Yael Flexer.  Photo by Chris Nash.

Born in Israel, Yael Flexer is a well-known fixture in London’s bustling contemporary dance scene.  After directing Bedlam Dance Company for over a decade, she joined forces with her frequent collaborator Nic Sandiland to form Yael Flexer, Nic Sandiland/Dance and Digital Works.  Now the partners are treating dance and art-lovers in Tel Aviv to several views of their unique creative vision.  Flexer is teaching a workshop for dancers at Studio B on Wednesday, April 7 and Saturday, April 10, and her latest dance, The Living Room, will be performed at Tmuna Theater on Friday, April 9.  Meanwhile, Nic Sandiland will discuss some of his works, which cross the borders of artistic disciplines, at the Kalisher Gallery on Wednesday, April 13.

I caught up with Yael Flexer via Skype prior to visit to find out more about her work.  Read on to learn about her partnership with Sandiland, the pair’s outlook on performance, her movement style and choreographic aesthetic, and how the The Living Room is connected both to British and Israeli culture.

* * *

Deborah Friedes Galili: When did you start working in London?

Yael Flexer: Oh, ages ago. Probably in 1992.

Deborah: Was that when you founded Bedlam Dance Company?

Yael: Yes, just about.  I was choreographer in residence at the Place Theatre.  And then, as part of that, I set up the company.

Deborah: I understand that the name of your company is different now.  What is the exact name?

Yael: It was Bedlam [Dance Company] for many years.  I did many projects and touring productions and various things, and then the last five or six years I’ve been working more closely with Nic Sandiland.  We’ve been doing more interactive and digital works, and we’ve had a quite a few commissions for different spaces to make works specifically for them that are digitally based, and so it felt like the right time to change the company.  Also, we kind of reached the age/place where it felt a bit more appropriate to just name the company after us.  So people would associate the work with our names . . .

I think a company as a ‘dance company’ suggests something else, and I think we’re more artists that are making work – and it happens to sometimes be live work, and sometimes digital dance work – so I think it’s just to reflect that.   So the company name is basically our names, Yael Flexer, Nic Sandiland/Dance and Digital Works, which is like an umbrella, or a production company.

Deborah: You said that especially around five or six years ago, you started working more with Nic.  Had you worked with him prior to that as well?  Was he part of Bedlam from the beginning?

Yael: No, he made his own work.  He originally trained as an electronics engineer and got into performance in the ‘80s, and then started making his own work.  His work is less dance-specific; it falls under the dance category, but really it’s a whole mixture of things from live work to installation, some of which has more of a dance element.   Others have been commissioned by poetry societies or a variety of venues.  So it doesn’t necessarily have to be dance.  But I think his outlook is really the idea that in some way the public is partner to the choreography and it’s the encounter with virtual performers, in some cases, or between the public and virtual settings.   In a sense, he choreographs the public and considers the public’s movement within the work.

Deborah: Can you tell me a bit about the work that you’re bringing here to Israel?

Yael: Yes, it’s called The Living Room.  But actually, I should say that right from the start, from setting up the company – although sometimes we make commissions for other organizations or companies where we have a lot of digital [work] or projection in performance – for our own work, we like to make very separate things.  So the live work is very intimate and has very little – well, has no digital element.   And then we’ll make installations for galleries or public spaces that have choreography in them to varying degrees.  But we like to keep them quite separate.   It’s almost like two sides of the coin, working in two different mediums.  I think sometimes when people hear “Dance and Digital Work,” they think of work that’s very high tech, and actually, the live work is very low tech, no tech at all.  And the installation work, even though it is high tech, it doesn’t have that high tech aesthetic.  It’s really about intimacy with the viewer.

Yael Flexer’s The Living Room.  Photo by Chris Nash.

Anyway, the live work is called The Living Room, but it’s not really a living room.  I think it’s more a rehearsal space, and in some ways we’re inviting the audience into our space.  So there’s a kind of informality about the presentation.  It’s a very formal work choreographically, but there’s something about allowing people into our space and having a very light or inviting essence of us all being together in one room.  And there are quite a lot of jokes.  Some of them are between us, and some of the jokes are between us and the audience.   There’s quite a lot of banter that goes on that allows that informality.

I think this is quite different from the work you see in Israel, because you don’t really see that level of humor and that amount of text in work.  Often it’s much more movement driven in Israel.  And although this is also very movement-driven – there’s some very strong and physical movement sections – there’s a way in which the work is a bit more open for the audience to be part of it without any audience interaction, as in no audience participation.  I think that’s kind of been a thread through all of my works, this idea of intimacy between an audience and a performer, and the idea that we witness one another so it’s not just about the audience watching us but it’s also about us in a sense watching them, and there’s a kind of equality of gaze and an equality of power between us.  It’s always breaking the fourth wall, which is a term that is often used . . . it always talks about performance and opens the question of performance.

And we imagine things [in this work].  It’s called The Living Room, so we imagine furniture throughout the show.  We walk around pretending to be bits of furniture.  And there’s a way in which the work talks about the domestic, the very day to day, or the passage of time, and about dancing as well.  In Hebrew you’d say tmunat matzav; it’s a kind of picture of us living through time.  We’re slightly different ages; the youngest is 22 and the oldest is 39 – that’s Karni, the composer.  We’re talking about the differences between us and our different experiences in time, so it feels like it’s more about living than about a specific living room.  It’s living in a room [rather] than necessarily a living room.

Deborah: And are you performing in it as well?

Yael: Yes . . . [laughs]

Deborah: I thought I read that somewhere, so I wanted to check!

Yael: I haven’t performed I guess for five years.  I’m in it, but I’m not much in it.  I’m performing in about two sections, dancing.  Mostly I read; I’m the reading light.  And it’s kind of clear that I’m the choreographer’s voice in there.

Deborah: Is the text original text that you as a cast have developed, or is it taken from somewhere?

Yael: There are two kinds of text.   The text that I read is mine.   And the text that we have between us is very simple text.   It’s kind of simple pleasantries, almost.  It’s quite English – thank you, don’t mention it, you’re welcome – things like that which we developed with a dramaturge, Gary Stevens.  He’s a live artist who makes his own work.   We invited him to come along for this production, and he’s brought with him this idea of the furniture, or the imagined furniture, and the text that follows.  I wouldn’t really call it text.  It’s more deconstructive than that; it’s words, really.

Deborah: I’m curious – how does Nic play a role in this?  Obviously, as you said, you keep these things very separate; in this case, it’s the live work, it’s the dance, as opposed to, say, having the technology layered on.   So is he an active collaborator in this piece as well?

Yael: No, it’s a live work.  I collaborate with him on the installation works.  But we recently did the show [The Living Room] at The Place Theater in London, and we did present an installation called Orbital, which has quite a lot of similarities to the live work.  So in a sense we work concurrently, we work at the same time, and one influences the other.

Orbital is an interactive work where the audience circles a projection that’s on the ground.  The speed with which the viewer walks around affects the projection and causes it to move.  The viewers circle the projection, and obviously that [is the] idea of orbit, or orbiting the projection.  And in the piece [The Living Room] we have quite a lot of circles as a kind of feature of the furniture spinning around the room.  So I think they [the works] start to influence one another, almost unconsciously.

The last production was called Doing, Done and Undone, and it was much more clearly related; when we filmed, the camera was almost like another dancer in the dance, and as people move through the installation, they make the footage go back and they affect the time and the speed in which it’s played back.  There’s a sense in which the viewer is inside the performance.  So there’s some works where that relationship is clearer.

We’ve really done so many installation works alongside this live work; there’s others which are more . . . really about the public. We have shop installations placed in high street or in shopping malls where the viewer affects what they see.

But I think in this case, the installation Orbital and the live work The Living Room are two that work together. You’re not going to see Orbital in Israel, but Nic is going to be giving a talk about his work at Kalisher Gallery, part of Seminar Hakibbutzim School, and he’ll talk more about various installations and the theoretical underpinnings of that.

Deborah: Can you talk a little bit about your movement style and your movement aesthetic for this work?

Yael: Generally, my aesthetic is quite functional.  It’s release-based – that’s the technique, anyway.  But it’s very punchy, it’s very fast – but it’s very functional.  There’s a sense in which dance is not decoration. It’s somehow about form and function.  So you’ll see lots of angles and lots of work with joints, breaking through the joints, collapsing towards the floor; there’s quite a lot of material that happens on the floor.

Choreographically, there’s always a kind of mathematical rule or physical rule that leads each particular dance.  Although it is dancing, there is a kind of inert rule that we follow, whether it’s about dancers being in contact and that’s the idea of that particular section; whether it’s about circling and orbiting being an idea for a section; whether it’s about triggering movement, one dancer triggering movement in others, or chasing one another.  We always have quite a clear logic for us as we make the choreography, so that as you view it, you can maybe not work out the logistics or the logic of it but have a sense of coherency about it.  But certainly the movement style is very physical, but very functional . . .

Yael Flexer’s The Living Room.  Photo by Chris Nash.

Often, dance is described as kind of pure dance or dance theater, and I would say the work aligns more with pure dance in that it’s really concerned with the mathematics of space and time rather than trying to convey a kind of drama or relationships in a dramatic sense.  We’re always ourselves when we’re onstage.  We’re never transformed or anything like that. So there’s no sense of transcendence or big drama.  It’s very, very much in the here and now and the how we meet each other and simply being ourselves as people, as dancers.  And I think the work – and certainly the text in the work – talks about that to some degree.
I think what might be interesting for an Israeli reader/viewer is that – because I’m in it and I’m the choreographer voice in it – The Living Room has quite a lot of the notion of the “unhomed.”  I don’t know quite how to translate it to Hebrew, but in some way it’s a word that could only be made by an Israeli not living in Israel in that it talks about the kind of longing but also the loss of a home, in that sense of where I grew up is not where Israel is now.  I think we mention this question of the “unhomed” or the not having a home a lot, and therefore we’re imagining furniture, because we ultimately don’t have a home.   And there are some references [in The Living Room] that are also very English and talk about the dancers and their background, and I think that might be an interesting thing to consider, that kind of reading of the work.  So it’s talking about dancing through time but also the idea of difference, or the idea of a kind of mixed cast of different places and different backgrounds and the sort of longing for a home or to be “homed”.

Deborah: That’s really interesting for me to hear.   I’m from the U.S.; I came to Israel because I was intrigued by Israeli dance and I stayed here.  Some of the things you talk about, I can connect to on a reverse level – you know, what I feel in terms of my relationship to the U.S., although I haven’t been gone as long.  Also, a lot of people certainly ask me – and especially when I was first here and looking at work by Israeli choreographers, I wondered – if there was something that they were saying or that they were dealing with that was coming somehow specifically from their relationship to their home, just in the same way that you could look at anybody who’s American or British or whatnot and see if there’s something culturally specific that they’re considering.  So it’s interesting for me to hear that you do see, somehow, a connection specifically to these issues.

Yael: This particular work definitely refers a lot to cultural baggage, or what is culture and how is it a part of you, or what is you and what isn’t you.  I think it has that perspective of being nearly 40 and having children and being away from Israel and those kinds of questions.  I mean, not everyone would read it in that way, at all, but I think if you want to read it in that way, there are those links.  I’m really interested in performing in Israel, because it would be great to see how an Israeli audience reads it.   Also in a sense, whenever you make work as an Israeli outside of Israel, you are the voice of Israel – whether you like it or not – if you reference Israel in any way. So there are things there that are interesting for an Israeli audience to view, thinking, “Okay, this is what an English audience is seeing about Israel,” or how we are represented through me, I suppose, and through Karni.   So there’s a kind of element of explanation that maybe you would never use if you were only making it for a predominantly Israeli audience.  I mean, I don’t know if it’s the case; I don’t think it’s that much explanation, but I think there are some words that only an Israeli audience would get and in other places it’s just Hebrew; they (an English audience) have no idea what we say.

Deborah: And based on what I saw online, did this just premiere a few weeks ago?

Yael: Yes, we just premiered two weeks ago.

Deborah: So this will be the first performance of it outside of the U.K.

Yael: Yes.

Deborah: Have you brought any of your work to Israel before?

Yael: I have but a really long time ago.  I’ve been doing lots of work in Israel but mostly teaching.  This is the first time we got funding from the British Council to bring the work over, just because it’s a big company.

Deborah: It’s six dancers?

Yael: It’s five dancers, me, and the cellist as well, Karni.

Deborah: Can you talk a little bit about the music?

Yael: Well, there are three composers.  Really there are two, and there’s one track that we used from a different composer (Dougie Evans) that I’ve worked with.   It’s Nye Parry and Karni Postel.   I’ve worked with Karni on two other productions in the past, so it’s an ongoing collaboration, and I’ve worked with Nye for ten years.  And I kind of forced them to get together!  And it’s been great, actually.

The sound score is different from other scores in that it’s more filmic in a way, and having Karni play live just brings a kind of edge to it, and there’s an element of improvisation at play – not entirely, but she has a little more freedom to respond to us with the cello.  We’re really looking at what we called the beautiful cello – this idea of a quite pleasing or harmonic sound and the more distorted, heavy, uncomfortable sound, and the work plays with those two extremes.  So sometimes it’s very comfortable, and sometimes it’s very uncomfortable.  And similarly, sometimes we’re very comfortable and kind of cozy with the audience, and other times we’re a little more edgy or in some senses less familiar with them and with each other, so there’s a sense of maybe more destruction or discomfort or disharmony . . . so that sense of being “unhomed” comes through in the music as well . . .

What else can I tell you?  We’re doing lots of workshops when we’re in Israel.  And this is what we do quite a lot; education work, mostly at the university level but sometimes with youth as well, and sometimes with adults.  I think there’s an element of wanting to know our audience to some degree and that familiarity, so it kind of runs through.   It’s a way of breaking the ice as well, so we’ll have some participants who have done our workshops coming to the show, and I think that’s always nice.

Yael Flexer’s The Living Room.  Photo by Chris Nash.

Deborah: Is there anything else that you think is particularly important to say about the work or your company?

Yael: It’s good to mention that the dancers are a very equal part in the making of the work. It’s a very adult company, I mean, although we range from 22 to 38 or so. The way I approach it is very democratic; it’s quite a social and democratic way of conceiving and making the work. So even though I direct it and make certain decisions, obviously, it’s not hierarchical in any way. That’s really important for me. You know, we always have a really good laugh making the work, and I think you can see that when you see the work. That’s a device to get what I want out of the dancers and the kind of work I want to make. In a sense, the work represents a kind of process, and I think that might be different from other choreographers’ process. So the social part of being together and making work is just as much a part of the work, or becomes part of the work.

More Details

Yael Flexer, Nic Sandiland/Dance and Digital Works presents Flexer’s The Living Room at the Tmuna Theater in Tel Aviv at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, April 9.  Tickets (NIS 65) are available at (03) 561-1211.  Nic Sandiland talks about his work at the Kalisher Gallery on Tuesday, April 13; for more details, call (03) 516-5535.

Related Links

• Yael Flexer
• Nic Sandiland
• Tmuna Theater
• Studio B

Noa Dar in Arnica.  Photo by Tamar Lam.

(This podcast was initially produced for Israel Seen in 2008, and the text is amended from my writing on The Winger.  You can subscribe to this podcast using the iTunes software by clicking this link to the podcast feed.)

* * *

I had spent many evenings during my Fulbright year taking contemporary dance classes with Shlomit Fundaminsky and Inbal Aloni at Noa Dar’s studio in Tel Aviv, but when I entered the building one night for a performance of Noa’s Tetris, it was as if I had walked into another world. When I viewed Arnica a month later in the more traditional environment of Tel Aviv’s Tmuna Theater, I not only saw Noa’s range as a choreographer but was struck by her powerful presence as a performer.  After screening more of her work on DVD, I knew I had to meet the woman whose name graced the space where I so frequently took class!

We set up a meeting, and at long last I met Noa in her studio for a stimulating conversation.  During our interview, Noa reflected on the development of her movement vocabulary, the evolution of her repertory, her choreographic process, and the relationship of her work to her upbringing on a kibbutz and to the larger Israeli society.  It was a really rich discussion that, for me, further illuminated her well-crafted choreography while shedding even more light on the surrounding contexts of Israeli dance and Israeli culture.   I hope it will open your eyes as well!

* * *

Noa Dar is currently on tour with Arnica and Tetris in Frankfurt and Münster, Germany, through September 9th.  For video clips and photos of these works and more, please see below.

Video: Noa Dar’s Arnica (Dar performs the second solo)

Noa Dar.  Photo by Eldad Refaeli.

Noa Dar’s Tetris.  Photo by Tamar Lam.

Video: Noa Dar’s Tetris

Noa Dar’s In a Dark, Dark Land.  Photo by Tamar Lam.

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• “Noa Dar’s ‘Tetris’ – Shaping the Space”

Other Podcasts on Dance In Israel

• Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak: An Interview on Imagination
• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor: An Interview with Dramatic Dancemakers
• Interview with Yair Vardi: A View from the Top
• Renana Raz: Choreographing Israeli Culture and Beyond
• Sahar Azimi Speaks about Choreography and Contemporary Dance
• Shlomit Fundaminsky: An Interview on Improvisation and Israeli Life

Related Links

• Noa Dar

*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.

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.”

Related Links

• Suzanne Dellal Center

Shlomit Fundaminsky in Inner Pocket. Photo by Eyal Landsman.

(This podcast was initially produced for Israel Seen in 2008, and the text is amended from my writing on The Winger.  You can subscribe to this podcast using the iTunes software by clicking this link to the podcast feed.  You can also subscribe for free at the iTunes store.)

* * *

Whether she is performing a solo she choreographed, improvising with the Oktet, or teaching a contemporary dance class, Shlomit Fundaminsky is someone to watch.  She has drawn my eyes in all of these settings.  Onstage she fully embodies the clever characters she creates, and in the studio, she passes on her passion for movement to her many students (full disclosure – I am one of them!).

I have had the pleasure of talking with Shlomit on many occasions since first arriving in Israel, and we finally sat down to record an engaging conversation in June 2008.  Join us as we discuss her career, the connection between improvisation and life, the realities of being a dancer in Israel, and how life in Israel affects the dance that is made here.

Shlomit Fundaminsky in La Divina. Photo by Aviv Zemer.

One of Shlomit’s more recent works is La Divina, created for the program “Opera(tion)” which initially premiered in Jaffa in January 2008.  The full program, including works by choreographers Iris Erez and Maya Weinberg, will be presented as part of Maholohet (SummerDance) at Suzanne Dellal on July 31st.  This time around, fellow Oktet member Inbal Aloni will take the stage in a memorable, diva-esque performance.

Video: Excerpts of some of Shlomit Fundaminsky’s works.

Video: The Oktet in an improvisation. Shlomit Fundaminsky is in a red sweater.

Other Podcasts on Dance In Israel

• Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak: An Interview on Imagination
• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor: An Interview with Dramatic Dancemakers
• Interview with Yair Vardi: A View from the Top
• Renana Raz: Choreographing Israeli Culture and Beyond
• Sahar Azimi Speaks about Choreography and Contemporary Dance

Related Links

• Shlomit Fundaminsky’s YouTube channel
• Shlomit Fundaminsky’s bio on the Amuta website
• Suzanne Dellal Center

*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.

Ohad Naharin.  Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Since 1981, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award has been bestowed annually on luminaries of the dance world.  From Martha Graham (the first recipient) to Laura Dean (the 2008 recipient), selected choreographers have won this prize with their lifelong devotion to building and shaping their art form.  The honorees have pioneered new techniques and ventured into unfamiliar compositional territory.  Out of their experiments emerged choreography that was not only groundbreaking but masterful.

With the exceptions of Pina Bausch and Maguy Marin, the Scripps recipients have been American or based in the United States.  This year, though, a third choreographer from abroad will receive the award: Ohad Naharin.  The award presentation will take place on June 25th at ADF in Durham, North Carolina.

Naharin, the artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company, has left an indelible impact not only on the troupe he leads but on the larger Israeli dance scene.  Yet as his selection for the Scripps award suggests, Naharin’s influence is also felt beyond Israel’s borders.

Indeed, Naharin’s work has spread worldwide.  Major companies including the Nederlans Dans Theater and the New York-based Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet have performed his critically acclaimed and captivating choreography.  Juilliard students have learned several of Naharin’s works over the years, while young dancers in Sweden recently presented Kamuyot. And of course, the Batsheva Dance Company itself has toured around the globe with a tempting menu of Naharin’s visual delights.

Naharin’s consistently well-crafted composition and clever challenges to choreographic convention would be enough to launch him into the stratosphere of contemporary dancemakers worthy of the Scripps award.  But this artist also made his mark on dance training.  The inventive movement which characterizes Naharin’s work stems from Gaga, which the choreographer created and instituted as the Batsheva Dance Company’s primary method of training.  Daily Gaga classes in Israel and workshops around the world have introduced dancers – and non-dancers – to Naharin’s movement language.

Naharin’s choreography and innovative technique has caused ripples throughout the dance world, and his effect on a new generation of dancemakers is already visible.  Many of Israel’s independent choreographers danced for Naharin at Batsheva; though they have developed their own voices, their processes and products have at times been flavored by those of their former director.  Meanwhile, in New York, Gallim Dance – founded by Batsheva Ensemble alumna Andrea Miller – is making waves.  If the histories of previous Scripps honorees are any indication, Ohad Naharin’s already far-reaching impact on the field of dance will be long lasting as well.

List of Scripps Award Recipients

(From the ADF Awards & Dedications Page)

1981 Martha Graham
1982 Merce Cunningham
1983 Paul Taylor
1984 Hanya Holm
1985 Alwin Nikolais
1986 Katherine Dunham
1987 Alvin Ailey
1988 Erick Hawkins
1989 In memory of Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and Jose Limón
1990 Twyla Tharp
1991 Anna Sokolow
1992 Donald McKayle
1993 Talley Beatty
1994 Trisha Brown
1995 In memory of of Pearl Primus and Helen Tamiris
1996 Meredith Monk
1997 Anna Halprin
1998 Fayard and Harold Nicholas
1999 Pina Bausch
2000 Pilobolus Dance Theatre
2001 Garth Fagan
2002 no recipient
2003 Maguy Marin
2004 Eiko and Koma
2005 Bill T. Jones
2006 Murray Louis
2007 Mark Morris
2008 Laura Dean
2009 Ohad Naharin

Related articles about Ohad Naharin’s choreography on Dance In Israel

• “MAX – Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography”
• “Getting to Know the Batsheva Ensemble”
• “Mamootot – Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide”
• “Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed”
• “Batsheva Dance Company Premieres Ohad Naharin’s Hora“

Related Articles about Gaga on Dance In Israel

• “Going Gaga: My Introduction to Gaga Dance Classes”
• “Gaga: Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language, in His Own Words”
• “Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language”
• “Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)”
• “A Glimpse into the Gaga Workshop”

Related Links

• American Dance Festival
• Batsheva Dance Company
• “Israeli choreographer wins prestigious prize” (Ynet article)

Renana Raz in We Have Been Called to Go. Photo by Eyal Landesman.

(This podcast was initially produced for Israel Seen in 2008, and the text is amended from my writing on The Winger.  You can subscribe to this podcast using the iTunes software by clicking this link to the podcast feed.  You can also subscribe for free at the iTunes store.)

Renana Raz is a relatively young choreographer, but she has already developed a unique artistic voice and an impressive body of work.  Prior to interviewing her, I viewed a DVD of her repertory and attended a high-energy performance of Kazuaria, which was inspired by and incorporated elements from the Druze debka dance.  After our conversation, I couldn’t wait to see We Have Been Called to Go, which like Kazuaria weaves folk dance – in this case, Israeli folk dance – into a decidedly contemporary concert dance framework.  When I finally saw this work, I stayed up much of the night writing in my blog about it.  For now I’ll keep you in suspense, but I’ll republish this post soon on Dance In Israel.

Before arriving in Israel, I wondered if choreographers were dealing with specifically Israeli subject matter in their work.  The short answer (and there is a long one!) is that the vast majority of Israeli contemporary dance presented over the last season has not featured explicitly Israeli characters, situations, or symbols.  Renana’s We Have Been Called to Go and Kazuaria are some of the only works I have viewed which place the Israeli context center stage.

I’m happy to say that these works captured my attention not only because of this distinction but also because of their fine craft and compelling performance.  Renana’s repertory stretches beyond the Israeli context even when she is expressly exploring it, and we talk about this in our conversation.  But – just as I gained some insight into Israeli society by watching Kazuaria and We Have Been Called to Go – you’ll get to learn a bit about Israeli culture by listening to her talk about these dances.

To see excerpts of Kazuaria and more photos, check out the rest of the post below.

Renana Raz and Ilaya Shalit in Phantoms; Renana Raz in Motel. Photos by Yossi Gamzo Letova & Orion Szydel.

(Video: The joined debka – modern dancers and Druze dancers perform together in the third part of Renana Raz’s Kazuaria.)

(Video: Renana Raz’s company in Kazuaria.)

Related Articles on Dance In Israel:

• Viewing an Israeli Vision with Diasporic Eyes: A Look at Renana Raz’s We Have Been Called to Go
• International Exposure 2008: Day 2 – Includes a video of Ov, a collaboration by Renana Raz and Ofer Amram

Other Podcasts on Dance In Israel:

• Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak: An Interview on Imagination
• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor: An Interview with Dramatic Dancemakers
• Interview with Yair Vardi: A View from the Top
• Sahar Azimi Speaks about Choreography and Contemporary Dance
• Shlomit Fundaminsky: A Conversation on Improvisation and Israeli Life

Related Links:

• Renana Raz’s website

*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.

(Video: A trailer for BAM’s presentation of Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin’s MAX)

This is an excerpt from “Two Views of Batsheva: Ohad Naharin’s Furo and MAX,” which was published on The Winger on May 17, 2008.  The Batsheva Dance Company will perform MAX in Santa Barbara (Feb. 24), San Diego (Feb. 26), Los Angeles (Feb. 28 – Mar. 1), and Brooklyn, NY (Mar. 4-7).

* * *

During the brief blackouts in Ohad Naharin’s MAX, I quickly tore my eyes away from the stage to steal glances at my friend Nitzan.  Each time I caught variations of the same expression on his face: eyes wide with amazement and mouth stretched into an even wider grin.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a “dance dork” (a few of my friends and I threw around this term frequently during graduate school). With my penchant for dance history and analysis, I’m probably not the typical audience member.  Give me a brilliantly-crafted piece and I will fall in love, counting the ways in which the choreography captures my attention and my affection.

Love at first sight is possible in the arena of dance, but sometimes even the most excellent work takes a bit of time to win over my heart fully.  Such was the case with Ohad Naharin’s MAX.  I first saw MAX in December, and due to fatigue, I didn’t take in the dance with the freshest eyes.  When I re-read my files before this second viewing, I saw that I had taken only a few hasty notes which focused on extremely satisfying sections marked by fine compositional structure.  But after tonight’s performance of MAX, I’m in love. At least in my eyes, the work as a whole is indeed brilliant.

Photo: Ohad Naharin’s MAX. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

MAX’s movement is mesmerizing and wide-ranging, from tightly gestural to gloriously full-bodied, from slow and steady to sudden and speedy.  At times the dancers work with a meticulous sense of control, while at other points they perform with breathtaking abandon.

While inventive and well-executed movement alone can captivate me, MAX also offers plenty of compositional excitement (I told you I was a dance dork!).  The pacing of this work was for me, in a word, perfect.  Naharin often indulges in one compositional mechanism for longer than many other dancemakers, but the choreographic technique never overstays its welcome – it just blossoms fully.

Here’s one example: a dancer tilts wildly out of kilter in a virtuoso solo and then is swept into an explosion of movement from the company, which is scattered across the stage in small groups, each of which has its own phrase; together, the ensemble paints the space with their bodies, arms and legs leaving traces of motion behind them.  Out of this grows another solo, which again dissolves into the company’s grouped dancing.  After only a few cycles I know what to expect, but my mind still delights in searching for the start of each solo and enjoys the wash of movement from the group.

Here and elsewhere, Naharin senses the right moment for a shift and recharges my attention. Sometimes blackouts clear the slate, but more often my eyes are refreshed by extreme juxtapositions: stillness and motion; unison and organized chaos; slow and fast; small and large; smooth and sharp; full ensemble sections and trios or solos.

MAX excited me but in a different way than some of Naharin’s more overtly theatrical productions like Deca Dance, Zachacha, and Anaphase.  Deca Dance, for one, is absolute fun – I’ve seen it win over several audiences easily.  But MAX is in another category.  It doesn’t have the theatrical elements which can engage less-seasoned audience members.  There is no set, no narrative, and no characters (though for me the gestural motifs, repeated tableaux, and chanting create a sense of a tribe with its own unique rituals).  There are no displays of emotion despite one usage of a smile.  The dancers are dressed in simple shorts and tanks rather than more elaborate costumes.

Furthermore, MAX itself is not an “easy” work.  The sound score is challenging.  Melodious music played by traditional, recognizable instruments is replaced by low unidentifiable sounds, grating industrial noises, deep eerie male voices speaking in an invented language and droning in counting sections, and long periods of silence.  Some people might consider the movement aesthetic challenging as well; there is no attempt at the prettiness of ballet or of some modern techniques despite the inclusion of recognizable classical positions.  And in a work that centers so much on composition, the choice of choreographic tools might also prove taxing to certain audience members.  The frequent usage of movement accumulations, with repeated movements building into longer and longer phrases, may wear on some viewers’ eyes.

So I while I loved the structure and was moved by MAX, I found myself wondering on what level Nitzan (or any non-dance dork) was connecting to the work.  Were less seasoned dance viewers enjoying the work’s formal elements?  Would they too be moved by the dance?

The answer: yes.  The audience clapped enthusiastically for several sets of bows.  And as Nitzan’s animated facial expressions suggested, he did indeed enjoy the concert.  We talked excitedly about the choreography and the performance of it as we meandered back towards our neighborhood, and without my even asking, he talked poetically about how he connected to the work.  MAX was, he said, “Food for the soul.”  You can’t get much better than that!

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• “Getting to Know the Batsheva Ensemble”
• “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”
• “Batsheva Dance Company: From Graham to Gaga”

Articles on MAX from the Dance Blogosphere

• “Batsheva’s MAX” – Tonya Plank at Swan Lake Samba Girl
• “Batsheva Performs MAX at BAM” – Evan at Dancing Perfectly Free
• “Batsheva Didn’t Blow My Mind this Time” – Wendy Perron’s blog at Dance Magazine

Related Links

• Batsheva Dance Company’s website
• Dance In Israel’s Events page – with the company’s tour dates in North America
• Discounted Tickets to Batsheva at BAM – a great tip from Evan at Dancing Perfectly Free
• Video of Ohad Naharin from BAM

*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.

(Oren Laor and Noga Golan in the “Interlude” from Duets; photo by Gadi Dagon)

(This podcast was initially produced for Israel Seen, and the text is amended from my writing there and on The Winger.  You can subscribe to this podcast using the iTunes software by clicking on “Podcasts (RSS)” at the top of this website or following this link to the podcast feed.)

Among the many choreographers premiering work at this year’s Curtain Up Festival are Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor.  With Niv’s background in dance and Oren’s training in theater – and with the special synergy between them – their work has the power to probe the depths of human relationships and prompt laughter at the lighter moments of life.  In the pair’s Curtain Up 2008 offering, Post-Martha, they tackle Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with their trademark dramatic flair, communicative skill, and choreographic honesty.

I hadn’t been in Israel very long when I first saw Niv and Oren’s Duets last fall, but even after many months and many, many more concerts, this piece remains one of my favorites.  I immediately thought of this collaborative team when I started planning for my podcast, and I was thrilled when Niv and Oren agreed to be my first interview subjects last winter.

Like true Tel Aviv-ians, we met at a cafe for an engaging chat in January 2008.  We discussed Niv’s training in dance and Oren’s background in theater, their collaborative creative process, and their choreographic treatment of relationships and gender issues in Duets and Jorona.

To listen my conversation with Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor, click on the podcast player above or subscribe to the podcast and download it to iTunes.  To see more fantastic photographs and video clips of Niv and Oren’s work, keep reading the post below.  And if you are in Israel, you can attend Curtain Up 2 in Tel Aviv (Saturday, December 13) or in Jerusalem (Thursday, December 18) to catch their Post-Martha!

(Video: An excerpt from “Co-Variance,” part of Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Duets)

(Video: An excerpt from Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s Jorona)

Click on a thumbnail below to see a larger image.

(Photographs, clockwise from top left: Niv Sheinfeld and Sivan Gutholtz in “On a Matter of Life or Death” from Duets – photo by Gadi Dagon; Oren Tishler and Ran Ben-Dror in “Co-Variance” from Duets – photo by Gadi Dagon; Post-Martha – photo by Ascaf; Oren Laor and Noga Golan in Jorona – photo by Gadi Dagon)

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

• Curtain Up 6: Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor Host Noa Shadur (about the pair’s latest work, Big Mouth)
• Exploring Israeli Society through Dance at International Exposure 2009 (about Big Mouth)
• Israel’s Curtain Up Festival: “Another Op’ning, Another Show” for Contemporary Dance

Other Podcasts on Dance In Israel

• Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak: An Interview on Imagination
• Interview with Yair Vardi: A View of Israeli Concert Dance from the Top
• Renana Raz: Choreographing Israeli Culture and Beyond
• Sahar Azimi Speaks about Choreography and Contemporary Dance
• Shlomit Fundaminsky: A Conversation on Improvisation and Israeli Life
• Noa Dar Discusses Her Dance Career
• Andrea Miller: From Gaga to Gallim Dance
• Interview with Barak Marshall: Dancing between Israel and America

Related Links

• Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s website

*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.