Particle motion - Haaretz.com

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And then came the particle accelerator. "I had a free afternoon," he recalls. "I was sitting on Allenby Street and suddenly saw everything around me scurrying. It seemed like everyone had something terribly urgent to do and I was the one thing static, motionless. From that moment, my perspective on the piece changed entirely. Right at that moment there were many news reports about the particle accelerator and the biometric data base. Without planning it, things started falling into the topic of purposefulness.

"Armed with these thoughts, I started talking to friends," he continues. "I've had the same boyfriend for 15 years, but I have a lot of friends looking for a date, love, sex. When I started talking to them about online dating sites, I realized that your profile has to be very attractive in order to even get to a face-to-face date. Thoughts about who we really are started running through my mind, about how much of our true identity we reveal, about the things we prettify despite knowing that at some stage or another they will be revealed, and about the extent to which we break through boundaries and risk grazing in new pastures. Or maybe there's something terribly permanent and comfortable in [our life's] restrictedness."

Five months later and the finished product - performed by the nine members of Fresco to music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Frederic Chopin and Philip Glass - is impressive in its clarity and unambiguity. Throughout a statement is being made about life in the era of biometric technology and the chance, or not, to break out of it as a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

The language of the movement, which draws from the neo-classical, suits the robotic-futuristic mood of the work. It is evident it was created by an experienced, skilled hand.

Is it important to you that your work have a narrative?

"It turns out I can't escape that. There's something that always seeps into my work. Even in my most abstract work, 'Derivative,' a narrative seeped in, and by now I've stopped fighting this. Over time I've discovered I deal a lot with relationships between the individual vis-a-vis a group, as well as couple relationships, and I haven't hesitated to create pieces that make social statements ['The Bunker' and 'Atoms']. Within this narrative, there is some kind of defined space and outline, which are apparently more natural to me."

Initially, however, he did not tell the dancers what the work was about. For their part, he says, the dancers responded positively even if "worried by the work" because it appears to be physically demanding.

"This is the first time," says Karmi, "they all came up to me individually to tell me they loved the piece. I, however, was really on the fence. Only about three weeks ago did I start to warm up to it. The first run, for example, was like seeing a potential lover turn his back on you - because all the technical things that didn't work made me very sad."

Is the work finished from your perspective?

"I'm in a panic. Theoretically, I need another 10 months. But nowadays it's very hard to create without a deadline. You have to reserve halls months in advance to be able to perform. Your artistic freedom has a schedule."

Karmi, 42 and born in Tel Aviv, is known in the local dance industry as someone exposed to dance relatively late in life and since then has come a long way to achieve every choreographer's ultimate desire - a troupe of his own. Now he relates that, in fact, he started dancing at the age of five - that is, almost started.

"When I was five, my best friend in day care was Tamar - Rina Scheinfeld's daughter. She told me her mother was a dancer and I was impressed. I went to my parents and I told them I wanted to dance. My parents had terrible heart palpitations, but in the end agreed and that's how I found myself sitting in Rina Scheinfeld's studio, surrounded by girls. But I got scared very quickly and I fled.

"Twenty years later, at Seminar Hakibbutzim, Rina gave a workshop. She looked at me and said: 'You're the boy who ran away at the start of the class and I told you, "Stay, stay, there aren't any boys."' It was always there, it just wasn't the right time."

Karmi returned to dance when he was 24, after completing his third year of psychology studies. Because he didn't think he could become a professional dancer, he started studying at Seminar Hakibbutzim, "To get a teaching certificate at least." He was accepted to the Kol Demama dance company, where he performed as a soloist. Three years later, with the encouragement of Kol Demama founder and director Moshe Efrati, entered the "Shades of Dance" competition and won second prize.

Karmi started creating works for dance schools, put together an ensemble that worked with him on a regular basis and in the end received premises and funding from the Holon municipality. The company, consisting of nine dancers, operates at Holon's Re'im Center and gives many performances.

"Everybody wants a dance company," Karmi smiles shyly. "Fresco happened entirely by chance. The amount of bureaucracy and the marketing, administrative and financial responsibility is huge. At least 50 percent of my time is invested in administrative work, even though I have a company director, because the artistic vision and the ideas are mine. Up until two years ago ... I did everything myself. In 'The Bunker' - we used 100 sandbags and at the end of every performance, I and the dancers and their partners would drive to the storeroom and return them one by one.

"I take hardly any salary for myself and every time there's some extra money I put it into hiring another professional. The first stage was a rehearsals director, then a company director, then a public relations director. Every time there's an expectation of growth, I invest the economic resources to advance the business. We have a good basis of support from the culture administration and the Holon municipality, we have an audience, our morning performances are very successful and I've been lucky."

So how do you support yourself?

"I teach, abroad too, and give workshops."

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