Go Figure: a contemporary duet exploring body, balance, and connection
Israeli choreographer and dancer Sharon Fridman showcases Go Figure during the Go Figure program as part of the Dance Festival, with performances from April 26 through April 30 in Alicante, Elche, and Murcia. The Alicante showing starts at 18:30 at the Alicante Museum of Contemporary Art, with free admission on a first-come, first-served basis. The project is currently a work in progress and invites audiences to witness how diverse bodies function and relate in motion. A staged run is also planned for West of Rovereto’s Oriente Festival on September 4, followed by the premiere of the final version at the Francisco Rabal de Pinto Theatre in Madrid on May 5 and at the Ipercorpo Festival in Forlì, Italy, on May 27 (Italy).
Go Figure originated within a research and creation program called The Power of Balance, initiated by the Israeli dance company Vertigo. The research probes how functional diversity and the‘otherness’ of the body can be expressed and celebrated through movement. The result is a duet created by two dancers, Shmuel Dvir Cohen and Tomer Navot, who both live with a neurological condition that causes involuntary muscle contractions or dystonia. The work emphasizes embracing one’s own existence rather than conforming to a normative movement standard or trying to “fix” a perceived dysfunction. The production’s character is often unpredictable, sometimes bold, always truthful and, when it works, deeply beautiful.
Accompanying the project is choreographer Sharon Fridman, a two-time Max Award winner (2015 and 2019). Go Figure unfolds as an invitation to explore how bodies move, rhythm, and timing through the INA Practice—a technique rooted in contact and improvisation and anchored in the performers’ physical and emotional experiences.
In Fridman’s words, Go Figure is first a landscape of inequality that invites observation: Shmuel can study his body, acknowledge its conditions, and transform his self-knowledge into a bridge toward dialogue with the other. Tomer follows this invitation, crossing the bridge to engage with Shmuel. The search for balance, born from the limits and capacities of both dancers, yields a form of beauty that speaks for itself. It is a shared determination to support each other without losing clarity, a mutual aspiration to live in a space where truth is palpable.
Image from Go Figure by Lior Segev.
Company
Madrid-based since 2006, Sharon Fridman leads a contemporary dance ensemble that centers on a unique body language developed through the INA Application. This approach shapes a language of its own, guiding the company’s collaborations with professional dancers and students from public and private conservatories across Spain and beyond during international tours and labs.
Fridman’s works have earned notable recognition, including a Max Award for Best Show in 2015 for Free Fall and another Max Award in 2019 for Best Choreography in Mistake. The show How Far…? received Best Dance Show honors at Burgos-New York 2011, and the company has also earned audience and jury distinctions at venues and festivals such as the Huesca Theater and Dance Fair. Free Fall (2014) and All Way (2017) are among the company’s celebrated pieces.
Since 2018, Sharon Fridman Company has operated from the Francisco Rabal de Pinto Theatre, where community projects and new creations have been nurtured and presented.
Creations and ongoing works
Recent highlights include Dose of Heaven, which premiered at dFeria in March 2020 and toured nationally in 2021 across venues like Madrid’s slaughterhouse, Valencia’s Dance Festival, Cádiz en Danza, Rosalía de Castro Theater in A Coruña, Barakaldo Theater, Victoria Eugenia Theater, and Canal Theaters in Donosti. The piece was slated for a performance at Teatros del Canal in Madrid in November 2022. Squeeze Me Life Continues followed, with a showing in March 2023 at Jerusalem’s Bielefeld Theater in Germany. The work, created by eleven dancers, explores a place historically marked by bloodshed and memory, while Fridman remains deeply involved in the ongoing creative process for Go Figure.
Stage manager Luis Luke will lead Europe premieres in May at the Naves del Español in Matadero. Simultaneously, a new Galician Dance Piece titled Watercress is set to celebrate the Galician company’s twentieth anniversary, with a premiere date planned for September.
Go Figure is a dynamic project that continues to evolve as it travels through different spaces and contexts. Its focus remains on the contact and exchange between bodies, the rhythms that emerge from their interaction, and the emotional resonance that arises when performers meet, listen, and respond to one another in a shared physical language. The work invites audiences to witness how balance can emerge from difference and how truth can surface when bodies speak with honesty and courage.
With the ongoing evolution of Go Figure, the company continues to explore how movement can reveal the intimate, often unspoken bonds that connect people across cultures and languages. The production emphasizes presence, listening, and the beauty of shared risk as dancers navigate the delicate bridge between individuality and collective expression.