“I had a tail. Shedding my skin, I lay on the ground, as a beast. My teeth were blades hungry for a tender lamb. I was a demon becoming my master’s puppet, his toy. Camouflaging in the weeds, I watered them, hoping the grass would grow in my belly. I anticipated meeting fear, and listening to its music. I savored the pain.” This is a coarse monolog of a slaughterer and the victim within him.

Merav Cohen on the creative process:

I go back in time to a poem I wrote at the age of 16 where the protagonist character first appeared. After a few years, I had a dream where I met a character who told me about my previous incarnation and everything floated and brought me back in time to that poem. A long chain of milestones…I think this is the moment It started bubbling inside to create this all-too-significant piece. You could say I came back in time to distant worlds and cleared out of me all the remnants that became a collection of movements, emotions and struggles within the piece. There is no doubt that this piece is meaningful and powerful to me

I had the pleasure of creating and dancing it and conveying my story to the audience. Then I was lucky to continue developing it and passing it to Ido Tadmor, who continued to dance it in a male version, I would say…

At the piece I used a sack of stones slamming on my back, decor of grass as an image of pain “And I waited for the grass to grow inside my body, only not to look fear in the eyes” and used imitation of movement of cows grazing in an attempt to become part of the group.

This piece is healing for the soul for me.

“And when the beast returned
And when the beast howled
And when the beast was pecking
Burning me in her pool of blood”

The work “And When the Beast Returns” was created for the “Shades in Dance” Festival under the artistic direction of Idit Herman.