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From Ramon crater to Galilee heights in Israel, Hanigrarim clowns rock and roll, unlock those locked down, integrate those disintegrated, unite those separated and fix those broken. Unparalleled is the parallax when they are on the move, ungovernable is the roar.

Hanigrarim is a traveling clowns cabaret, an initiative of DAVAI Theatre group who invited the best Israeli clowns and musicians to join the show. The format of the show allows performing even during the lockdown periods.

I'm thrilled to capture the story of the project in its elaboration from the vague idea to the booming success in the streets, fields and squares of the country.

For DAVAI theater-makers it all started in the midst of COVID-fueled uncertainty with buying a trailer that was upgraded to a moving stage. It required a lot of courage to switch gears and invent a whole new show with new participants and no guarantees of any success whatsoever.

The first ads for the show I filmed while it was still under construction but already gained its unique atmosphere and elaborated the characters:

The Birdman (Losha Gavrielov), a clumsy and reckless “ace” that fails a lot but in the end succeeds in taking the whole thing up into the air.
Tesla (Michal Svironi), the ruler of the world and minds, equipped with an external hard-mounted extra brain. She mysteriously can see through people and transmogrify them.
Zak (Fyodor Makarov), this one lacks the brains, as opposed to Tesla. Instead, he’s got an extra set of external muscles that allow him to fold metal rods.
Perla (Limor Eshaek), overwhelms everyone with her crushing love and joy.
Mr. Goldman (Vitaly Azarin), a true mugician (musician+magician), arrived straight from Carnegie Hall with his golden teeth, head, heart and stainless steel saw.

My visual ambitions grew along with the scale of the project itself. Besides the stills, we created a stylish short movie depicting the characters as aliens from another galaxy. Truth is, for those who were lucky enough to have HaNigrarim perform under their windows, the artists definitely were aliens that showed up out of the blue and quickly disappeared in the air.

When you deal with multi-faceted talents such as Hanigrarim performers, creative ideas just outpour. What's even more important and unusual though is that all viable ideas get realized, and very quickly.

HaNigrarim were able to turn the glooming 2020 into booming. They have arrived at December with a tight schedule and had to squeeze up to 13 performances into each weekend.

For the traveling circus, the road is always long and winding in every sense of the word, but the guys just sped through it. After just two months of preparation, dozens of towns and villages welcomed colorful, lovely, unforgettable show that goes way off the beaten path.