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.

Related posts on Gaga on Dance In Israel

• “Going Gaga: My Introduction to Gaga Dance Classes” (my overview of Gaga dance classes)
• “Gaga: Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language, in His Own Words” (featuring a quote by Ohad Naharin about Gaga)
• “Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language” (a reflection on my experience in Ohad Naharin’s Gaga classes)
• “Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)” (with a video of Ohad Naharin discussing some concepts from Gaga)
• “A Glimpse into the Gaga Workshop (2008)” (including a video from last year’s workshop)
• “Reflections on the Gaga Intensive 2009″ (dancers share their memories from this year’s workshop)
• “Gaga for Dancers: From the Gaga Intensive to New Open Classes” (information about new Gaga dancers classes and about the 2009 Gaga Intensive)

Related posts on Batsheva Dance Company and Ohad Naharin on Dance In Israel

• “Getting to Know the Batsheva Ensemble”
• “MAX – Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography”
• “Mamootot – Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide”
• “Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed”
• “Ohad Naharin to Receive 2009 Scripps/ADF Award”
• “Ohad Naharin in America: Out of Focus Documentary”
• “Batsheva Dance Company Premieres Ohad Naharin’s Hora“
• “The Batsheva Ensemble on Tour at Home and Abroad”

Related links

• Batsheva Dance Company
• Gaga website (more to come soon!)
• Fall for Dance

Michael Miler’s The Speed of Light will be performed in program 1 of Shades of Dance.  Photograph by Eyal Landesman.

Last Saturday night was chilly and wet, but despite the discouraging weather conditions, I bundled up and trekked down to the Suzanne Dellal Center.  Choreographer Micheal Miler of Haifa’s Sigma Ensemble had invited me to a rehearsal for the Shades of Dance festival (called Gvanim in Hebrew).  Shades of Dance is mounted biennially, and since last year was an off year, I had effectively been waiting to attend the festival for over a year and a half.  A little rain wasn’t about to stop me from this special sneak peak.

Since its inception in 1984, Shades of Dance has showcased artists who are relatively fresh to the field of choreography.  It has helped launch the careers of some of Israel’s best-known choreographers including Yasmeen Godder, Inbal Pinto, Emanuel Gat, Ronit Ziv, Barak Marshall,  Renana Raz, Shlomi Bitton, Anat Danieli, Itzhik Galili, Sally-Anne Friedland, Yossi Yungman, Tamar Borer, Liat Dror and Nir Ben-Gal of Adama, Noa Wertheim and Adi Sha’al of Vertigo Dance Company, and Yoram Karmi of Fresco Dance Group.

Perhaps this is why my anticipation of this festival feels different: I can’t help but wonder what new choreographic voices will be revealed this year.  A mind-boggling 80 dances were submitted to the festival’s selection committee, composed of artistic director Hanoch Ben Dror with Ya’ara Dolev, Sally-Anne Friedland, Renana Raz, and Niv Sheinfeld.   I’m looking forward to seeing what sets the 10 chosen works apart from their competition when the 15th Shades of Dance festival opens this week.

Left to right: Shaked Dagan’s We are going back is in program 3; Anat Va’adiya’s Ashetish is in program 1.  Photographs by Eyal Landesman.

If the rehearsal I saw was any indication, this year’s festival has a batch of promising choreographers with very diverse aesthetics.  Michael Miler’s The Speed of Light is one of the most abstract works I have seen since moving to Israel, and it is thoroughly absorbing.  Clad in dark skinny jeans and colorful athletic jackets, Miler and seven other talented dancers maneuver skillfully through a sophisticated movement vocabulary.  As they swiftly skate across the floor and slide to the ground, they appear to be constantly gauging the changing formations of their fellow performers.

The relationship between dancers Adam Ben Zvi and Idan Porges in Shaked Dagan’s We are going back is equally engaging.  At times the well-matched men create a stop-frame effect with their cleverly-timed partnering; at other times they move hypnotically in slow motion.

The other two pieces I saw at Saturday’s rehearsal were worlds apart from each other in their tone. While choreographer/dancer Anat Va’adiya established an unsettling mood for her solo, Dafi Altebab used text and motions from a flight safety presentation to humorous effect in her trio’s quirky scenario.

Dafi Altebab’s new work is in program 3.  Photo by Eyal Landesman.

While I wish I could have stayed for the remainder of the rehearsal, I left early to attend another performance at the Home Port festival.  I suppose that after waiting a year and half to attend Shades of Dance, another few days is bearable!  The festival opens on Wednesday, March 18 with with excerpts of old and recent works by former Shades of Dance participants Nir Ben Gal & Liat Dror, Noa Wertheim & Adi Sha’al, Ronit Ziv, and Barak Marshall.  Then three programs shown back-to-back on Thursday night and Friday afternoon will present the new works from this year’s harvest.

Here are a few more sneak peaks of what will be onstage in the three programs of Shades of Dance 2009:

Anat Meirav’s is in program 2.  Photographs by Eyal Landesman.

From left: Galit Hazor’s Blind Spot is in program 3; Tami and Ron Yitzhaki’s work is in program 2.  Photograph by Eyal Landesman.

Shir Medvetsky’s solo is in program 3.  Photograph by Eyal Landesman.

From left: Ron Amit and Mor Shani’s Lu Carmela; Or Marin’s vanishing point. Photographs by Eyal Landesman.

Related links:

• Dance In Israel’s Events page (with concert information)
• Information on the festival from Suzanne Dellal (in Hebrew)
• Ayelet Dekel’s preview of Shades of Dance in the Jerusalem Post

The choreographers of the Amuta in Jaffa for the Home Port Festival.  Photo by Dorit Talpaz.

The first hint that something big was happening in Israel’s concert dance scene was an e-mail from Yossi Berg and Oded Graf about their upcoming performance schedule.  One listing mysteriously said that the duo was presenting Heroes at the Jaffa port for a choreographers festival.  Choreographers festival?  In Jaffa?  Many dance festivals here are annual ones, and I didn’t remember anything like that from last year.

Next I started to see some Facebook events popping up, with choreographers including Hillel Kogan, Noa Dar, Shlomit Fundaminsky, and Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor inviting friends to attend performances at the port during March.   My curiosity grew as the number of choreographers involved increased.

Finally, Yasmeen Godder pulled me over before class one day and told me I should look into a very exciting, unprecedented event: the Home Port festival.  As I talked more with her and followed a few leads, I found out that this was, indeed, something big.

The Home Port festival was initiated by the Amuta (which translates as the Choreographers Association or the Choreographers Society), an umbrella organization for fifty-four independent choreographers who draw from styles as varied as contemporary dance, flamenco, and belly dance.  Working outside of the country’s larger companies, these established choreographers are responsible for much of Israel’s flourishing concert dance scene – and all of them will present their creations in thirty-three different concerts over the next four weeks in a hangar at Jaffa’s port.

The Home Port festival kicks off on Thursday, March 12 with what promises to be one of the most unique performances since I’ve arrived in Israel.  The organization’s choreographers have assembled a special marathon of forty-four solos to celebrate the opening of their festival, and the evening will also include a reception and two lively musical performances.

In fact, nearly every concert in this series will also feature a musical act.  The association invited Levontin 7, a well-known music venue, to participate in the festival, and many of the bands or artists that perform at the club will also appear down in Jaffa.

I’ll be attending many of the performances at the Home Port festival, and I look forward to writing more about the events here on Dance In Israel.  If you’re in Israel during the next month, I hope you will have a chance to check out the festival yourself!

Schedule of Home Port Festival in Jaffa

Most of the information online about the Home Port Festival is in Hebrew, so I have roughly translated the choreographers’ names and some titles of works along with the performance times below.  Please note that I have only included the choreographers and not the rotating roster of (wonderful, diverse, talented) musicians who will perform at the concerts.

• Thursday 3/12 @ 7:00 pm – Opening Night Celebration – Marathon of 44 Solos
• Friday 3/13 @ 9:30 pm – Oded Graf  & Yossi Berg’s Heroes; Noa Shadur’s Hunting Rabbits in the North
• Saturday 3/14 @ 9:00 pm – Aviv Eveguy’s Animus and Dimona
• Tuesday 3/17 @ 9:00 pm – Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation
• Thursday 3/19 @ 8:00 pm – works by Ilanit Tadmor, Abigail Rubin, and Noa Rosenthal
• Thursday 3/19 @ 9:15 pm – works by Mimi Ratz Wiesenberg, Silvia Duran, and Tomer Sharabi
• Friday 3/20 @ 9:30 pm – Noa Dar’s The Sweetest Embrace and Arnica
• Saturday 3/21 @ 11:00 am – family-friendly performance by choreographer Dina Telem
• Saturday 3/21 @ 8:00 pm – Tel Aviv Dance Company in Tokyo Oranges
  
• Saturday 3/21 @ 9:15 pm – works by Yoram Karmi/Fresco Dance Company, Neta Shizef, and Tami & Ronen Yitzhaki
• (Cancelled due to rain) Monday 3/23 @ 8:00 pm – Idan Cohen’s Joy Ride, My Sweet Fur, and The Year of the Fish
• (Cancelled due to rain) Monday 3/23 @ 9:15 pm – Nadine Bommer’s Manimation
• Tuesday 3/24 @ 8:00 pm – Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Post-Martha
• Tuesday 3/24 @ 9:15 pm – works by Sharona Florsheim and Nadar Rosano
• Wednesday 3/25 @ 8:00 pm – Arkadi Zaides’s Meeting Brian Wash
• Wednesday 3/25 @ 9:15 pm – works by Hillel Kogan, Talia Paz, and Anat Shamgar
• Thursday 3/26 @ 7:30 pm – work by Smadar Emor
• Thursday 3/26 @ 9:15 pm – works by Michal Herman, Anat Katz, and Oren Nachum & Or Narin
• Friday 3/27 @ 12:00 pm – work by Sally-Ann Friedland & Galit Lis
• Friday 3/27 @ 9:30 pm – Nimrod Freed’s Flies in Peepdance
• Saturday 3/28 @ 10:30 am – family-friendly performance by choreographer Nima Yacoby (Voyage Box)
• Saturday 3/28 @ 12:30 pm – family-friendly performance by choreographer Nima Yacoby (Cinderella’s Dance)
• Saturday 3/28 @ 8:00 pm – Elina Pechersky
• Saturday 3/28 @ 9:15 pm – Ronit Ziv’s La Femme 1, La Femme 2
• **NEW DATE** Sunday 3/29 @ 8:00 pm – Idan Cohen’s Joy Ride, My Sweet Fur, and The Year of the Fish
• **NEW DATE** Sunday 3/29 @ 9:15 pm – Nadine Bommer’s Manimation
• Monday 3/30 @ 9:00 pm – Shlomit Fundaminsky & Itay Yatuv’s TICKING/Improformance
• Tuesday 3/31 @ 9:00 pm – work by Ofra Idel & Robby Edelman
• Wednesday 4/1 @ 8:00 pm – Renana Raz’s Motel
• Wednesday 4/1 @ 9:15 pm – works by Maya Levy, Odelia Kuperberg, and Sally-Ann Friedland
• Thursday 4/2 @ 8:00 pm – Rikudnetto Dance Group’s Conversations
• Friday 4/3 @ 9:30 pm – Alice Dor-Cohen’s A Little After the Middle
• Saturday 4/4 @ 11:00 am – family-friendly performance by choreographer Anat Danieli (The Four Seasons)
• Saturday 4/4 @ 8:00 pm – works by Ilanit Tadmor, Gilat Amotz, and Dafi Altebab
• Saturday 4/4 @ 9:15 pm – works by Maya Stern, Dana Ruttenberg, and Tamar Borer & Tamara Arda

Visit the Dance In Israel Events page for listings of each concert along with a Google map of the location at the Jaffa port (Nemal Yafo 2, Tel Aviv-Yafo).  To get to the hangar, descend from HaMigdalor Street to the port.   There is parking in the area, and several buses have stops on Yefet Street, relatively near the site.   You’re advised to wear layers since the hangar can be a bit chilly.  Want a little something to drink?  The hangar is outfitted with a bar and cafe.  Enjoy!

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Home Port Festival: History in the Making for the Choreographers Association

Dance In Israel Articles about Members of the Amuta

• Close Encounters Series: Yasmeen Godder
• Dancing Through the Intifada: Yasmeen Godder’s “Strawberry Cream and Gunpowder”
• Renana Raz: Choreographing Israeli Culture and Beyond
• Viewing an Israeli Vision with Diasporic Eyes: A Look at Renana Raz’s “We Have Been Called to Go”
• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor: An Interview with Dramatic Dancemakers

Many members of the Amuta are mentioned in my articles about the Curtain Up and International Exposure festivals.  I will also be publishing more articles about members of this organization in the future, so please keep following the website!

Related Links

• Amuta (Choreographers Association/Choreographers Society) website
  
• Home Port schedule (in Hebrew)
• Dance In Israel’s Links page – with links to the websites of many members of the Amuta
• Levontin 7