none of them. The truth of the matter is that the idea, as is usually the case with me, came as a feeling: The first image I had was that of two performers dancing in slow motion, in complete silence, under a direct light. Calling it a dance is perhaps misleading, because the performers are actually mimicking a performance, possibly even the same performance they are performing right there… CUT TO: stark darkness, sounds of emaciated House beats blasting from speakers, and slightly softer… those same two performers playing crude materials with a dark undertone. That was the idea that sparked Spotlight into being – and it is from this seed that an entire piece was constructed, in many ways to serve the aforementioned dramatic moment that both initiates and concludes the journey of the piece.

On Radio Halas, An Hour & Myself

The idea of producing shows for radio came up quite spontaneously when my friend and colleague, Dani Meir, offered me a carte blanche to bring my tastes forward through slots in the newly founded Internet radio, Halas.

Ophir Ilzetzki

All An hour programs

Previewing Halas for the first time, I recognized a podium that I could personally use in any way I felt appropriate, as it is completely non-commercial, publicly funded, educational radio. More so, most shows produced by others on Halas shared my ideal of shedding light on the extremes of a specific musical genre or topic. Like all radio stations I enjoyed listening to in the past, Halas too managed to serve as a voice for an under represented, non mainstream collective.