Anyone who's seen Bess Kargman's "Spellbound"-esque dance documentary "First Position," knows who Gaya Bommer Yemini is. The Israeli dancer's journey to the Youth America Grand Prix dance competition along with five other young talents is the heart of "First Position," and currently the source of many a critic's vicarious agonizing and ecstasizing. In a film built on exceptional dance routines, Bommer Yemini performs one of the best: a wonderfully odd and stylized number called "Cartoon Girl," that's currently experiencing a resurrection online.
WATCH "Cartoon Girl":
The piece, choreographed by Bommer Yemini's dance teacher mother Nadine, sees the 12-year-old transforming her body into a marionette's. She tips and twists like a doll, recontextualizing a prop from a lollipop to a paddle at one point and seeming to melt into place at others.
Described at the time by a New York Times' reviewer as proof of "vivid individuality and a talent for comic timing," Bommer Yemini's performance won her first prize in the YAGP's contemporary category. Now, in one of those examples of the tipping point in action, the band Ween -- whose song "So Many People In The Neighborhood" scores "Cartoon Girl" -- found and posted the footage from last year's Grand Prix on their Facebook page without seeming to know that "First Position" is even a thing. You can't will this kind of publicity -- Kargman must be thanking the documentary gods that her subjects happen to be utterly mesmerizing to watch.