The third Dress Trilogy segment exhibited a dress that constituted a book, with pages containing autobiographical stories describing the development process of the artwork by Raban during her stay in Berlin. Berlin is the hometown of the artist's mother, the place she was forced to flee from when the Nazis rose to power. The central story dealt with an invitation by Bulgarian director Ivan Sechenov extended to Raban to play the part of a Jewish Ophelia. The story of Shakespeare's Ophelia was transformed into a story of Raban's family member. The stories that appear in the 2-dimensional pages became a sensory event in the space comprised of pictures, objects, sounds and actions. The head movements while reading evoked the back-and-forth motion of denial, endlessly repeated. The reading act became a mark of nullification, with the reviewed text unraveling as it is read.

A work by Tamar Raban

Year: 1999-2000

Venue: Blur International Performance Biennale (1999), Shelter 209, HaZira Performance Arts Arena in Jerusalem, the Holon Theatre, the Jerusalem Theatre, Teatri di Vita in Bolonia, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany (2002) Participating artist: Dana Tagar (Laërtês’ voice: Josef Sprinzak)