New York born, Israeli-based choreographer Nadine Bommer has chosen a topic which I’ve never seen put into dance or theatre – football, or soccer, depending on your culture.  In her pursuit to create a piece of dance theatre, she plays with all the on-field and off-field scenarios that make this sport the worldwide-thrill that it is.

The piece is described with the following excerpt from the program: “Invisiball will transform 10 delicate female performers into virile, ultra-macho soccer players…The space is turned into a stadium complete with hot dogs, beer, roaring cheers and soccer hymns. The story follows two teams as they warm up, battle on the field and the drama that ensues between two clubs.”

Sounds fresh and exciting, right? The potential of innovative content with adventurous ideas was certainly ripe. What followed, unfortunately, for the next very loud hour was a bunch of girls all in short black wigs (there are blonde players as well or was this a jab at a certain ethnicity of players?) making goofy ‘macho’ faces and flailing about the playing space.

Bommer’s background is well-steeped in ballet and modern training in New York City with the best of the best. Her dancers, as is stated in their bios, are extremely trained technical dancers who are visibly agile, full of spirit and non-stop energy. Which is why I find it so baffling that her latest creation, Invisiball, so deeply lacks any technical virtuosity, compelling story line or notable signature of its otherwise extremely competent choreographer. I refuse to believe that never-ending techno music, meaningless jumping around that looks like a dancer was told “just go out and improv it”, and vacuous characters are Bommer’s signature. She’s smarter than that.

I believe that Nadine Bommer is an artist who has simply missed the mark here. We all have our less brilliant moments. If her attempt is to gain a truly sophisticated dance audience in her hometown of New York City, Invisiball -- in its current state -- will not do.