Dance In Israel » Gaga dance

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.

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.

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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.

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“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

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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!

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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.

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Dance In Israel » Gaga dance

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

Learning to Speak Gaga

Related posts on Gaga on Dance In Israel

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

Related links

Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)

Related posts on Gaga on Dance In Israel

Video notes

Related links

Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language

Related posts on Gaga on Dance In Israel

Gaga in the Dance Blogosphere

*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

Related posts about Gaga on Dance In Israel

Going Gaga: My Intro to Gaga Dance Classes

Gaga Dance Classes: The Logistics

What is Gaga?

My First Experiences with Gaga

Related Articles on Dance In Israel

*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.