Dance In Israel » Dance Training

Dancing in Israel: Summer Workshops

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 07:43:54 +0000

Sheetal Gandhi’s students at Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues 2009. Photo by Tully Chen.

When I first came to Israel to research dance in 2007, I occasionally crossed paths in open classes with other dancers from abroad. While local studios have always welcomed dancers from around the world, increasingly, short-term seasonal workshops are geared towards an international population of students. Thinking about expanding your horizons by training in Israel? Here are a few programs to keep on your radar.

Video: KCDC’s International Summer Program

The Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (KCDC) has launched an international summer dance program for dancers age 15-20. Taught by directors and dancers of both the main company and its junior ensemble as well as guest teachers, this program’s offerings include ballet and modern technique, strengthening sessions, and classes in the repertory of KCDC’s artistic director Rami Be’er. Participants live in guest houses on Kibbutz Ga’aton, home to the company and the Galilee Dance Village, and besides enjoying their stay on the kibbutz, the dancers enrich their experience abroad with weekend trips to other locations in Israel.

KCDC’s 2011 program is scheduled for July 7-21, and more information can be found on the company’s website.

Dancers at the Gaga Intensive Summer Course. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Since its inception in 2008, the Gaga Intensive has grown in size and popularity. Taught by Ohad Naharin and members of the Batsheva Dance Company, the two-week workshop includes Gaga/dancers classes, repertory classes focusing on Naharin’s choreography, and methodics classes, sessions which enable dancers to more deeply research key concepts. The course is open to professional dancers and dance students age 18 and up, and classes are held at Batsheva’s studios at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv.

The 2011 Gaga Intensive Summer Course is already full, but you can stay tuned to the Gaga website for updates about future workshops.

Video: Bridge Choreographic Dialogues 2009

Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues began as a program linking dance artists in Tel Aviv and Los Angeles, but it has grown into a broader endeavor with an increasingly diverse international faculty and student body. Held at the Suzanne Dellal Centre under the artistic direction of Barak Marshall, the two-week program is open to dancers age 20 and up who have at least three years of professional experience. While the exact offerings depend on the program’s faculty, Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues usually features classes in ballet, modern dance, and contemporary repertory as well as choreographic workshops.

The 2011 Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues will be held from July 31-August 12. More information can be found on Suzanne Dellal’s website and the workshop’s website.

Gaga for Japan: Class with Ohad Naharin to Benefit Earthquake & Tsunami Victims

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:24:39 +0000

Flier for the Gaga benefit for Japan

Have you been thinking about trying Gaga, Ohad Naharin’s movement language? Are you interested in doing something to help those affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan? Next week you can dance and donate to a good cause at the same time.

On Tuesday, April 5, Ohad Naharin and the members of the Batsheva Dance Company will offer a special Gaga/people class to the general public at the Tel Aviv Port’s Hangar 11. Tickets to take the class cost 50 NIS, and additional donations will also be welcomed. All proceeds will be donated to victims of the recent natural disasters in Japan.

Whether you’re already a longtime Gaga enthusiast or have never set foot inside a dance studio, you are welcome to enjoy this one hour class. The doors will open at 7:30 p.m., and the class itself starts at 8:30 p.m. Participants are encouraged to leave their bags and personal belongings at home and arrive dressed in comfortable clothing. Tickets can be ordered in advance by phone at 03-5104037 or online at www.batsheva.co.il. On the evening of the class, tickets will be sold at Hangar 11; only cash will be accepted at this time.

Gaga class with Ohad Naharin. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Want to learn more about Gaga? Read my earlier articles below and check out Gaga’s new website, which has information about Gaga classes and workshops happening in Israel, New York, and other locations around the world.

Related Websites

Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues 2010

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 06:20:14 +0000

Video: Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues 2009

“My personal aim is to really create an Impulstanz type of workshop program in Israel,” says Barak Marshall, choreographer and artistic director of Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues. “Ideally, that’s really where I want to take this festival. I think it’s necessary, and I think that the time is right for us to have an international dance festival.”

It’s an ambitious goal, but as Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues grows and evolves each year, it’s also one that is perfectly logical and increasingly attainable.

From its start, Bridge was centered on building strong international connections. In 2006, Miki Yerushalmi of the Jewish Federation’s Tel Aviv/Los Angeles Partnership approached Barak Marshall about creating a dance program. Marshall, who currently splits his time between the two cities, recruited UCLA and the Suzanne Dellal Center as partners and developed what he calls a “choreographic exchange program.” During the summers of 2007, 2008, and 2009, L.A.-based choreographers – often working in diverse forms absent from the Israeli scene, such as hip-hop and kathak dance – traveled to Tel Aviv to teach two-week workshops with Israeli dancers. Meanwhile, in May 2008, Ronit Ziv, Niv Sheinfeld, and Idan Cohen shared their artistry with L.A. dancers in a similar intensive. Plans are in the works for more Israeli choreographers to teach and perform in L.A. in the future.

Here in Israel, the Bridge summer course is becoming an annual highlight of the Tel Aviv’s bustling dance scene, providing an infusion of wide-ranging workshops with a world-renowned visiting faculty. This summer, about 100 dancers – including 5 students from the prestigious CalArts dance department, a handful of other dancers from the U.S. and Europe, and tens of Israelis from around the country – are expected to study with the most international roster of teachers yet. “I really wanted to for a very long time bring a more European influence into the course,” explains Marshall of his decision to expand the faculty from its original L.A. base. Among this year’s teachers are Damien Jalet, who has risen to prominence as a choreographer within the Belgian collective Les Ballets C. de la B. and as the co-director of Eastman alongside Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui; Lisi Estradas, a Spanish-trained former Batsheva Ensemble dancer who also works with Les Ballets C. de la B.; and Michal Mualem, who danced with several local choreographers before joining Sasha Waltz & Guests and creating her own productions with her partner Giannalberto de Filippis. “These are 3 international and incredible artists, and I went very consciously after them to come and do the course,” Marshall reflects.

Further adding international flavor to this year’s Bridge are South Korean choreographer Chuck Park, the Paris Opera Ballet’s Bruno Bouché, and Caracas Ballet founder Maria Barrios Zaks. Even the teachers who are fixtures on the local scene, like Naomi Perlov, Jay Augen, and Marshall himself, boast a significant record of international work.

The diversity of the faculty pays dividends for Bridge’s dancers. “What I’m really trying to expose the dancers to are just a myriad of different ways of moving, a myriad of vocabularies and knowledges,” states Marshall. Classes in ballet, contemporary technique, and contemporary repertory as well as choreographic workshops allow dancers to work with multiple teachers, sample a variety of styles, and broaden their horizons. With this particular select faculty, even a single teacher may expose dancers to a range of movement. Marshall highlights Jalet’s “cross-cultural approach,” marveling that he and Cherkaoui mix “theater with ethnic movement with release with acrobatics; it’s just endless, the world he brings!”

Besides expanding the participants’ physical abilities, Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues 2010 will challenge dancers to develop their artistry as active members of the choreographic process. Marshall remarks, “The emphasis this year is the dancer as creator . . . these other choreographers really have a very democratic and dancer-as-creator mode of creation, so what I hope to really offer to the participants is to open their eyes to their abilities as a creator, not just as an interpreter.” Furthermore, Marshall notes that Bridge has served as a launching pad for dancers’ careers, enabling them to meet both local and visiting choreographers and fostering strong professional connections. Marshall himself has found several dancers for his recent works Monger and Rooster through Bridge.

The stimulating interaction runs both ways, with not only the dancers but also the choreographers benefiting from the mix of participants and approaches. Most of all, Marshall explains, foreign choreographers who have taught at Bridge have discovered what he calls “the wow of the Israeli dancer and the Israeli artist and the Israeli soul.” He elaborates, “Everybody who has participated in the three previous workshops came with their own preconceptions of Israel, first of all, and consequently of the Israeli dancer, from their limited knowledge. I know that everybody has gone away with this deep impression about the power of Israeli dancers. And I’m always very, very proud of that; I think that Israeli dancers offer something [that is] so powerful and overwhelming and all-encompassing.”

Liat Dror of Adama: Dancing from Tel Aviv to the Desert

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:40:22 +0000

Liat Dror. Courtesy of Nir Ben-Gal and Liat Dror.

(This podcast was initially produced for Israel Seen in 2008. You can subscribe to this podcast using the iTunes software by clicking this link to the podcast feed.)

The several hour trek south from Tel Aviv to Mizpe Ramon in the Negev desert is tiring, but at the end of the journey is a refreshing oasis: Adama, an extraordinary dance center created by Liat Dror and Nir Ben-Gal. I first experienced the magic of Adama during a two-day visit in January 2008 and was thrilled to return in April 2008 for some more dancing and an interview with each of these choreographers.

I interviewed Liat after she taught a dance class for the Adama school’s students, the company members, a group of photography students visiting from Sderot, and a few “tourists” like myself who had dropped in for a few days. The mixture of people was as unique as Adama itself. Intrigued? Join us as Liat talks about how she and Nir forged a new path in Israeli contemporary dance, moved to the desert, and developed an innovative approach to healthy, healing movement.

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To catch a glimpse of Liat and Nir’s groundbreaking and prize-winning Two Room Apartment (1987), which we discuss in our interview, check out the first minute of this video. The rest of the video focuses on Nir and Liat’s current work in the desert, offering an inside look at Adama and scenic views of Mizpe Ramon.

Video: Liat Dror and Nir Ben-Gal

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Adama’s dancers rehearsing in April 2008.

Adama is currently gearing up for a busy summer: the company runs a summer course from July 12-17 and a teachers’ course from July 25-28. Visitors may also enjoy Adama’s Magic Summer Night from July 16-17, which includes a performance of the company’s latest work.

Other Podcasts on Dance In Israel

Announcing the Gaga Intensive 2010

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:35:13 +0000

Gaga Intensive. Photo by Gadi Dagon

Many of you have inquired about the 2010 Gaga Intensive, a two-week summer course offered by Ohad Naharin along with dancers from Batsheva Dance Company. So, as the registration coordinator for the workshop, I’m pleased to offer you the scoop: this year’s intensive will be held from July 11-23 in Tel Aviv at the Batsheva studios in the Suzanne Dellal Center. The Gaga Intensive is geared towards dancers and dance students age 18+. Classes in Gaga, Naharin’s repertory, and Gaga methodics will run Sundays through Thursdays from 10:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon, and there will also be classes on Friday mornings. The course will cost 2000 NIS, or roughly $500.

If you have questions, please do not contact me through Dance In Israel but instead e-mail me at: gagaint@gmail.com

You can register at: www.gagapeople.com

Hope to see you in Tel Aviv this summer!

Experiencing Yasmeen Godder’s Repertory Workshop

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:04:39 +0000

Yasmeen Godder and Iris Erez in Godder’s Two Playful Pink. Photo by Tamar Lamm.

More than a year ago, I had the opportunity to take a week-long repertory workshop at Yasmeen Godder’s studio. I found the intensive enriching both as a dancer and as a dance researcher, and I recounted my experience on The Winger on April 4, 2008; that article is posted below.

Now another batch of advanced dancers will have the chance to sink their teeth into Godder’s meaty material during a brand-new, year-long intensive. Hosted by ActSearch and held at Godder’s studio in Jaffa, this program will build participants’ physical and expressive skills through a mix of technique classes, repertory workshops, and sessions with dramaturge Itzik Giuli.

Besides preparing for this exciting endeavor, Godder has been touring one of her latest works, Singular Sensation. Want to watch some of her work and see what’s in store for her new students? There are lots of upcoming performances in several locations. After one more performance of Singular Sensation at Suzanne Dellal on October 1, the production is traveling to Prague and Bern in October before touring Germany and Belgium in November. For more information on the intensive workshop and the tour, check out the links at the end of this article.

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Yasmeen Godder’s Repertory Worskhop (April 2008)

It’s been more than seven months since I have learned new repertory, and while I’m loving my dance classes and improvisational projects, I do miss the process of absorbing and living in a piece of choreography. So even though my body feels a bit tired now, my spirit is extremely happy after tasting a bit of Yasmeen Godder’s work!

I just finished a five-day workshop at her studio in Jaffa (at the south of Tel Aviv – technically, the city is Tel Aviv-Yafo). Yasmeen is currently on tour in Europe with her production Sudden Birds, so two of her dancers led the intensive. Each day began with Eran Shanny’s technique class, which was very similar to Yasmeen’s with its influences of release technique, yoga, Feldenkrais, and more.

After Eran helped us absorb the principles of Yasmeen’s movement style, Iris Erez took over for the repertory segment of the workshop. We did improvisational exercises like those Yasmeen uses in her creative process, and we learned solo and duet material from Two Playful Pink. Yasmeen’s choreography is meaty, both in its movement vocabulary and its emotional content, and Two Playful Pink – a piece originally performed in 2003 by Yasmeen and Iris – is no exception. The dance concerns attitudes towards femininity and the body, and the movement often shifts a conventional expression of sexuality into more unfamiliar (or unaccepted?) territory: a hand seductively placed on the upper thigh soon insistently clutches the crotch; the slow fixing of messy hair is paired with a sudden spank-like slap to the hip; a smile is distorted by tucking in the upper lip or tugging the cheek into a sneer.

Yasmeen Godder and Iris Erez in Godder’s Two Playful Pink. Photo by Tamar Lamm.

There’s so much I could say about what I gained through this experience – in fact, my stream of consciousness free-write in my notes file was enough to make Word send me a few error messages last night – but I’ll try to keep my post here manageable . . . If you haven’t noticed yet, I tend to be a bit wordy!

I’ve found myself explaining recently that yes, I am both a dancer and a researcher, so I’ll write a bit about how these two activities are complementary. Quite wonderfully, this workshop reinforced my belief in the value of physical research. My experience in technique classes this year has provided me with important information about the physicality used in Israeli contemporary dance. Yet with repertory, there’s another level of experience and analysis to be found; instead of simply dealing with the raw material of technique – some of the building blocks of a finished dance – learning choreography allows me to explore issues of composition and content along with the movement itself.

This week I got a physical sense of Yasmeen’s partnering work, which epitomizes an intricate, aggressive style employed by many young Israeli choreographers. Actually attempting to dance excerpts of this duet gave me a deeper appreciation of what I had admired from afar because I myself got to experience (or, well, try to experience) the speed, precision, and trust involved in this kind of partnering. I was also reminded that in the hands of the right choreographer (and ultimately in the bodies of the right dancers), movement can be wonderfully loaded with meaning. In the duet excerpts from Two Playful Pink, each tug, shove, jerk, drop, fall, and look is a challenge from one woman to the other, a chance to manipulate, dominate, taunt, display . . .

Yasmeen Godder and Iris Erez in Godder’s Two Playful Pink. Photo by Tamar Lamm.

Learning repertory also provides an extraordinary opportunity for me to recognize and question the assumptions I make as a spectator of choreography. As I realized this week, what you perceive when you are an audience member does not always get at the truth of the matter from the performer’s perspective.

What I often see in Israeli contemporary dance is power – but it’s not always a controlled power or a power composed of force. In my experience with Yasmeen’s choreography (and specifically thanks to the feedback Iris gave me), I understood that this power is at times a matter of energy unleashed by giving into momentum and gravity. Having trained primarily in ballet and older modern dance forms such as Cunningham technique and Graham, Taylor, and Limón-influenced styles, I find working in this released-influenced mode quite challenging – but also quite necessary for my growth as a dancer. You can bet I’ll be back in Yasmeen’s classes after she returns from her tour!

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Batsheva Dance Company: From Graham to Gaga

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:14:43 +0000

Rachael Osborne and Iyar Elezra in Ohad Naharin’s Hora. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

I first wrote the article below for the Forward last winter, when the Batsheva Dance Company toured North America in three large-scale productions. Now, right before New York audiences catch Ohad Naharin’s duet B/olero in City Center’s popular Fall for Dance festival, I decided it was time to revisit this piece.

Fall for Dance features an array of internationally-renowned companies, and while Batsheva has boasted a world-class reputation since its inception, its style and structure have changed dramatically over the last few decades. This article, originally titled “Going Gaga for Batsheva in America,” traces Batsheva’s transition from a strongly American-influenced company to the more distinctive troupe which has captivated contemporary audiences.

Going Gaga for Batsheva in America

Since its first tour of the United States in 1970, Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company has won over American crowds and critics alike with its energetic approach to dance. At the time, it was, perhaps, a novelty: an Israeli group performing primarily American repertory with unbridled verve and vigor. But in the past 18 years, the company has become a phenomenon of a different sort. The Batsheva Dance Company, which is currently crisscrossing North America, is widely recognized as one of the world’s top dance ensembles, featuring audacious choreography with inventive movement.

Founded in 1964 with the financial backing of Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, Batsheva began as a repertory company in the American mold. Martha Graham, a founding mother of American modern dance and a beneficiary of de Rothschild’s patronage, served as artistic adviser. The Israeli dancers trained intensively in Graham’s technique and channeled both their physical power and their emotional passion into some of the choreographer’s most acclaimed works. With many of Graham’s disciples contributing to Batsheva’s repertory, the Tel Aviv-based company was part of American modern dance’s family; New York Times critic Clive Barnes even called Batsheva’s members “the Israeli children of American dance” upon seeing the company’s American debut.

Though Graham’s direct influence on the company lessened in the late 1970s, the troupe continued to import its rotating cast of artistic directors and most of its choreographers from abroad. In the 1980s, though, the Israeli team of David Dvir and Shelley Shir assumed the helm. There were some important shifts during this decade: Ballet eclipsed Graham technique as the company’s preferred training, and more Israelis joined the roster of contributing choreographers. Yet despite outstanding dancers and well-crafted repertory, Batsheva appeared to some observers to be a company sailing on its strengths rather than forging ahead into artistic frontiers.

This changed in 1990, with the appointment of Ohad Naharin as artistic director. Naharin was no stranger to the Batsheva Dance Company; he started his dance career with the group and was cast almost immediately as Esau in Martha Graham’s Jacob’s Dream, which Graham choreographed in 1974 for the company’s 10th anniversary. Although Naharin soon departed for New York to study and perform with Graham, he returned periodically to choreograph for Batsheva.

Indeed, by the time Naharin accepted the post of artistic director, he had made a name for himself as a choreographer on three continents. Besides his work with Batsheva and with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Naharin created dances for his own pick-up group in New York City throughout the 1980s. In 1987, Jiri Kylian, one of Europe’s pre-eminent choreographers, invited him to the Netherlands to be a guest choreographer at the Nederlands Dans Theater. By then, marvelously textured movement and a mesmerizing signature fluidity in the spine and limbs already characterized Naharin’s work.

Thus, Naharin returned to Tel Aviv with a well-developed choreographic voice that became an integral part of his sophisticated artistic vision for Batsheva. He assembled a rich blend of repertory from the cream of the crop, inviting such luminaries as Kylian, William Forsythe, and Angelin Preljocaj to work with the company. Fresh Israeli choreographers like Itzik Galili, Anat Danieli and Inbal Pinto also peppered the group’s offerings, but the base was always Naharin’s own work. He set several of his earlier creations from America and Europe on Batsheva, and he choreographed new dances including Kyr, Mabul, and Anaphasa. With Naharin’s distinctive choreography as a backbone, the company was rejuvenated and redirected on a more coherent path.

Naharin further revamped Batsheva in the past decade, abandoning the repertory model that it had followed from its inception. Now, the company is devoted to performing Naharin’s creations, as well as works by house choreographer Sharon Eyal, who as a dancer has been one of the most articulate interpreters of Naharin’s work. This refined focus strengthened Batsheva’s identity with an unmistakable aesthetic that in turn propelled the company to the peak of contemporary dance. Over the past several years, the unique physicality of Batsheva’s dancers has enthralled viewers and created significant buzz in the dance world.

Ohad Naharin and dancers during the 2009 Gaga Intensive. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

The key to this distinguishing feature is Gaga, a method of training developed by Naharin since the 1990s. Gaga is radically different from most dance training. The mirror is banished from the studio, and dancers do not perform specific combinations of movement but instead respond to verbal instructions; these prompts can call attention to specific body parts, actions or qualities. This exploration arms the Batsheva dancers with an extraordinary range of movement that stretches beyond that fostered by traditional training methods. Smooth, sharp, strong, soft, shaking — the dancers have a full toolbox of textures that they can apply to their pliable bodies.

Yet it’s not just the range of textures that is so striking; there’s something special about how fully Batsheva dancers bring themselves to performances. In 2008, Naharin wrote about Gaga, “We learn to love our sweat, we discover our passion to move and connect it to effort, we discover both the animal in us and the power of our imagination.” Even as Gaga readies the dancers for Naharin’s and Eyal’s choreography, it also tunes them into their individual selves; it engages their thoughts and emotions, as well as their bodies.

Through Gaga, Naharin and his troupe have harnessed and explored the remarkable energy that has been a defining feature of the Batsheva Dance Company since the 1960s. This energy is systematically and breathtakingly deployed in Naharin’s choreography, and it enlivens all the works the company is now performing, from the spare Three to the eclectic Deca Dance to the compositionally layered MAX, which closed Batsheva’s last North American tour at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. And it’s this energy that electrifies — and moves — not just the dancers, but also the audience.

Gaga for Dancers: From the Gaga Intensive to New Open Classes

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:44:35 +0000

Dancers at the Gaga Intensive 2009. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

I’ve been studying Gaga for the better part of two years, but the vast majority of the classes I have taken fall under the rubric of “Gaga People,” Gaga classes which are open for participants regardless of any previous dance experience. There’s something magical about these classes. It’s not often that you walk into a dance studio full of people ranging in age from their early 20s to their 70s, some of whom have performed professionally and some of whom simply love to move but have never taken a dance class before.

Yet there was also something special about taking Gaga classes with 120 other dancers during the Gaga Intensive this summer. “Gaga Dancers” classes challenged me to more thoroughly explore the underlying concepts of Ohad Naharin’s movement language and enabled me to research these ideas while connecting more consciously to my body’s knowledge of ballet and modern dance forms. I wasn’t just working from my lena; I was working my arabesque from my lena. I was floating while doing changements, exploring biba while doing developés, and sensing my luna while doing pliés and relevés.

I’m happy to announce that starting on September 8th, Gaga classes designed specifically for dancers will be opened to the public in Tel Aviv. Like the “Gaga People” classes, these will take place at the Suzanne Dellal Center. If you have previous dance training, you can get your groove on at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. And I’m also happy to announce that starting soon, I’ll be the one working the door! For more details, please see the Events calendar.

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Before open “Gaga Dancers” classes start, I wanted to share another glimpse of last month’s Gaga Intensive. I first wrote the article below, “Learning to Speak Gaga,” for the Jerusalem Post. To read what other dancers thought about their Gaga experience, check out my previous post, “Reflections on the Gaga Intensive 2009.”

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Learning to Speak Gaga

Amidst the waves of tourists arriving in Israel this summer was one particularly diverse group, gathering, from around the globe, in Tel Aviv. They came from the United States, Canada, Mexico, England, Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Cameroon, Japan and Korea. Like some other foreign visitors, they were eager to experience an unfamiliar culture and learn a new language. But these weren’t typical tourists and they weren’t planning to study Hebrew. They are dancers. And they came to immerse themselves in Gaga.

Dancers at the Gaga Intensive 2009. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Gaga is the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin, artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company. Year-round Gaga classes – held at Tel Aviv’s Suzanne Dellal Center and other locations throughout Israel – have attracted a devoted crowd of dancers and non-dancers alike. Meanwhile, dancers in other countries have sampled Gaga in popular master classes taught by Batsheva’s members during international tours. But the two-week Gaga Intensive, which took place from July 19-31, provided a unique opportunity for both Israeli and foreign dancers to study Naharin’s innovative approach and learn excerpts from his captivating choreography.

Armed with brightly colored water bottles and packets of information, the 120 workshop participants were bubbling with anticipation before their first class. Some had previous experience in Gaga and were hungry for more. But for many, this would be their introduction to a class that would likely bare little resemblance to their years of training.

For one thing, mirrors are banished from the Gaga studio and, for another, rather than giving combinations of movement, Gaga teachers dance alongside their students, offering vivid verbal instructions that are interpreted by each person. The emphasis is not on specific steps or positions but on sensation and availability for movement.

With an hour-and-a-half Gaga class each morning and a more experimental, two-hour long Gaga method class each afternoon, the workshop attendees soon picked up a new physical language. Words like “biba,” “lena” and “tama” entered their vocabulary. They discovered how to float their bones inside their flesh and move quickly while maintaining a sense of plenty of time. Above all, they connected to a sense of pleasure and their passion to move – one of Naharin’s most frequent instructions.

Batsheva dancer Iyar Elezra demonstrates at the Gaga Intensive 2009. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

In between classes, the dancers put their newfound knowledge into practice while learning sections from Naharin’s work. The quickening beats and intoxicating melody of an Arabic song wafted through the building as the participants practiced “Arab Line” from Naharin’s Virus; their agile bodies pierced the space in explosive improvisations, their clenched fists pounded the air and their sharp shouts reverberated throughout the studio. During Mamootot, the dancers motivated each motion from evocative images and performed the phrase-work with a clarifying efficiency. Then they broke this quiet calm in a section from MAX, streaking fiercely across the room with daring abandon.

At the end of these long, hot days, the dancers jammed in playful improvisation sessions which epitomized the workshop’s atmosphere of exuberant exploration. Indeed, for many of the participants, these two weeks were a joyful, profound experience.

Recent Julliard graduate Sarah Goldstone remarked happily, “The curiosity for dance and for experiencing new ways of moving is back.” Hannah Nieh, who also hails from New York, reflected, “My body has explored so much uncharted territory and knows that there’s the potential for more.” And Birgitte Lundtoft of Denmark laughed, “I actually feel that you get addicted to Gaga. After a day off, the body wants to do it again!” With this year’s workshop over, it’s just a single trip around the sun till the dancers flock back to Israel for next summer’s Gaga Intensive 2010.

Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues 2009 Brings L.A. to Israel

Deborah Friedes Galili — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:44:19 +0000

Sheetal Gandhi’s workshop group. Photo by Tully Chen.

Sheetal Gandhi watched attentively as three pairs of her students transformed the material she had taught into duets. The dancers chatted with each other in Hebrew, occasionally asking their teacher questions in English. Yet there were other unfamiliar sounds peppering their speech: bols, syllables from an Indian drum and dance language. The dancers’ lilting chants created a mesmerizing rhythmic pulse for their kathak-influenced movement.

Meanwhile, in another studio at the Suzanne Dellal Center, Jackie Lopez – aka Miss Funk – was introducing her students to wack’n, one genre of hip-hop. Starting off slowly, she layered arm gestures onto a full-bodied rocking action, sped up the movement, and played even more with the coordination. After reviewing a popping phrase and moving onto a house combination, she turned to the dancers. “I don’t want professional house dancers,” she told them. “I just want you to feel something new.”

Trying something new is the driving force behind Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues, a unique summer workshop which creates links between the Israeli and American dance scenes. Claudio Kogon, deputy director of the Suzanne Dellal Center, elaborated, “The point of this program is to bring people who have a unique background, to bring choreographers that could offer people here in Israel something different.” While the Israeli dancers who participated in this workshop had years of experience in contemporary dance, most of them had little contact with either Sheetal’s kathak-flavored fusion of dance or Jackie’s rich hip-hop vocabulary. They came, as Jackie hoped, to feel something new.

Jackie Lopez’s workshop group. Photo by Tully Chen.

Initiated by Miki Yerushalmi and directed by Barak Marshall, Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues is an Education Exchange Project of the Los Angeles/Tel Aviv Partnership. The project has received support from organizations in both communities, most notably the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, UCLA’s Center for Intercultural Performance, and the Suzanne Dellal Center. To bridge the gap between choreographers living thousands of miles apart – and to bridge the gap between their respective cultures – this program has been held both in Los Angeles and in Tel Aviv.

This is the third year that Tel Aviv has hosted Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues, and both Sheetal and Jackie traveled from L.A. to teach and create short works on Israeli dancers from August 2-14. Barak, who is also based in L.A. for part of the year, flew in to teach a week-long repertory workshop with excerpts from Monger and material from Rooster, which will be premiered this fall in Tel Aviv. The program also featured a choreography workshop with renowned New York-based choreographer Shen Wei. Jay Auguen’s ballet classes and Noemi Perlov’s contemporary classes rounded out the intensive’s schedule.

Sheetal Gandhi. Photo by Tully Chen.

For Sheetal, who recently received her MFA from UCLA’s World Arts and Cultures department, the workshop has been an opportunity to explore how she can teach her unique style of movement. Sheetal calls herself an “intercultural, interdisciplinary artist and choreographer,” and indeed, her work is influenced by diverse forms including kathak, jazz, modern dance, and West African dance. Her creative choreography blends the complex rhythms, strikingly percussive feet, and fluid, almost calligraphic arm and hand motions of kathak with more contemporary turns, jumps, floorwork, and choreographic motifs.

Sheetal Gandhi’s workshop group. Photo by Tully Chen.

Speaking about kathak dance, which she has studied in India in Kumudini Lakhia’s Kadamb School and in L.A. with Anjani Ambegaokar, Sheetal remarks, ”I use kathak as a way to teach the things that I do – which is the gestural language, focus, presence, rhythm, timing, musicality, and footwork. So I would never claim to teach a pure kathak class, but I use it as a springboard.” Sheetal was excited to share her knowledge of kathak dance with the students in her Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues workshop class. “I love to pass it on,” she says. “It’s a form that otherwise people wouldn’t have any exposure to.”

Jackie Lopez. Photo by Tully Chen.

Likewise, Jackie was eager to educate Israeli contemporary dancers about what was for them an unfamiliar dance style. Jackie is steeped in the hip-hop culture of L.A., where she has won several house battles, and she has worked with the groundbreaking hip-hop artist Rennie Harris. “I just love it so much, and it’s my job to pass it on so this hip-hop culture never dies,” she explains.

While studying for her bachelor’s degree in UCLA’s World Arts and Culture, Jackie went deeper into her research of hip-hop dance. Her approach to teaching reflects what she learned, from the history of hip-hop’s origins to the array of subgenres within hip-hop dance. During the workshop, Jackie’s students found video clips of different hip-hop legends online, and she says proudly, “They come back [to the studio], and they look better, because they understand it . . . now they’re able to connect to it in their own way, and it comes more naturally.”

Jackie Lopez’s workshop group. Photo by Tully Chen.

At the final showing for the entire workshop last Friday, both Sheetal and Jackie’s students demonstrated not only their understanding of this new material but also their enjoyment. Delighted smiles often crept onto Sheetal’s students faces as their fluid arms traced patterns through the air. When Jackie’s class took the stage, they exuded enthusiasm for the energetic, fast-paced movement.

Both the teachers and the students alike are looking forward to continuing these dialogues with each other and with these genres of dancing. Jackie said that several of the dancers in her workshop will be taking hip-hop classes this year, and she herself hopes to return to Israel in the future. “All I crave is to maybe come back and keep making it grow,” Jackie reveals. “I can tell the students now after this, I hope you guys start practicing so if I come back next year, I’ll see stronger dancers.”

Reflections on the Gaga Intensive 2009

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:21:42 +0000

Ohad Naharin leads class at the Gaga Intensive 2009. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Last year, I only made it to two days of the Gaga Intensive because I was heading back to the U.S. for the summer. But this year, I enjoyed two glorious weeks of dancing with 120 participants from around the world. During our breaks, I talked to many of the dancers about why they came to the workshop, what they enjoyed most, and what they got out of the experience. I’ll be posting more of my writing about the Gaga Intensive later, but first I wanted to bring you some inspiring voices from these dancers.

If you want to share your experience from the Gaga Intensive, you can write a comment at the bottom of this post!

* * *

Allison Shir

- United States, via Amsterdam

I came to the Gaga workshop to expand my vocabulary in a new way. Sometimes if you keep going to the same classes and do the same styles, your artistry can get stale. I think this [intensive] is a lot about how your artistry can feed your physicality and technique rather than the other way around. I think that makes for a much richer and satisfying workshop, and you can take away a lot for your career and your life. It’s not just about dancing with your body but with your life, and about the interconnectedness of everything – there are dynamic possibilities within everything here.

* * *

Victoria Hoyland

– England

I was dancing with Hofesh Shechter as an apprentice and one of the dancers told me about it. Everyone in the Hofesh company just raves about Batsheva and Gaga, so I just had to go!

I just think the information, the way they use the imagery and make your body do things it doesn’t normally do, it’s as if they find the creative strand; they pull it out, somehow. I’ve had it a bit the last year, since Hofesh was here with Batsheva; it’s some of the same ideas of the Gaga technique, but it’s different.

Here there don’t seem to be any boundaries. They’re specific but they leave it open to interpretation, so you don’t need to try to look like something or be like something. That’s what I’ll take home and apply. It makes improvisation less scary; it makes it like a fun challenge, and I used to hate improvisation!

* * *

Hannah Nieh

– United States

One of my best friends did a Gaga workshop last summer, and I saw such a shift in her artistry . . .

I’ve always loved Ohad’s choreography. I’ve seen Nederlans Dans Theatre and Hubbard Street, and this year I saw Batsheva at BAM. I was moved – I saw something very unique, an energy, a special quality that I hadn’t seen for a while. I’m used to seeing really great technicians in New York, but I saw something even more honest in Batsheva.

I had taken a master class with Ohad and knew I wanted to delve into a deeper understanding of what Gaga was, especially after seeing [Batsheva] perform. There’s a feeling of humanity that’s so strong which you don’t see as often as you’d hope in something that is so human.

The workshop challenges you on every level: spiritually, mentally, and of course, physically. I love how [Ohad] talks about being available, which makes me think about the limitless potential we all hold. It feels like Buddhism for your body. My body has explored so much uncharted territory and knows that there’s the potential for more. You can explode, be soft, turn in, turn out – it’s all there. You’re sensing that even if you’re not doing that.

* * *

Evelyn Klöti

– Switzerland

I was here [at the workshop] last year already. It gives you a lot of energy! You have the freedom to move – there are structures, but inside them you have freedom, pleasure, humor . . . But it’s also very intellectual because I think the images are coming from different fields, and that’s also challenging to really sense what the intention of the image is.

* * *

Abbe Ouziel

– United States

I worked with someone from the [Batsheva] company in the States and saw the company perform a few times. They came to New York for a while when they were working with Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, and I took Gaga classes there. I had always wanted to keep working in this way, so when I heard there was a workshop, I signed up. I wanted to have a good amount of time to work like this instead of doing just a class here and a class there.

What has been the best thing? I guess connecting Gaga technique with the repertory they have been teaching. It’s a good way to test your body and see if you can incorporate all the information that you’ve been getting into the set forms that they’re teaching. And it’s a totally different way of moving. It’s like every movement can be an empty movement, but what we’ve been learning has been filling these movements up. It’s a more challenging and interesting way of dancing.

I think I’m getting a much more efficient and fuller way of working. I’m making sure that I’m putting all that I have into the way that I move and don’t just have empty forms in space. Also, I’m listening to my body more. Just seeing the way that the dancers here work is something to take away because they really put all of themselves into each little movement that they do. And they all do it in a different way, which is really cool!

* * *

Aviv Asulin

– Israel

In the first day, it was amazing! I went out, and it was like, “Wow!” I hadn’t danced in two weeks, but it was really great. All my body opened up and I felt really happy; I talked to my mom and smiled at everyone on the street.

The classes are really professional. The teachers are amazing; they do Gaga very well, and the transference of the information is great. I like the repertoire. Kamuyot and the solos were especially amazing.

* * *

Sarah Goldstone

– United States

My training at Juilliard was very traditional, but we got the chance to work with Ohad on excerpts from MAX and excerpts from Three. To do something that was more modern, contemporary, and current, it was the most fulfilling and exciting experience in my whole Juilliard career. And at Juilliard you rehearse so much that it can die a little in the process – things become stale, and they’re always telling you to do things like the person in the video did. And to not do that was like, Oh . . . it wasn’t a free for all, but you got to experience it for yourself. Even though we rehearsed in the Juilliard fashion, Ohad’s work was always, constantly fresh. I felt like a kid again!

Being here at the intensive, I feel curious again. It’s not like, “Do a tondue and look like this person.” I do a tondue and experience it for myself. It’s what the dance world needs, I think.

The curiosity for dance and for experiencing new ways of moving is back. I had been a little bit jaded by all this traditional technique, and even though I feel like I’m just scratching the surface of all the tasks of Gaga, I want to keep investing. Ohad talks about multi-layer tasks, and you see that in the dancers, in the teachers. I feel like if I keep doing this I can finally grab hold and get to what he’s talking about.

And the repertory feels very human, it doesn’t feel presentational. We keep getting this correction from the teachers, that it doesn’t have to be presentational. To have that, it’s so new; it feels good to just be. I feel this has been a great outlet for that.

* * *

An intense moment at the Gaga Intensive. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Birgitte Lundtoft

– Denmark

I’ve seen the Batsheva Company in all their performances in Copenhagen, and I’m so moved by it – it really has a bite somehow. It captures me. The dynamics and the fleshiness of it, the bodies . . .

I did Gaga for a couple of weeks in Denmark; I tried it there first. I can’t exactly say what it is, but I think there’s just this feeling that there’s something I want here, something I want to do.

Here at the workshop, I’m in the middle of it; I see all the dancers, and it’s very intensive. So you go much deeper into it. I actually feel that you get addicted to it – after the day off yesterday, my body wanted to do it again! It wanted more.

I really love the method classes the most, because at the end of the day, when we’ve had the Gaga class and the repertory, I don’t know if I have any more in me, but a whole new kind of energy comes. I like that very much.

* * *

Hallie Dalsimer

– United States, based in Tel Aviv

Gaga is about embodied sensation. You have to engage the mind to embrace the concept, but then there’s a point when you have to let go of the conscious and be with the sensation. When it happens, it’s really magical, it’s satisfying. There’s another thing: it’s about this honest experience and sensation and not what it looks like.

In the repertory, there’s a unison of intention without the unison of form. The fact that everyone has this same impetus gives it this juiciness.

It’s an expansive way to work, to break out of habits and habitual ways of doing a task. And it can really enrich your experience of other forms; it allows more possibility.

Gaga is empowering for people because it allows you to connect to yourself in a way that is powerful and liberating. It’s really transformed my interests in movement. It’s been a really amazing thing to have access to.

* * *

Anna Roethlisberger

– Switzerland

It’s interesting because I did a lot of performance, dance, and Feldenkrais, and I got a grant to come here. Some people recommended it to me, and I thought, “Okay, let’s have a look at it.” And I was a bit skeptical but open at the same time, and wondering how Ohad would make the translation and transition from warming up and oppositional things to dancing – the bridge between functional research to real movement and improvisation.

I think it’s a very good thing. For dancers who are at the beginning of a career and non-dancers, they have an enormous potential and chance to really integrate something. They can get a really nice base and have an impulse to go further. They can start to have more inspiration afterwards.

Ohad transmitted it very beautifully. When a method is developed by somebody, he is like the body of the method, so I like taking classes from Ohad because he’s really the pool of information. He is the body which can transport the message. And I think sometimes it’s very difficult to learn a method from someone; you really have to understand as a teacher what he meant – really study your own body and not just copy the thing. And I think Ohad has this gift to inspire people because he developed it. He is the pool, the source. I like to be with the source, and have the freedom to create around. I got a good inspiration for movement and it gives me feedback and courage to go to improvisation and choreography. It is a good base from which to go much further.

I really think he reaches people on a different level.

* * *

Shai Faran

– Israel

I have been doing training for Gaga teachers for the last year, so [doing the workshop] was a natural progression. I’m doing lots of Gaga, also with the [Batsheva] company and with the people, so this is an extra for me.

I think the methodics classes are really good, especially for me since I’m trying to learn Gaga from the base. It’s also good that they have the repertory between the two classes so you can actually use what you’re learning when you do the material. It’s amazing because you can learn how they use Gaga; the imagery that [the teachers] use in the class they also use in the repertoire. I think that’s what makes the difference in Batsheva: the small details, the qualities, all this stuff that Ohad puts in the material.

* * *

Cindy Yu

– United States

I had taken a break from dancing and I thought this would be a good workshop; I knew someone who had done it to work out a back injury. So I thought this would be a good way to get back into it, to get my body moving again.

I had previously done Gaga at Peridance in a few classes that were offered there and also at Dance New Amsterdam. I also wanted to travel to a different country, so that helped me decide to come.

I’ve been to workshops before where you learn repertory, and there I just feel like I’m learning a dance. But here I feel like you can apply what you’re learning in the classes to the dance. That’s not always the case in workshops.

I feel like Gaga is a different way to get to that place. And what is that place? Why we dance . . . it’s to feel that connectedness in our bodies, in other people, in the universe. It’s great to find another path to get to that level of awareness. I feel like it’s more effective. Sometimes it’s difficult, but it makes sense to me.

* * *

Christina Robinson

– England

I just wanted to try somewhere new, since I’ve not been out of England to dance yet. I had seen clips of the Israeli companies and they’re very bold, with a lot of great movement, and that sort of appealed to me. That was the sort of thing I’d like to do but don’t over in England. So a friend told me about this, and I said I’d go for it and see what it’s like.

What do I like about the workshop? The whole freedom thing. I’ve always felt a bit of pressure, but here you don’t know anyone so it’s just you, and you can really just be yourself and use their information to find something new in yourself and explore that. I think it’s very free. Everyone’s doing their own thing, and there’s no right or wrong as well.

The imagery helps a lot. I’ve been taking notes and remembering the things that really work for me. You kind of hear [the teachers'] voices with things you know you should work with, like finding every place in the body and maybe moving a bit more intelligently instead of just doing the movement. You’re finding different ways to do it, which can bring something new to the dance.

* * *

Melinda Wilson

– United States

I’ve gained further understanding of the body and the brain, and how they coexist for movement that can be honest and sincere. This is the difference between last year and this year (aside from some scheduling differences). The more time you spend with it, the more it becomes part of you. You stop looking at other people for direction, you stop needing the confidence because you trust your organs, and you trust your body for where the movement comes from.

What made me come back? Obviously the learning process of Gaga itself, and the relationship to the people, whether it’s the dancers or people from Israel who are non-dancers. And of course working with Ohad, who is the creator of the movement language – you rarely get to do that.

It’s broadened my horizons.

* * *

Many thanks to the dancers who participated in this post and to the generosity of the Gaga Intensive’s staff and teachers!

A Glimpse into the Gaga Workshop

deborah friedes — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:15:45 +0000

Gaga Intensive. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Nearly every time I have written about Gaga, I have received inquiries from readers about opportunities to study Ohad Naharin’s movement language. Several people have wondered about attending a Gaga intensive, and now I’m happy to announce that there will indeed be a workshop in Tel Aviv from July 19th-31st, 2009. Contact gaga@013.net for more information.

Although I spent most of the summer of 2008 in the U.S., I visited the Gaga workshop for a day and joined participants in their classes. To get a sense of what might be in store for this year’s Gaga intensive, check out my reflection on last year’s experience, posted below. My article was originally written for The Winger on July 30, 2008.

* * *

In between packing and tying up various loose ends in Tel Aviv a few weeks ago, I swung by the Suzanne Dellal Center to check out Batsheva’s Gaga intensive workshop. Eldad Mannheim, who manages the Batsheva Ensemble, had told me it was full, but I don’t think I was prepared for what I saw when I walked into Studio Varda on a Wednesday afternoon. Dancers had come literally from all over the world – the U.S., Mexico, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and no doubt many other countries – to study Gaga.

The participants had already taken a morning Gaga class by the time I arrived, and now they were busily reviewing material from the daily repertory class in small groups. On the day I attended the workshop, Danielle and Bosmat first led us through a tight gestural section from Ohad Naharin’s MAX. After seeing this excerpt not only in MAX but in several performances of Seder, I was quite eager to try my hand(s) at this movement (so to speak).

The workshop participants had already learned the speedy sequence, and while it was challenging for me to pick up the exact gestures during Danielle’s review, I enjoyed working with some of the more qualitative instructions as she picked apart certain motions. With precise instructions about our dynamics, focus, and intent, the movement became richer; nothing less than full commitment to each moment was acceptable. We also worked on moving together as a group in a tight formation, watching and sensing each other to maintain the unison that has often impressed me when I have seen the company.

After MAX, we switched gears and turned to phrasework from “Humus,” the woman’s section from Naharin’s Shalosh (Three). Now tinier gestures were juxtaposed with gloriously full-bodied dancing, motion was countered with stillness, and quasi-balletic poses were contrasted with quirkier movements. As in Gaga classes, we were often instructed to connect to pleasure: enjoy the feeling of our bodies as we spring into the air, find a feeling of ultimate indulgence as we sit back and cross one leg over the other. And once again, even as we surrendered individually to the fullest sensation possible, the unity of the group was key.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning this repertory, but the highlight of the day for me was the Gaga method class. I had seen this on the schedule and wondered just what was “Gaga method.” It turned out to be an opportunity to more thoroughly explore a few concepts outside of the typical 1-hour Gaga class with additional explanation from the teacher and discussion with other students – almost a meta-Gaga, if you will.

On this occasion, Ohad Naharin himself taught the class, guiding us through an examination of the physical differences between joy and pleasure before leading us through an investigation of how to connect to a sense of plenty of time even while moving at an ever-increasing speed. We also worked as a full group and in pairs, testing our ability to quickly pick up and interpret movement. Finally, we sat down and wrapped up our session, asking questions and sharing our thoughts.

I walked away from the workshop with much more to think about. Besides mulling over some of the recurring ideas and images in Gaga, I realized a major reason why I have been so drawn to it throughout my time in Israel: I’m a researcher, and each Gaga class is an opportunity to research movement. It’s also no wonder that I loved the Gaga method class. At some point, every researcher steps back from data collection and moves on to analysis, and while I have certainly spent a lot of time processing the classes I have taken, I have rarely been able to analyze the concepts from and experience of Gaga with other students – and with Ohad. What a way to cap off 10 months in Tel Aviv!

Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:09:16 +0000

(Video: Ohad Naharin talks about Gaga at the Guggenheim Museum in New York)

This winter, some lucky dancers are experiencing Gaga for the first time in workshops held by the Batsheva Dance Company during its North American tour. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of trying Gaga – and for those of you who connected to pleasure in a Gaga workshop and are hungry for more – this video gives a taste of the method. Accompanied by two demonstrating dancers, Ohad Naharin introduces some of the concepts and terms used in his movement language.

Video notes

After noting that there are Gaga classes both for trained dancers and for people who simply want to move, Ohad Naharin delves into the verbal language which he often uses with the dancers. Some of these terms highlight places in the body, such as the “lena.” Situated between the navel and groin, the “lena” is an energetic source which can drive movement. Other words describe physical actions. “Biba,” for example, is the action of stretching away from the sits bones.

In his discussion of sensitive hands and feet, Naharin talks about the bases of the fingers and toes as “luna” or “moons.” He then describes “oba,” which is “the idea of traveling stuff.” To demonstrate this concept, his dancers develop a sense of thickness, allow soft movement to travel throughout their bodies, and play with these contrasting ideas within a more formed vocabulary. Naharin explains that the joining of these ideas enables the dancers to use sets of muscles which are not typically paired.

Naharin ends with two concepts relating to how the dancers contact the floor. “Ashi” involves movement on the outside of the feet which is generated by motion in the knees or pelvis. In “tashi,” the feet are metaphorically glued to the floor, and the movement stems from the ankle joints and the heels.

Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:25:22 +0000

(Photo: Gaga class with Ohad Naharin, center, in November 2008. I am “connecting to pleasure” on the left. Photo by Gadi Dagon.)

(I originally wrote this post for The Winger on May 4, 2008, under the title, “Going Gaga All Over Again.”)

When I took my first Gaga class in fall of 2007, I was like an infant, tentatively trying out a new way of moving while also beginning to learn Hebrew. Everything was foreign to me, and processing a different framework for dancing in an unfamiliar language was a challenge. Thankfully, my Gaga teachers were willing to pepper their instructions with English, and my Hebrew tutor helped me learn the frequently used terms which I wrote down after lessons.

Like a child, I steadily gained more mastery of my body and built up my communication skills; I acquired a physical language and, at least partially, the accompanying verbal language. It’s not always easy to see progress in language acquisition – but when I successfully took two Gaga classes taught almost entirely in Hebrew on April 22, 2008, I was floating both figuratively and literally (to float, or “latzoof,” is one of the most common directions in Gaga).

April 22 was a special day. Besides taking my usual morning Gaga class at the Suzanne Dellal Center, I got to catch up with a friend visiting from abroad who enjoyed her first Gaga class ever. We spent hours dissecting it and continued our conversation with another friend of hers who has danced both here and in Europe, taking on an array of topics. Here’s a tasting of the questions we tackled: What techniques are primarily concerned with the body’s relationship to space, what techniques are more focused on the sensations and movements within the body, and where does Gaga fall in this spectrum? What is unique about the physicality used in Gaga and Ohad Naharin’s work? How has Gaga and/or the Batsheva aesthetic influenced the larger Israeli contemporary dance scene? What are the other training methods used in major contemporary companies today, both here and abroad?

I’ll leave these big questions aside for the time being – they’ll take a lot of time, space, and energy to explore (clearly, even while I write, I’m a Laban-influenced dancer) – and for now I’ll continue on with the events of April 22. To cap off my day of Gaga, I joined over 70 people for a special monthly class taught by Ohad Naharin himself in the Batsheva Dance Company’s spacious main studio. By 8 p.m., Studio Varda was packed with a diverse crowd: men and women; 20-somethings and 30-somethings, middle-aged folks, and senior citizens; dancers (including some I recognized as Gaga teachers, Batsheva company and ensemble dancers, and people I’ve met at contact jams) and non-dancers; even a few young Ethiopian students who have been studying Gaga as part of one of Batsheva’s outreach programs.

With such a range, I couldn’t help wondering, what are these people’s stories? How did they come to Gaga, and what kept them coming back to classes? Gaga’s ability to attract followers outside of the typical dance class population is truly extraordinary. Not only do participants commit to at least one class weekly, but many Gaga enthusiasts take advantage of the unlimited monthly plan and eagerly take multiple classes per week. When it comes time for Ohad’s monthly class, a huge crowd shows up, and the energy in the studio is absolutely electric. The evening of the 22nd was no different – the excitement was palpable when Batsheva’s artistic director entered the room.

Although at other Gaga classes I’ve met an assortment of new immigrants or foreigners on extended stays in Israel, the population of this class was overwhelmingly Israeli; indeed, when Ohad asked if there was anyone who didn’t speak Hebrew, I was one of (I think) only 2 people who raised their hands. Floating (literally) while he asked if my Hebrew was good enough for him to teach in his native language, I reflected on my morning class and answered “Ken” (“Yes”). Thus I plunged into his most Hebrew-based class yet. We walked, stretched, and shifted our weight from leg to leg. We found circular motions in different body parts, generated movement from the image of balls traveling through our bodies, and gave and received energy from partners far away from us. We grooved, laughed out loud while grooving, and then let the memory of that laughter guide our own personal dances. We shook, moved in slow motion, and then did the two actions together (it’s possible!). And yes, we floated some more.

As has happened to me before in Ohad’s class as well as in several other lessons, there were many magical moments of transcendence during this evening – moments when, as the introductory Gaga handout states, there are “links” formed between “conscious and subconscious movement.” If the verbal cues in Gaga are indeed suggestions rather than the hard-and-fast rules which govern many dance techniques, they are at times picked up by my body and mind with neither resistance nor with a concerted effort to follow them. It’s as if they seep into me through the air, and I respond physically without forcing myself to act in accordance with what I heard. The processing of this verbal information (and, for that matter, of the visual information around me – and perhaps the energetic information flowing through the room) is not purely a conscious one. It’s almost as if I am responding to subliminal messages, despite the fact that the messages are conveyed directly and I know I am receiving them.

I should note that this is not always the case. Remember the first time someone asked you to pat your head while rubbing your belly, and your brain hurt from concentrating as you tried to master that coordination? That still happens sometimes, like when I attempted to shake and move in slow motion simultaneously during this last class. Particular challenges – especially new ones – demand a heightened level of attentive, active exploration. But when I’m just shaking, quaking, floating, or responding to certain other suggestions, it can be a different matter. The wonderful upshot is that through both the conscious and subconscious exploration that Gaga affords, I am discovering a wealth of movement possibilities, physical connections, and dynamic options beyond those fostered by my previous training.

* * *

Gaga in the Dance Blogosphere

“Get Your Gaga Groove On,” from IsRealli, the new blog of Israel, was posted during Naharin’s residency at Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (post date: Mar. 2007).
“Ohad-ing It,” from The Winger’s Matthew Murphy, who discusses Gaga briefly in the context of Ohad Naharin’s choreography (post date: Nov. 2007).
“Ohad Naharin’s Gaga,” by Jonathan Krebs of the Joyce Theater Blog, who also explores Gaga along with Naharin’s repertory (post date: Feb. 2008).
“Going Gaga for Gaga,” from Evan at Dancing Perfectly Free, who took some Gaga in New York last spring (post date: Mar. 2008).
“Gaga Class in Tel Aviv,” by Rebecca Crystal of Art in Motion, who took several weeks of Gaga here in Israel this summer (post date: Jan. 2009).
“Thoughts on Batsheva and Gaga” by Michael J. Morris of Betwixt Thee and Me Let There Be Truth, who experienced a Gaga class at Ohio State during Batsheva’s 2009 tour (post date: Feb. 2009).

*This post was made possible thanks to a Fulbright student grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

Gaga: Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language, in His Own Words

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:22:08 +0000

(Photo: Gaga class in November 2008 led by Ohad Naharin, center. Photo by Gadi Dagon, courtesy of Yossi Naharin.)

While I love sharing my perspective in this blog, I also want artists’ voices to be heard on Dance In Israel. Sometimes you will literally hear dance professionals speak in my podcasts, while at other times I will quote them in writing.

I have already posted one article about Gaga, the movement language developed by Batsheva Dance Company’s artistic director Ohad Naharin. Given its significance in the dance world and my own interest in Gaga, I will feature more articles on this subject – but before I proceed with my experiences in Gaga, I want Ohad’s voice to take center stage. Ohad Naharin wrote the text below in March 2008, and it is here on Dance In Israel courtesy of Yossi Naharin.

* * *

“Gaga challenges multi layer tasks. It is fundamental for gaga users to be available for this challenge.

At once we, the users, can be involved in moving slowly through space while a quick action in our body is in progress. Those dynamics of movement are only a portion of what else might go on at the same time.

We are letting our mind observe and analyze many things at once, we are aware of the connection between effort and pleasure, we connect to the “sense of plenty of time”, especially when we move fast, we are aware of the distance between our body parts, we are aware of the friction between flesh and bones, we sense the weight of our body parts, we are aware of where we hold unnecessary tension, we let go only to bring life and efficient movement to where we let go…

We are listening, seeing, measuring, playing with the texture of our flesh, we might be silly, decorating our inside, we can laugh at ourselves.

We learn to love our sweat, we discover our passion to move and connect it to effort, we discover both the animal in us and the power of our imagination.

We learn to appreciate understatement and exaggeration, we discover the difference between joy and pleasure and use both to protect ourselves from injuring and hurting our body, we learn to apply our force in an efficient way and we learn to use “other” forces,
We become more delicate and we recognize the importance of the flow of energy and information through our body in all directions!

We discover the advantage of soft flesh and sensitive hands, we learn to connect to groove even when there is no music.

We become more aware of people in the room and we realize that we are not in the center of it all. We never look at ourselves in a mirror, there are no mirrors. We become better aware of our form. We connect to the sense of the endless of possibilities.

We explore multi dimensional movement, we enjoy the burning sensation in our muscles, we are ready to snap, we are aware of what we are made of, we are aware of our explosive power and some times we use it.

We change our movement habits by finding new ones, we can be calm and alert at once.

We become available…”

-Ohad Naharin, March 2008

* * *

The Israeli Contact Festival: 3 Weeks of Contact Improvisation

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 06:04:03 +0000

(Improvisation at the Ramat Aviv Mall – Hila Carmel’s video of Lior Ophir’s performance in public spaces class during the 2007 contact festival)

In a mere two months of writing this blog, I have already posted about three festivals (Tel Aviv Dance, Machol Shalem, and Curtain Up). On December 16th, yet another festival will begin: the Israeli Contact Festival.

Whereas the other festivals focus on performances, this three-week festival centers on participation, with people gathering from around the country – and the world – to take part in contact improvisation classes, workshops, and jams. Last year I went to both the opening and closing jams, and I wrote about them for my own blog on December 4, 2007. Below is my report from the field and another video from the 2006 Greenhouse, so read on . . .

* * *

(Photo: Vertigo’s studio, the site of the opening contact jam)

Most of my dancing and concert-going has remained within the city limits of Tel Aviv-Yafo, but on Friday November 23, I traveled to Kibbutz Netiv HaLamed-Hey near the town of Bet Shemesh for an evening of dance. Vertigo Dance Company recently opened a beautiful studio as part of the Eco-Art Village there, and their second company performed excerpts from Birth of the Phoenix at the opening the three-week International Contact Improvisation Festival. There was a wonderful communal energy in the open space, with visitors from around the world sharing in a vegetarian spread, enjoying the youthful energy of the Vertigo 2 dancers, joining in physical mixers led by Vertigo’s co-director Adi Sha’al, and jamming until the wee hours when some of us returned to Tel Aviv and others curled up into sleeping bags at the back of the space.

Participants in the contact festival traveled around Israel for a week before settling into Tel Aviv last Thursday for a round of workshops, master classes, and evening jams. Monday night (December 3, 2007) was the final jam in the city, and I joined a large crowd – maybe 200 people? – for this event, held in a large gym in the Kiryat Shalom neighborhood of Tel Aviv. A set of witty improvised performances kicked off the evening around 8:30 p.m., and after a massive group warm-up, we jammed to live music that was at times mellow and at times energizing. The crowd thinned by the time I left at 1:00 a.m., but there were still duets spread out through the space with no sign of stopping.

* * *

Some participants moved to the Galilee after their week in Tel Aviv to live and dance together for the “Greenhouse” portion of the festival. While I did not make it there myself, you can get a feel for the festival’s special spirit by watching Fernando Feder’s video from the 2006 Greenhouse below.

(Fernando Feder’s video from the Greenhouse during the 2006 contact festival)

Read “Making Contact: Contact Improvisation in Israel” for more about this topic.

Making Contact: Contact Improvisation in Israel

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:00:21 +0000

(A contact jam at HaKvutza BeYafo; photo by Eliana Ben David)

It took me 20 years of dancing – and a move around the world – to get to my first contact improvisation jam. After this initial experience, though, I had many opportunities to attend jams in Israel; the CI scene is thriving here, with regular jams held at several locations, classes in contact improvisation, and an annual three-week festival in the winter. In conjunction with the monthly jam at HaKvutza BeYafo, which takes place on the first Saturday of every month, I am re-posting my reflection on my first visit to this event. “Making Contact” was initially published on my own website on October 7, 2007.

* * *

After 2.5 weeks in the country, I finally made physical contact with the dance world in Israel – literally. I donned dance clothes for the first time here to attend a contact improvisation jam in Jaffa. For readers unfamiliar with this form, here’s a very brief, basic explanation:

Contact improvisation (also known as “contact” or “CI”) started in America in the early 1970s. After Steve Paxton’s initial experimentations with a group of students at Oberlin College, CI – which, with its emphasis on cooperation and egalitarianism, reflected the era’s idealism – spread throughout the country and continued to evolve in the subsequent decades. CI is primarily a duet form of dancing in which partners explore weight sharing and counterbalancing, finding points of contact and support throughout the body rather than relying purely on the usage of hands and arms. There is not an emphasis on looking pretty, posing, or performing; instead, CI it is a much more fluid form in which process trumps product. Devotees of CI assemble at jams where they may improvise for hours, switching partners as they like.

Prior to landing in Israel, I had no clue that there was a significant CI scene here. With my preparatory archival research centered squarely on Batsheva and my early internet searches limited to English-language lists of performances and Israeli companies, CI did not register on my radar. Nor did I actively seek venues to learn or practice CI once I expanded my web search to classes. My own experience with CI is limited to the academic; while some of my physical training involved brief CI-type partnering exercises and I have read the basic literature on the form, I never attended a jam in the U.S. So I never would have guessed that my first venture into an Israeli dance studio would be for a contact improvisation jam!

How, then, did this happen?

On my second night in Tel Aviv, my cousin introduced me to a friend who, though not a dancer by profession, had spent some time in the CI scene. He pointed me to an upcoming jam down in Jaffa at הקבוצה ביפו (HaKvutza BeYafo, which translates to The Group in Jaffa). Given both my crazy move-in schedule and the country’s holiday schedule, this simply happened to be the first studio-based event that I could attend. So encouraged by my new friend and reassured by the knowledge that the jam would begin with a warm-up led by an experienced contact teacher, Philip Smith, I commenced my physical examination of Israeli dance in very unfamiliar technical territory.

(A contact jam at HaKvutza BeYafo; photo by Eliana Ben David)

I’ll spare you the details of my participation and cut right to my observation: at its peak, the 4-hour long event probably boasted 50-60 attendees. I made a point to talk with all of my partners and several other attendees, and I learned that while some of these CI aficionados were involved in other segments of the modern/contemporary dance scene, most did not come from a broader dance base and were only involved with CI. Some had traveled a meandering path through other physical practices to CI; others were introduced by a friend and got hooked. A lot mentioned that CI became a starting point for reflection and had influenced their outlook on life and relationships. Powerful stuff!

Many of the people I spoke with excitedly told me about the upcoming International Contact Festival (November 23 – December 10, 2007), a three-week long extravaganza of workshops, classes, jams, and performances. First participants practice CI as they travel throughout Israel; next, they settle in Tel Aviv for a week of classes and jams; and finally, in the “Greenhouse,” they immerse themselves in contact and live together as a community in the Galilee region. The festival started in 2002, and it draws participants and teachers not only from Israel but from abroad. I may try to go to some of the festival’s classes and jams in Tel Aviv, and hopefully I’ll return to the monthly jam in Jaffa as well. It is a really lively scene here, so if you are a contact improvisation enthusiast who likes to travel, check out www.contactil.org!

Many, many thanks to everyone I interacted with at the jam in Jaffa!

* * *

This year’s Israeli Contact Festival will be held from December 16, 2008 until January 3, 2009; Week 1 will be the tour, Week 2 will be the Greenhouse, and Week 3 will be in Tel Aviv. You can visit the festival’s website for more information, see Dance In Israel’s Events calendar for a basic listing, and read my new post about the festival.

*This post was made possible thanks to a Fulbright student grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

Going Gaga: My Intro to Gaga Dance Classes

Deborah Friedes Galili — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:30:49 +0000

(Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin's "Three" - photo by Gadi Dagon)

A year after beginning my study of Gaga, the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin, it seems hard to believe that I once lived without it. Gaga is profoundly influencing my artistry, widening my range of movement and fostering a greater confidence in my ability to improvise. It is also now a major focus of my research and writing.

I wrote “Going Gaga” in November 2007 for my first blog and edited it for Dance In Israel. To see a listing of Gaga classes, please check Dance In Israel’s Events page. I’ll leave you to your reading – right now I’m off to Ohad’s monthly class!

* * *

After making my initial rounds of the Tel Aviv studios to sample modern and contemporary dance classes, I decided it was time to immerse myself in the training method that is most unique to Israel: Gaga (גאגא). Gaga was developed by the Batsheva Dance Company’s artistic director, Ohad Naharin, and it evolved not only through his work with professional dancers but through experimentation with non-dancers; indeed, when a non-dancing employee of Batsheva expressed a desire to dance in the late 1990s, Naharin began biweekly classes for her and several other employees. The Batsheva company now trains daily in Gaga, and since 2001, members of the general public have been able to practice Gaga in open classes.

Gaga Dance Classes: The Logistics

Currently, there are hour-long classes six days a week at the Suzanne Dellal Center taught by dancers who have worked with Naharin; on some days, there are two or three classes. Most people who attend these classes are not aspiring dancers with previous training. Instead, they are members of the general public who found out about Gaga through word-of-mouth.

People interested in practicing Gaga must commit to an introductory month. For a very reasonable fee – 220 shekels (roughly $60, depending on the exchange rate) – beginners can take as many classes as they would like, and they also gain free admission into the special monthly class offered by Ohad Naharin himself. This month-long trial period allows novices like me to absorb the philosophy of Gaga, receiving information from the rotating roster of teachers and observing the changes in our bodies and movement over time. After the first month, practitioners can decide to take one class per week (220 shekels for a month) or unlimited classes (330 shekels for a month).

What is Gaga?

Now you have some background, but what exactly is Gaga? At my first class, I was given a double-sided paper with more detailed information. Here is an excerpt from the English translation:

“Gaga is a new way of gaining knowledge and self awareness through your body. Gaga is a new way for learning and strengthening your body, adding flexibility, stamina and agility while lightening the senses and imagination. Gaga raises awareness of physical weaknesses, awakens numb areas, exposes physical fixations and offers ways for their elimination. Gaga elevates instinctive motion, links conscious and subconscious movement. Gaga is an experience of freedom and pleasure. In a simple way, a pleasant place, comfortable close, accompanied by music, every person with himself and others.” (Ohad Naharin, Gaga introduction sheet)

The second side of the handout provides elaborations on the following instructions: listen to the body, be aware of others in the room, work barefoot and silently, and arrive promptly. Another key instruction is below:

“Never stop: The class is one session, no pauses or exercises, but a continuity of instructions one on top of the other. Each instruction does not cancel the previous one, but is added to it, layer upon layer. It is, therefore, important not to stop in the middle of the session. If you get tired or want to work at another pace, you can always lower the volume, work 30%, 20%, float, rest but without losing sensations that already awakened. Do not return to the state your body was in, before we started.” (Ohad Naharin, Gaga introduction sheet)

My First Experiences with Gaga

Reading this introduction sheet piqued my curiosity even more in the final minutes before my first class, and I found that the excerpt above gave an accurate sense of the class. In Gaga, verbal instructions (primarily in Hebrew but with some English kindly thrown in for me and others) draw students’ attention to particular body parts, actions, dynamics, and spatial relationships.

There are some common terms and images in these instructions, such as:

float
shake
draw circles with different body parts
imagine the floor is getting very hot
become a string of spaghetti in a pot of boiling water
connect to pleasure

Here is a small sampling of other prompts which recur with variations:

feel like you are kneading dough with your hands
imagine little explosions going off inside your body
imagine a point within your chin (or other body part); where can you put that point?
sense and explore the space behind your neck (or other body part)
quake as if there is an earthquake beneath you
move as if your flesh has melted off and you are just bones

Unlike many of the modern and contemporary classes I have attended, the Gaga classes begin standing. Usually we start by simply shifting our weight side to side, slowly allowing the movement to travel through our bodies and layering our motion in accordance with verbal instructions like those above. In a typical class, we gradually build up to level changes and locomotion through space.

At times we use our voice in Gaga, counting down as we bring a certain action to its peak for 10 more seconds or allowing our movement to elicit noise. We also engage our focus and are encouraged to look around at our fellow classmates as we conduct our “research.” On some occasions we work with partners. We fill in the negative space around them, call attention to particular body parts through touch, or riff on their personal groove.

I had the unique experience of taking Gaga one day with my classmates from a seminar on classic Jewish texts and contemporary Israeli culture held at Alma Hebrew College. Yossi Naharin, who is command central for Gaga classes (and who also happens to be Ohad’s brother), gave us a tour of Batsheva’s facilities and debriefed us after our Gaga class with Arkadi Zaides. Not wanting to influence the language or reactions of my classmates, I sat back and listened to their comments before speaking myself.

A couple of people who had been apprehensive about dancing were pleasantly surprised at how much they enjoyed Gaga. Others commented on how wonderful it was to move without a sense of judgment or competition – and without the usually present and frequently scary wall-length mirror (the mirror is purposefully covered in all Gaga classes, and as Yossi pointed out, there are no mirrors in the studios that Batsheva uses).

As our discussion moved to questions about typical dance training, I finally talked about what I experienced in my first two weeks of Gaga. Many of my early reflections, made after 8 sessions, still hold true after months of regular classes.

Much to my delight, Gaga enables me to find movements that I would never choose if simply instructed to “dance” or “improvise.” Usually I slip into ballet or mainstream modern dance-influenced movements when given the license to improvise, but this framework encourages what is for me an exceptionally honest investigation of how my body can move, freed from my previous training and stylistic preferences. Gaga also allows me to tap into actions such as shaking which I previously shied away from because I worried they would aggravate old injuries; moreover, it empowers me to perform these movements for a sustained period of time with remarkable ease.

At the time I first wrote, I was also struck by how my experience in Gaga dovetailed with my exposure to Qi Gong and energy work. There are moments in Gaga class where I am able to simply allow the energy to flow through and guide my body without me exerting either conscious choice or physical force. In November 2007, I wrote, “I am looking forward to continuing these explorations, observations, and (hopefully) transformations throughout the coming months . . .” Transformations did indeed occur, and I am excited to realize that my experience with Gaga will be a ongoing journey for years to come.

* * *

Surveying Dance Technique in Israel: A Report from the Studios

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:39:29 +0000

(A studio at Adama in Mizpe Ramon)

Right now I am spending my time in Hebrew ulpan rather than the dance studio, but last year I happily spent my first few months traipsing from studio to studio. I was fortunate enough to return regularly to several teachers while funded by my Fulbright grant, including some of those mentioned in “Surveying Dance Training in Israel: A Report from the Studios.” Over the course of the year, my impressions of technique styles and influences developed not only through my continued attendance but through conversations with my teachers. You will get to hear from some of these artists themselves in my podcasts and in write-ups of interviews, but for now, you can read my first impressions as a newcomer to Israeli studios.

I first wrote this post on November 6, 2007 for my own blog.

* * *

Besides attending concerts and meeting dance scholars, I am busy investigating technique classes in Tel Aviv. I am attempting to do my initial survey in a relatively methodical manner, working my way slowly from studio to studio and taking classes labeled modern (מודרני – “moderni”), contemporary (עכשווי – “achshavi”), or release (רליס – “release”) before plunging into the world of Gaga, a technique developed by Ohad Naharin, or indulging myself with a ballet class.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to quickly summarize my own physical background as a dancer, since it certainly colors my perception of the classes I am taking here. I trained in ballet for 12 years and had small tastes of Graham, Taylor, and Limón-flavored modern dance before abandoning my pointe shoes completely in college. My modern dance education continued with those mainstream flavorings, and I also studied a lot of Cunningham technique in graduate school. In the last few years, however, I have branched out and taken more release or release-influenced classes, primarily with Bebe Miller and Michael Estanich at The Ohio State University. Thus I am familiar with a range of styles, but I am still figuring out the boundaries of release and finding our how my body operates within this framework.

Back to Israel:

In early October (2007), I took classes from Gilat Amotz (גילת עמוץ), Shimrit Kobalio (שמרית קובליו), and Shlomit Fundaminsky (שלומית פונדמינסקי) at The Group in Jaffa (הקבוצה ביפו, HaKvutza B’Yafo). Next I took a class from Coralie Ladam (קוראלי לאדם) and another from Inbal Aloni (ענבל אלוני) at Noa Dar’s studio (סטודיו קבוצת מחול נוע דר), which is just 10 minutes away from my flat in central Tel Aviv; Shlomit Fundaminsky also teaches there. On Sunday I took a release class with Yasmeen Godder (יסמין גודר) at her studio in Jaffa, and yesterday I went to the studios at Suzanne Dellal for a class with Niv Sheinfeld (ניב שינפלד). The one exception to my modern-contemporary-release rule was a technique/improvisation class given by Ilanit Tadmor (אילנית תדמור) at Studio Play, in which we joined together in some particular stretches and exercises but primarily explored specific concepts through guided improvisation.

With the exception of Coralie Ladam, who moved here from France two years ago, all of the teachers I have studied with are Israeli. Several of them are choreographers (at least Godder, Sheinfeld, Amotz, Fundaminsky), and many of the teachers perform either with their own groups or with other companies. While some of their classes – especially Yasmeen Godder’s – were tailored to advanced dancers, others were geared specifically towards an adult population (Niv Sheinfeld’s) or a broader, mixed-level group. Despite these differences, I was able to observe many similarities among the classes.

Whether or not the classes were explicitly labeled as or described with the term “release,” all of them seemed heavily influenced by release work (I couldn’t resist that phrasing . . . ). With the exception of one or two classes that began with guided improvisation, most began with floorwork incorporating Bartenieff Fundamentals exercises (working in the X, warming up the head-tail connection, femoral flexion, knee drops building into gentle leg swings, etc.) and yoga (downward dog, warrior poses, etc.). (Editor’s note: I perceived many exercises as Bartenieff-related because of my own experience in the Fundamentals, which I studied in graduate school. However, none of my teachers have talked specifically about Bartenieff as a direct influence.)

Next the classes progressed to some standing exercises: pliés; perhaps some rolling down the spine and swings; footwork; etc. A few classes included brief traveling exercises across the floor, several featured a walk or two around the room so we could sense our bodies in the space, and all culminated in phrasework. Shared principles included an emphasis on connectivity among body parts, a focus on ease of movement, and a general privileging of energy flow and momentum over particular shaped positions. Upon learning that I was not fluent in Hebrew, all of the teachers gave at least part of their instructions in English, and at times they verbally referenced very familiar concepts such as head-tail or sits-bones-to-heel connections. Some also encouraged us to assess how our bodies felt after specific exercises.

As I take more classes with each of these teachers, I am sure I will pick up on the nuances of their individual teaching and movement styles. So far, Niv Sheinfeld’s appeared to the most differentiated from the bunch, with fewer, less overt yoga and Bartenieff references (though perhaps some references to qi gong); at times, shapes were quite important, but this positional specificity was within the context of his quirky phrasework which, like his full choreography, was imbued with clear intention. I plan to talk to each of these teachers about their influences, styles, and preferred labels, and I hope that these conversations in English will allow me to move beyond language barriers and class population differences to more fully understand their approaches.

There are still a few studios I have yet to visit, such as Studio Naim, Bikurei Haitim, and Studio B, and there are a couple of teachers I have not met at the venues I have frequented thus far, so my quest continues . . .

* * *

Interested in taking dance classes in Israel? Check out our resource page, Studying Dance in Israel, for more information.

*This post was made possible thanks to a Fulbright student grant funded by the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation and hosted by the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

Dancing in Another Language

Deborah Friedes Galili — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:56:32 +0000

Studio at Adama in Mizpe Ramon, Israel

At my first Hebrew lesson last year, I approached my tutor with this request: please teach me the names of body parts. I realized that this vocabulary was essential if I wanted to conduct physical research in dance classes and workshops. Yes, teachers were happy to translate their instructions into English for me, but I also wanted to understand their Hebrew instructions and their comments to Israeli students. Just as the body is central to my research, it was the logical starting place for my study of the Hebrew language.

By the end of the year, I had mastered the names of numerous body parts and of many verbs commonly used in dance classes. My teachers no longer needed to translate quite as much for me, and I felt I was more fully grasping their instructions by operating in their native tongue. Now I’m continuing my quest to dance in another language by studying Hebrew in an ulpan, an intensive 5-month long language program.

I wrote the post below for my website on October 19, 2007. Though I still have a long way to go with my Hebrew skills, it is fun for me to read this and recognize my progress!

* * *

I have often thought of dance as a religious experience. That has been quite true here in the holy land: upon entering the studio, I find myself praying that I’ll be able to follow along despite the language barrier, and I thank God for my previous experience in Bartenieff Fundamentals and in classes taught by Bebe Miller and Michael Estanich, which are the most stylistically similar to what I have experienced in Israeli contemporary dance classes thus far.

Indulge me in the following exercise:

Imagine that you are in a dance class, standing with your legs in parallel. First you are asked to close your eyes (you can at least understand that phrase, since you learned the word for “eyes” as a child and you have seen the word for “closed” on signs in darkened store windows). Now, without any visual cues and barely knowing the words for different parts of the body – let alone any other verbs or qualitative phrases that might be used in a typical dance class – you are given verbal instructions. Mostly likely, you are not actually moving (you cheat and open your eyes periodically to confirm that the teacher’s monologue calls for a mental examination of your internal state rather than a physical exploration of external space). When you recognize the foreign words for “head” and “down,” you assume that you are supposed to roll down your spine – and thankfully, once you have rolled down to the point where you can peek between your legs to the dancers behind you, you find that your best guess was very good indeed.

This should give you a taste of my most recent ventures into Israeli dance studios. I had already mastered the words for right, left, up, down, body, head, legs, and hands prior to my arrival in Israel, but otherwise, I lack the vocabulary used within the context of a contemporary dance class. Because of previous experience, I assume that I should be taking stock of my body and clearing extraneous information from my mind during exercises such as the one described above, but instead I find my mind working overtime to catch any meaning – which means I can’t truly fulfill the intent of the exercise.

Improvisational exercises are the most difficult; I want to find the movement within myself rather than copy it from someone else, but in order to get a sense of the instructions, I usually need to observe the teacher or my fellow classmates. Fully choreographed exercises are easier because there is some mimicry involved, and I treat these as fun challenges. How much information can I absorb visually? What parts of the verbal instructions can I understand, and what new words can I learn because of their repetition and the accompanying visual cue? Can I really see the difference in the two versions that the teacher is demonstrating? What do my instincts tell me? It is a true adventure!

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