Dana Livne

We work as a regular duo

That is the first thing worth knowing about me, and nothing else in the catalogue has it.

Keren Shavit and I have worked together for two years, not as two dancers booked for the same evening but as a pair with a set that is actually built. We know when one comes in and the other steps out, and exactly where the handovers are.

What that gives you in the duo format: no moment where two people do the same thing in parallel and no wasted overlap. One long run that looks planned, because it is.

Why contrast rather than duplication

Two dancers at the same tempo is not an upgrade but a doubling, and it reads as weak. With us it is the opposite.

I am the fast half: club, go-go, wide movement, energy. Keren is the slow half: burlesque and fashion, holds, closeness, eye contact.

The room gets two states instead of one long one, and that matters more than anything else at a large group’s evening. After fifteen minutes of high tempo an audience needs something different, and instead of a break it gets Keren.

And if you book only me

That works too, and most of my bookings are solo.

Alone I do club or go-go, and a short lap dance for the guest of honour. My usual structure: a general part for the whole group, a break, the set for the guest, and one short closing appearance that hands the evening back to everyone.

What I need: three metres by three of clear hard floor and a speaker with real bass. In a club set that is not fussiness — without bass the style does not exist.

Thursdays and Fridays

Those are the days when it is hardest to find anyone free, so let me say it plainly: both of us keep weekends for work rather than for personal dates.

In practice: if you were told “nobody is free” for a Thursday, it is worth asking about us specifically. And about a duo booking too — two dancers on a Thursday evening is exactly where a diary breaks, and ours does not, because we go out together anyway.

I work with a room, not at it

The difference sounds semantic and in the room it is immediate.

In club and go-go the audience is part of the set: I react to whoever laughs, hold the eye of whoever raises a phone until he puts it down, and steer the tempo by what the room gives me. A quiet group gets something different from a loud one, and it is not the same number in two versions.

What that asks of you: do not sit in a closed circle. An arc, always. In a circle half the room is looking at the back of the other half’s heads, and I cannot work in two directions.

What our duo set looks like

The structure is fixed and we do not improvise it on the night.

Opening: me alone, twelve minutes of club or go-go. That lifts the room and puts everyone in the same state.

Handover: Keren comes in while I am still there and we overlap for about thirty seconds. It is the only moment we are seen together, and it is short on purpose — two dancers in parallel for any length of time wastes both.

Middle: Keren alone, burlesque or fashion, about ten minutes. The room drops in tempo and starts watching instead of shouting.

Ending: I come back for a short appearance, which hands the evening to the group. If there is a guest of honour, his lap dance goes before the ending rather than after.

About forty-five minutes in total with breaks. It can be shortened, but splitting it is a poor idea — the order works because of the handovers.

What does not happen with us

Guests do not initiate contact, in either format. In a duo that matters doubly, because a large group feels there is more room to test where the line is — and there is not.

Phones go down before we start. And if somebody in the group is pushing a person who does not want to take part, one of us stops it quietly, without calling him out in front of everyone.

And we do not split an evening across two rooms. Two dancers in two rooms is not what we do, and that is said in the first message rather than at the door.

What to put in your message

The hour, the venue, how many of you, and solo or duo. If it is a duo, say also whether there is one guest of honour or it is a general evening, because that changes our order.

And if you are torn between solo and duo: up to ten people, solo is entirely enough. Above fifteen a duo gives several times more, not because of the headcount but because the room splits and something has to hold it.

My working areas

All of Gush Dan and the centre: Tel Aviv, Florentin, Ramat Gan, Rishon LeZion and Herzliya. And the whole service area with ordinary notice.

The price is the same as everyone’s: 800 solo, 1,400 duo. Cash at the end.