Dancers talk about being

part of Ohad's alchemy

BY D E B O R A H F R I E D E S

GALILI

PHOTOGRAPHS

Rachael Osborne, Guy

Shomroni, and lyar Elezra

24

BY G A D I

DAGON

Elezra and
Qsborne

passed through the junior company,

Batsheva Ensemble.
What are the challenges these dancers face? How do they contribute to the
creative process? What does it feel like
to rely on Gaga as a technique class?
It's mid-afternoon in Tei Aviv, and the
Dance Magazine spoke to three dancers
members of Batsheva Dance Comwho have committed life and limb to
pany are gathered for rehearsal in the
this work.
second-floor Studio Varda, the largest of
Regardless of their background,
the troupe's three studios. Mirrors are
dancers new to Batsheva undergo a
nowhere to be seen, but inviting views
transition from their earlier training. An
beckon from windows on either side
alumnus of Juilliard and Mikhail Baryshof the room: look one way to glimpse
nikov's Hell's Kitchen Dance, Shamel
leafy citrus trees dotting the courtyard
Pitts arrived in Israel after a stint in BJM
of the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance
Danse Montral and was accustomed to
and Theatre, Israel's premier venue for
starting his workday with ballet class. He
dance; turn the other direction and the
calls Gaga, which operates as a dynamic
Mediterranean Sea is visible beyond a
laboratory, "a huge adjustment for me."
smattering of tiled roofs.
Like Pitts, Doug Letheren graduIgnoring the tantalizing vistas
ated from Juilliard and performed with
outside, several dancers sprawled on
Hell's Kitchen Dance as well as with
oversized pillows fix their gaze on the
Aszure Barton & Artists. Steeped in
action unfolding inside the studio.
ballet and modern dance, he viewed
Eleven ofthe company's 18 dancers are
Gaga as a revelation. "It felt like coming
fine-tuning a section of Ohad Naharin's home to the way you want to work
Hora (2009), which will be performed
as opposed to fitting into some other
during Batsheva's North American tour
thing," recalls Letheren.
(see schedule box on page 28). A member
Longtime Batsheva dancer Rachael
of the original cast helps a newer dancer
Osborne joined the ensemble in 2001
with a rapid-fire series of diabolical floor after studying ballet intensively in her
work. As they banter with one another native Australia. "I got in on the ground
and as they burst into short, quirky
level before Ohad developed all these
solo phrases from Hora ca.ch dancer
phrases he uses, which are basically keys
emerges as a compelling persona. Yet
to describe a whole sensation or a string
m brief moments of unison, the troupe
of things," she says. "Now it's almost
projects an arrestingly united front. This immediate: He says a word and you
group wields a magnetic synergy, strikknow exactly what he's talking about,
ing both on- and offstage.
whether it happens to be 'thick,' 'soft,'
Under the artistic direction of Naharin 'quake,' 'moons,' or 'horizontal forces.' "
since 1990, Batsheva Dance Company
Naharin frequently sets work on
has exploded on the international scene
other companies abroad, assembling
(see "Naharin's Influence"). Supported
collages of his work like Deca Dance
by daily sessions in Gaga, Naharin's
and Minus 16. Last autumn at Fall for
movement language, this band of fiercely Dance, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
expressive dancers has thrown themselves
wowed the audience with his Three
into the work. Their electrifying physical- to Max. But Naharin has long vowed
ity makes dancers in the audience yearn
to choreograph new dances only at
to get up and move. The main company
Batsheva, likening this choice to a comhas attracted talents from Sweden, Japan,
mitment made between life partners.
Taiwan, Australia, and the United States
Batsheva, he says, is his home for
as well as from Israel. Most of them have
artistic experimentation.
DANCE MAGAZINE

Naharin often invites his dancers to

improvise during the creative process;
Osborne observes that, as Gaga has
developed, the dialogue between the
choreographer and his company has
become more intuitive. Now, for the
dancers, she says, "his world is more
clear, and then inside that world you can
let your imagination go wild."
Osborne adds that Naharin usually sets rules "but always gives us the
freedom to break those rules." Even
when he devises most of the movement
himself, he leaves ample room for the
dancers to make decisions. During the
creation of Hora, made for two casts of
11, the choreographer retreated to the
studio with each pair of dancers and
concocted material specifically for that
role. Then the dancers played together
with their phrases, and Naharin tinkered
further, ultimately setting the choreography. The resulting work is brimming
with unexpected, sometimes whimsical
juxtapositions like one dancer's matterof-fact port de bras towards another's
chicken-like head pecks and moments
25

Naharin's
Influence
Last year Ohad Naharin celebrated
two decades at the helm of Batsheva,
a short time considering the huge
impact his work has had on the local and
international dance community. Prior to
Naharin's triumphant return from New
York in 1990, contemporary dance in
Israel was an amalgamation of styles and
trends adopted from Europe and the
United States. Though a generation of
choreographers was growing within the
country, the overall scene had failed to
coalesce.

of unison delivered with an almost

tongue-in-cheek humor.
Lcthcren notes that in all of
Batshcva's rehearsals, the dancers are
less focused on replicating a precise
image and instead "work more from the
sensation of it, or the drive of it, or the
energy of the movement." The dancers
are encouraged to go further with what
they are doing, to fully commit to each
moment with unapologetic authenticity. "The best thing you can do is be the
most yourself and be fearless in doing
that," says Letheren.
Pitts connects the spirited style of
feedback in the studio to the nature of
interactions in the .surrounding Israeli
culture. "1 find here that it's much more
direct," he says. "Sometimes as an
American, that could be misunderstood
for harshness. But for me, in terms of

26

a working environment, I accept it and

I learn from it." While the feedback
Naharin offers each person shifts as that
dancer evolves, Pitts notices, "He chooses
his words well. Somehow this choice of
words hits you hard, deeply, to the core."
In MAX (2007), also on tour, the
cast's 10 dancers contend with an unusual
costume element: earbuds. Although
these devices transmit a variety of cues,
ranging from basic counts to resonant
vocals, they also muffle everything from
the sounds of the dancers' breathing
and footfalls to the rustling of the stage
curtain as it opens. "Having these headphones on changes your orientation,"
explains Letheren. Pitts adds, "You have
to be very alert and sensitive, with the
qualities of a night creature ready for
whatever is going to happen."
Hora poses its own set of chai-

FEBRUARY

2012

Naharin's arrivai as artistic director of

Batsheva set the wheels in motion for a
monumental change in the country, one
that would place Israel in the center of
the international dance map and bring
contemporary dance into the forefront of
Israeli culture.
His approach was, at the time,
radically at odds with the cookiecutter expectations placed on company
dancers. Naharin asked his dancers to
expose their vulnerability, sexuality,
and intensity both in the studio and
onstage. Batsheva's performances
presented individuality in its most raw
form. His dances provided a window into
the turmoil of daily life, inspiring his
Israeli peers to match his candidness.
For the past 22 years, dance in
Israel has been represented globally by
Naharin's artistic sensibility, and Israeli
dance companies are defined by their
relationship to his style either in their
similarity to it or their divergence from it.
His influence can also be identified in the
works of leading choreographers around
the world, including former Batsheva
dancers Inbal Pinto (Tel Aviv), Hofesh
Shechter (London), and Andrea Miller
(Gallim Dance/New York).
The Batsheva company is now
synonymous with unimaginably free
limbs, a flow that connects disjunctive
movements, and piercing stares into the
audience. Navigating between charged
stillness and vibrant explosions of arms
and legs, Naharin's choreographies are
dynamic, engaging, and insightful. An
example of this winning blend took
audiences by storm in 1993, when
Naharin unveiled Anaphaza. The piece,
which includes the famous section
"Echad Mi Yodea" (originally from Kyr,
1990), where dancers burst out of their
chairs, sloughing off layers of their black
suits and hats, has become a staple for
the company and a calling card for the
volatile, in-your-face Israeli dance >

Eri Nakamura and ,_

Adi Zlatin in Sadeh21
(2011)

What Ohad Looks

For in a Dancer
"I always spend time to
see if they can connect to
the pleasure of dance
what it feels like, not
what it looks like. If they
can respond when I say
things like, 'Let your bones
float inside your flesh' or
'Connect your form to the
distance between our body
parts.' If they can use these

Naharin with daughter, Noga

suggestions to go beyond
their familiar limits, then
I'm happy. I like dancers
who have the leftover baby
in their bodiesbeing
without self-consciousness,
letting movement echo
their feelings. This is just
one color in the palette.
It's about being untamed
and available."

Icngcs. "Hora still feels a little bit raw

for me," says Osborne. "There are a
lot more moments I can be surprised
by what happens." With Isao Tomita's
synthesized renderings of well-known
melodies like Debussy's "Prelude to the
Afternoon of a Faun" and John Williams' theme for Star Wars, the score of
Hora sounds alien yet oddly familiar.
The audience's task is to leave behind
these references and dive into a fresh
experience. And one of the dancers'
tasks is to foster this freshness. Onstage
for an entire hour, the performers must
be wholly present whether they are
sitting motionless, moving minimally,
or devouring the space with gusto. "The
personal performance seems very influential to how the piece comes across,"
Letheren says. "If we're not really alive,
the work doesn't feel like it's going
forward."
Far more often than not, Letheren
and his fellow Batsheva dancers do appear fully alive onstage. They possess
an animalistic alertness. They approach
Naharin's multilayered movement with
astonishing dexterity and an insatiable
thirst for exploration. These dancers live
according to a frequent directive in Gaga:
"Connect to your passion to move."
And, as the Batsheva Dance Company revels in the pleasures of moving,
its audience revels in the pleasures of
being moved.
Deborah Friedes Galili is the founder
of danceinisrael.com and the author of
Contemporary Dance in Israel.

W h e r e t o see t h e m - > Feb. 23-25, San Francisco

Performances, MAX March 1-3, Place des Arts, Montreal, Hora March
7-10, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Hora March 15, Choregus Productions,
Tulsa, OK, MAX March 17-18, Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, MAX and
Bolero March 20, Texas Performing Arts, Austin, MAX March 22,
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, AZ, MAX

28

FEBRUARY

201 2

H aesthetic. This section is also part

of Naharin's collage Minus 16, which is
now in the repertoires of Hubbard Street
Dance Chicago, Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater, Nederlands Dans
Theater II, and Barcelona's IT Dansa.
Today, about half of the company's
performances each year are given
outside of Israel. Their deluxe facility
in the Suzanne Dellal Center in South
Tel Aviv serves as a beacon for foreign
performers hungry to study with or
audition for Naharin.
Naharin's offstage revolution. Gaga,
which offers dancers an alternative to
morning technique classes, has caught on
like wildfire, changing the way dancers
warm up. In New York City, Gaga classes
are offered regularly at Mark Morris
Dance Center, The Ailey Extension, and
Peridance Capezio Center. (Juilliard,
Harvard University, and other schools
have also held Gaga classes.) The growing
list of studios and companies seeking
the deliciousness of Gaga led Naharin
to establish a one-year Gaga teachertraining course in Tel Aviv last year.
The first moments of a Gaga session
look more like a tai chi practice than a
dance class. For one, there are no mirrors
in the studio. The participants, whether
they are "people" or "dancers" (Gaga
classes are divided into two categories:
"people," or those with no prior dance
experience, and professionals) stand
facing their teacher, doing something
called "floating" (moving as if in water)
for about 10 minutes. The participants
are in constant motion. They are not
taught sequences or exercises; rather
each student embarks upon a journey
of personal research. They explore a
series of images and sensations such as
moving from their "moons" (the joints
at the base of the fingers and toes) or
harnessing their "lena" (the energy
source in the lower abdomen).
Any company that learns a Naharin
piece is required to prepare by practicing
Gaga. This encourages the dancers
to forgo the strict lines of ballet in
favor of finding pleasurable, free, and
authentic movement. The effects of
this individualistic training can also be
seen in the subtle but immediately
noticeable change in the performance
of dancers in companies such as Cedar
Lake Contemporary Ballet (New York),
Cullberg Ballet (Sweden), or Hubbard
Street (Chicago) in Naharin's pieces
where highly trained dancers step out
of prescribed moves and offer gutsier,
groovier, more exposed sides of
themselves. Ori J. Lenkinski

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