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Dancing in Israel: Summer Workshops

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

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

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

Video: KCDC’s International Summer Program

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

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

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

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

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

Video: Bridge Choreographic Dialogues 2009

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

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

Batsheva Dance Company: The Evolution of Ohad Naharin’s “Sadeh21″

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:45:28 +0000

Photo: Ohad Naharin’s Sadeh21. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Watching Batsheva Dance Company in an open rehearsal of Ohad Naharin’s latest creation, I was keenly aware that evolution is at play. Sadeh21 – literally Field21 – is roughly 6 weeks into its genesis, and it is scheduled to premiere at the Sherover Theatre as part of the Israel Festival in Jerusalem on May 25, 2011. Dressed informally in their own clothes, the troupe’s twenty members showed a sizable segment of the work to a crowd of journalists in Studio Varda on April 13.

During a few sections, Naharin called out instructions to the dancers, highlighting the element of change that is part and parcel of the creative process. And indeed, in the six weeks between now and its premiere, Sadeh21 will no doubt undergo many changes. What we writers will see in May will bear a resemblance to its forerunner, but it will look decidedly different. Onstage, there will be choreographic sections that we have not yet viewed and alterations to what we did watch – additions, subtractions, refinements. Naharin noted that he and the cast have paid special attention to the interpretation of the work, which will certainly deepen with time. And in the theater, Sadeh21’s full staging will be revealed, including lighting by Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi) and costumes by Ariel Cohen.

Photo: Ohad Naharin’s Sadeh21. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Yet even at this early point of its development, Sadeh21 is rich with layers. The composition juxtaposes solos and duets with larger ensembles, clean lines and formations with an organic chaos that, when featuring all twenty dancers, brings to mind the image of children gleefully tearing across a playground. Sometimes a particular structural motif surfaces, the clarity of form enhancing the strength of a section as it unfolds. And throughout, the movement captivates and surprises. Bodies extend to their furthest points and then contract, speedily changing shape with seemingly no preparation and referencing motions both familiar and novel. These dancers may have the same flesh and bone makeup as the rest of us, but at times they appear to be pure liquid, poured into constantly shifting molds.

Naharin’s movement language, Gaga, has been used as a toolbox throughout the construction of Sadeh21, and traces of the ideas explored in classes are visible to viewers who have taken Gaga. Several women slink into their own gentle grooves before periodically convening to start a small gesture in unison – clapping, tracing a circle in the air with one finger, making a fist and punching, pushing the pelvis upwards from a crablike crouch. Keeping the same tempo, the dancers gradually increase the size of the movement until it is as big as possible, enlisting more and more of their bodies until every part is contributing to the effort. While the movement can be silly, it is sophisticated, imbued with pleasure in the discovery of new options and laced with humor. Both a woman pattering offstage on all fours with her tail in the air and a man hopping across the space with one leg tucked up flamingo-style bring a smile to my face; a woman rhythmically lifting her hips in a long and winding march endears herself to me.

It’s not just the clever, sometimes lighthearted physicality that stirs my feelings in this version of Sadeh21. The interactions between the dancers – from simple looks to tender clasps of hands to more intricately designed contact – resonate with a range of emotions. And when a man tilts his face up, assumes an optimistic expression and high-pitched tone, and verbalizes sweetly in an invented language, I can’t understand what he is saying. But I am nevertheless drawn to him, and I find myself responding with laughter, affection, and a touch of concern as he is forcibly removed to the side of the stage.

Photo: Ohad Naharin’s Sadeh21. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Somehow, the emotional power of the dance seems closer to the surface in Sadeh21, more readily available and potent than in some of Naharin’s recent creations such as MAX (2007) and Hora (2009). From this viewing, it seems that the work may share the epic tone and theatrical prowess that enthralled audiences in Naharin’s earlier productions for the Israel Festival, including Kyr (1990) and Z/na (1995). It may well be that in Sadeh21, Naharin has gathered the fruits of his artistic research over his twenty-one years at the helm of Batsheva – the more overtly dramatic sensibility that characterized his large-scale works from the 1990s and the cornucopia of physical possibilities gleaned through Gaga – and married them together. Sadeh21’s own evolution will continue in the womb of the studio during the next six weeks, and knowing Naharin’s ongoing engagement with his creations, the work will certainly change further as it lives in performance. I for one am interested in seeing the dance in its next developmental stages – and in contemplating its place in Naharin’s artistic evolution.

Performance Information

Batsheva Dance Company will premiere Ohad Naharin’s Sadeh21 during the Israel Festival at Jerusalem’s Sherover Theatre on May 25-27, 2011. Additional performances include May 31-June 4 (Herzliya Performing Arts Centre), June 5 (Modi’in Performing Arts Centre), June 9-11 (Suzanne Dellal Centre), and June 13 (Carmiel Performing Arts Centre).

Announcing the Gaga Intensive 2010

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

Gaga Intensive. Photo by Gadi Dagon

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

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

You can register at: www.gagapeople.com

Hope to see you in Tel Aviv this summer!

Batsheva Dance Company: Ohad Naharin’s “Shalosh” (“Three”)

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:07:41 +0000

Video: Batsheva Dance Company in Ohad Naharin’s Three

Five years after its premiere, Ohad Naharin’s Shalosh (Three) still lures audiences to the Suzanne Dellal Center – and judging by the enthusiastic curtain calls last Saturday night, the work continues to captivate crowds. My preview of this run of Three was originally published in the Jerusalem Post as “Lucky Number ‘Three.’”

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Three by Ohad Naharin. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Addressing a small crowd in the Batsheva Dance Company’s studios during an open rehearsal of Three, artistic director and choreographer Ohad Naharin mused that we frequently revisit books, movies, and music. So why not revisit a dance?

Naharin proposes that Tel Aviv audiences do just that when Three, an evening-length work which premiered in February 2005, returns to the Suzanne Dellal Center this weekend.

Guy Shomroni and Sharon Eyal in Three by Ohad Naharin. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

“The showing of Three in Tel Aviv offers the viewer a renewed meeting with the work, which exists inside a constant process of development since its creation,” Naharin explained in a press release. “This process, in which the work is growing and being refined all the time, is just as meaningful in the company’s work as the process of creation before a premiere.”

At the rehearsal, Naharin elaborated why both of these processes are so vital. “Since the premiere, the creation went through a lot of changes. I like to think of the premiere as a birth, since it’s clear to everyone that birth is just one moment, and that afterwards many other things happen,” he reflected. “There is no doubt that the work changed, improved, among other things because of the meeting with the dancers, who are very creative and musical themselves. This is one of the reasons that I recommend for people to see the creation twice, at the beginning and after a year or two once it has gone through this process of ripening.”

Three by Ohad Naharin. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

In the case of Three, the work has enjoyed five years of ripening while remaining in Batsheva’s active repertory. Consequently, original cast members who have stayed with the company as well as newer additions to the troupe have had ample opportunity to develop their interpretation of the dance, calibrating their embodiment of the choreography with previously elusive nuances and subtleties.

Nowhere is this maturation more important and beneficial than in a work such as Three, which in the absence of complex stagecraft and elaborate visual design reveals the movement and the dancers’ performance of it as the main subject. Lit plainly but effectively by Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi) and clothed in Rakefet Levy’s basic, solid-colored tops and closely fitting cropped pants, the dancers approach Three’s sophisticated, multi-layered movement with a confident straightforwardness.

Three by Ohad Naharin. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

As the title suggests, Three contains three discrete sections, and Naharin’s compositional and musical choices provide each part with a distinctive feel. In “Bellus,” set to Glenn Gould’s celebrated recording of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, a simple purity reflective of the music pervades both the dancers’ finely wrought solos and the more pared down, precise group work. Brian Eno’s spare, evocative Neroli provides the soundscape for “Humus,” which features a flock of the company’s women methodically repositioning their bodies and shifting their spatial formation in an entrancing unison.

“Secus,” the final section, boasts a musical collage that stretches from the offbeat electronic stylings of AGF to the alluring Indian melodies of Kaho Naa Pyar Hai to the resonant harmonies of the Beach Boys. This adventurously eclectic mix serves as a fitting backdrop for the audaciously quirky choreography. From total stillness, the dancers burst into flurries of activity, creating a sense of organized chaos both in the space and within their bodies. Their novel movement often defies description, but it constantly commands attention and inspires awe.

Three by Ohad Naharin. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Three’s extraordinarily rich physical texture can be attributed at least partly to the evolution of Naharin’s movement language, Gaga, in the early 2000s. Naharin noted that just a few years prior to Three’s premiere, “Gaga became the heart of the daily practice of the company,” and he added, “this common language [Gaga] held the keys to the process” of making Three. Indeed, the marvelous movement invention and robust embodiment which characterize Three are closely linked to the practice of Gaga, which expands the dancers’ ability to research movement possibilities and awakens their sensitivity to physical sensations. Five years later, Batsheva’s dancers bring a deepened understanding of Gaga to their performance of this work. And that’s reason enough to revisit Three for a second or even a third time.

Israeli Dance: What’s Happening in November

Deborah Friedes Galili — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:47:32 +0000

November is a month of festivals and foreign tours. For more details about these events and other performances, visit Dance In Israel’s Calendars.

At Home

Lee In Soo’s Modern Feeling is part of Tel Aviv Dance. Photo courtesy of Ora Lapidot.

Tel Aviv Dance 2009 is in full swing at the Suzanne Dellal Center and the Opera House. Still to come are companies and choreographers from France, Spain, Korea, and Israel. Check out the lineup in Tel Aviv Dance 2009 Mixes Global and Local Dance and get to the theater from now until November 13 to catch some of the best international dance around.

Sharon Vazanna’s Walking Inside Water. Photo by Amina Husberg.

While international performers are taking over the main stage at Suzanne Dellal, the center’s more intimate Yerushalmi Theater is hosting a mixed bill by emerging Israeli choreographers. On November 6, Odelia Kuperberg presents the trio Without Blinking, while Sharon Vazanna premieres her solo Walking Inside Water. Cuban-born Lazaro Godoy joins the program with his striking Jugo de Limon.

Noa Dar’s Us premieres at Curtain Up 2009. Photo by Tamar Lamm.

Soon after Tel Aviv Dance finishes, another major festival will take its place on Suzanne Dellal’s stage. Haramat Masach, or Curtain Up, is an annual platform for premieres by Israeli choreographers. To celebrate the Suzanne Dellal Center’s 20th anniversary, this year the festival invited established choreographers to create new works and host fresh creations by emerging artists. Curtain 1 opens with Nimrod Freed plus Anat Grigorio and Dafi Altbeb; Curtain 2 pairs Vertigo Dance Company’s Noa Wertheim with Elad Shechter; Curtain 3 boasts Yasmeen Godder and Iris Erez; Curtain 4 includes Tel Aviv Dance Company’s Yaara Dolev and Michael Miler; Curtain 5 features Noa Dar with Maya Brinner and Irad Mazliah; and Curtain 6 closes with the team of Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor as well as Noa Shadur. The festival ends with a special performance of the Inbal Pinto Dance Company in Trout. Check back soon for more posts on Curtain Up 2009, and see below for articles about individual choreographers who will be participating in this year’s festival.

Video: Rina Badash’s Revealed Under the Covers

Although Curtain Up dominates the dance programming in late November, there are still a few dance performances to be found outside this platform. On November 26, Tmuna Theater will host Rina Badash’s Revealed Under the Covers, a multidisciplinary work featuring a solo dancer, live music, and video art projected on four screens.

Abroad

Ohad Naharin’s MAX. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

After presenting Ohad Naharin’s Hora and Mamootot at home during the Tel Aviv Dance festival, the Batsheva Dance Company is packing its bags for a European tour. Audiences in the Netherlands, France, and Germany can catch performances of Naharin’s Mamootot, Deca Dance, MAX, and Sharon Eyal’s Love. Want to read more about these works? Take a look at Mamootot: Challenging the Performer-Spectator Divide, Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance in Israel: A Cycle Completed, and MAX: Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography.

Ohad Naharin teaching Gaga in Tel Aviv. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Meanwhile in New York, Ohad Naharin will receive one of the 2009 Dance Magazine Awards on November 9. During his trip stateside, he will teach master classes in Gaga at Peridance in New York City from November 9-10. Hear some of the choreographer’s thoughts on Gaga in Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video).

Noa Wertheim’s Mana. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Further south in Washington D.C., Vertigo Dance Company will perform Noa Wertheim’s new Mana at the General Assembly of The Jewish Federations of North America (the GA). This year the GA will meet from November 8-10, and Vertigo will perform at the opening plenary which also features a speech by President Barack Obama. Israeli audiences can see Mana when Vertigo performs at Curtain Up in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation. Photo by Tamar Lamm.

Yasmeen Godder’s dancers are also headed to Europe for more performances of Singular Sensation in Belgium and Germany. Learn more about the choreographer in Close Encounters Series: Yasmeen Godder.

For Young Dancers in Israel

Over the next several months, a select group of young aspiring dancers will develop their artistry in weekly Gaga classes and repertory workshops taught by members of the Batsheva company and staff. Want to be part of this project? If you’re between the ages of 14 and 22, you can audition on November 10 at Studio Varda in the Suzanne Dellal Center. For more information, contact Michal at todance@013net.net.

Andrea Miller: From Gaga to Gallim Dance (Podcast)

Deborah Friedes Galili — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:45:46 +0000

Andrea Miller. Photo by Franziska Strauss.

(You can subscribe to this podcast using the iTunes software by clicking this link to the podcast feed.)

Usually I meet choreographers before I interview them, or at least I have seen a concert or two of theirs. But having heard plenty of positive buzz and watched some captivating clips on YouTube, I was sufficiently intrigued about Andrea Miller to set up a Skype conversation with the New York-based choreographer this summer.

Unlike most of the artists I’ve interviewed in the last two years, Andrea isn’t Israeli. However, she’s no stranger to the Israeli contemporary dance scene. Prior to taking Manhattan by storm with her three-year-old company, Gallim Dance, Andrea lit up the stage as a member of the Batsheva Ensemble. I couldn’t help but wonder if and how her fresh aesthetic had been affected by her time here in Israel.

Gallim Dance in Andrea Miller’s Blush. Photo by Karli Cadel.

Andrea and I spoke shortly after Gallim Dance made an appearance at Jacob’s Pillow, one of the most prestigious summer dance festivals in the United States. Besides discussing Blush, which Gallim Dance presented at the Pillow, we talked about Andrea’s path from training in Humphrey-Weidman technique to Juilliard to Batsheva. Join us as Andrea reflects on her experience in Israel, Gaga, her artistic influences, and Gallim Dance.

If you too are intrigued by Andrea, you can hear more from her when she participates in a special panel, Contemporary Israeli Dance and the Reinvention of the Jewish Body, at the JCC Manhattan on October 22 during Jewish Body Week. Want to see some of her choreography? The Northwest Professional Dance Project is premiering a dance by her this week in Portland, Oregon, and in the next few months alone, Andrea’s work will be presented by Utah’s Repertory Dance Theatre, Ballet Hispanico, and the Juilliard School. 2010 will take Andrea to Holland, Canada, and Switzerland before Gallim Dance’s summer engagement at the Joyce Theater in New York City. And for now, you can get a taste of her work by watching the clips below.

Video: Gallim Dance trailer, with excerpts from several of Andrea Miller’s works

Gallim Dance in Andrea Miller’s Blush. Photo by Franziska Strauss.

Video: Excerpts from Andrea Miller’s Blush

Other Podcasts on Dance In Israel

Batsheva Dance Company: From Graham to Gaga

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

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

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

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

Going Gaga for Batsheva in America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Learning to Speak Gaga

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflections on the Gaga Intensive 2009

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

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

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

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

* * *

Allison Shir

- United States, via Amsterdam

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

* * *

Victoria Hoyland

– England

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

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

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

* * *

Hannah Nieh

– United States

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

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

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

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

* * *

Evelyn Klöti

– Switzerland

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

* * *

Abbe Ouziel

– United States

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

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

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

* * *

Aviv Asulin

– Israel

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

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

* * *

Sarah Goldstone

– United States

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

Birgitte Lundtoft

– Denmark

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

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

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

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

* * *

Hallie Dalsimer

– United States, based in Tel Aviv

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

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

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

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

* * *

Anna Roethlisberger

– Switzerland

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

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

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

I really think he reaches people on a different level.

* * *

Shai Faran

– Israel

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

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

* * *

Cindy Yu

– United States

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

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

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

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

* * *

Christina Robinson

– England

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

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

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

* * *

Melinda Wilson

– United States

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

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

It’s broadened my horizons.

* * *

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

The Batsheva Ensemble on Tour at Home and Abroad

Deborah Friedes Galili — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:24:46 +0000

Video: The Batsheva Ensemble in Ohad Naharin’s Seder.

Last year I had the privilege and the pleasure of accompanying the Batsheva Ensemble on a trip to the town of Kiryat Shmona for two school shows of Ohad Naharin’s Seder. My photo journal and account of the day – originally titled “A Day in the Life: The Batsheva Ensemble in Kiryat Shmona” – was initially published on The Winger on May 18, 2008. I’m re-posting it here so that you can get a behind-the-scenes peak into the company’s workings.

But before you read about the company’s activities last year, here’s some fresh news: the Batsheva Ensemble will be touring this month to Rwanda. They’ll be performing and doing workshops with children – and, to give something a little more tangible, they plan to donate sneakers.

Help the Batsheva Ensemble Help Teenagers in Rwanda

If you’re in Israel, you can help by donating sneakers (used but in good condition), sizes 37-45. The sneakers will go to teenaged orphans whose parents died in the genocide. Visit the Facebook page for this event to learn more, and drop off your old sneakers now through June 16th at Batsheva’s offices in the Suzanne Dellal Center.

* * *

Now read on to learn more about the Batsheva Ensemble!

A Day in the Life: The Batsheva Ensemble in Kiryat Shmona

The costume trunk for Seder. As a work which lays bare its compositional structure through explicit verbal explanations, repeated visual cues (like the dancers counting to four on their fingers before breaking into four counts of full-bodied movement), and combined aural and visual information (such as a series of movement accumulations performed to similarly accumulating counts), the dance’s title is appropriate: “seder” is Hebrew for “order.”

It’s been a while since I’ve traveled around and performed for school audiences (I did my fair share of Nutcracker school shows with the American Repertory Ballet in the 1990s, from a tiny soldier to Snow and Flowers corps with a lot in between). But I’ve been able to live vicariously through the Batsheva Ensemble this year thanks to Eldad Mannheim, the company’s manager, who invited me to tag along with the group on a few outings. In January 2008, I joined the Batsheva Ensemble on their trip to Be’ersheva for two morning shows of Ohad Naharin’s Zachacha, and on Monday May 5th (2008), I again accompanied the group as they trekked to Kiryat Shmona for two performances of Naharin’s Seder.

5:55 a.m. Meet the Batsheva Ensemble at the corner of Kaplan and Ibn Gvirol in Tel Aviv. Most of the company members are already snoozing on the bus, and I quickly fall asleep too.

8:30 a.m. Arrive at the theater in Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel. Because of it’s proximity to Lebanon, Kiryat Shmona has been hit by rockets during many clashes with the PLO and Hezbollah, and the town suffered many attacks during the war in the summer of 2006. These performances were sponsored by IDB as a treat for the community’s children, who were no doubt affected by the conflict.

8:35 a.m. Breakfast! There is a long day ahead, so dancers and crew members fill up on fresh bread, veggies, cheese, tehina, coffee, and tea.

9:00 a.m. Hillel Kogan, one of the Batsheva Ensemble’s rehearsal directors, leads a spacing session onstage. Ohad Naharin created Seder for the Ensemble, and the work – which features material from MAX, Shalosh (Three in English), and Furo – debuted in July 2007. The dance can be adapted for anywhere between 12 and 17 dancers; today, 12 Ensemble members are in Kiryat Shmona to perform. Since the dancers know multiple parts and the cast constantly changes, Hillel clarifies who will be dancing each role for these two shows.

9:45 a.m. Gaga onstage, led by Hillel. As with class before Zachacha, this class includes plenty of time for the dancers to stretch and incorporates more familiar technical terminology – plié, relevé, passé, rond de jambe, etc. – than is typically included in the lessons open to the general public. I didn’t dance at all while I was away on a week-long trip to Tunisia, so I’m happy to get to move. I’m also inspired to be surrounded by such amazing dancers!

10:45 a.m. Local schoolchildren and their teachers arrive at the theater. The noise level grows . . .

10:50 a.m. Last minute notes by the dressing rooms. The dancers wear simple gray and black costumes in Seder, but there’s a twist that the audience can’t see: headphones. Part way through the work, one dancer explains (on a pre-recorded audio track) that the performers can move in unison with such precision even when the audience doesn’t hear music because they are listening to counts, beats, music, and other cues via their ear buds. Prior to the performance, the group does a sound check to make sure they are working.

11:00 a.m. (-ish – you know how school shows are . . . ) First performance of the day. Eldad gives a pre-show announcement, and the teachers try to quiet the students as the performance begins.

11:30 a.m. (-ish) The audience gets involved thanks to instructions from a dancer whose head appears on a television screen: put a hand on your heart, put a hand on the back of your neck . . . It’s not a game of Simon Says constructed especially for young audiences – these children are challenged by the same material that adult audience members would see at an evening performance. How’s that for arts education!

12:00 p.m. (-ish) The first show is over, and the crowd goes wild!

12:20 p.m. Hillel gives notes to the Ensemble backstage while the next group of youngsters fills the auditorium.

12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Second performance of Seder for a slightly older crowd.

1:40 p.m. The crew starts to strike the set. They’ve had a long day – at 1:00 a.m. they gathered all their equipment from Tel Aviv and made their way to the theater in Kiryat Shmona by 4:00 a.m. to lay down the white marley, put up the set’s panels, and take care of all the lighting and sound work.

1:45 p.m. Lunch and time for some fresh air, sunshine, and beautiful mountain views. From Kiryat Shmona, you can see Lebanon as well as the Golan Heights.

2:00 p.m. Back on the bus to return to Tel Aviv. Many people take well-deserved naps, but I speak with Hillel and a few of the dancers. Two-and-a-half hours is a long trip by Israeli standards, and the traffic as we near Tel Aviv makes the ride a little longer.

4:55 p.m. 11 hours later, I’m home! Almost immediately, I sit down at my computer to upload my photographs and start writing. Another day’s work . . .

Many thanks to Eldad, Hillel, the Batsheva Ensemble dancers, and the crew!

Ohad Naharin to Receive 2009 Scripps/ADF Award

Deborah Friedes Galili — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:12:56 +0000

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

A Glimpse into the Gaga Workshop

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

Gaga Intensive. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ohad Naharin on Gaga (Video)

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

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

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

Video notes

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

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

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

Getting to Know the Batsheva Ensemble

Deborah Friedes Galili — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:38:10 +0000

(Video: Dancers from the Batsheva Ensemble and from Sweden in Ohad Naharin’s Kamuyot)

I had every intention of taking Gaga class on November 18, 2007. My dance clothes were in my bag, my water bottle was filled, and I made it to Suzanne Dellal with time to spare. But outside the studio, I ran into Eldad Mannheim, the manager of the Batsheva Ensemble. As part of a collaboration with Sweden’s National Riksteatern, members of the Ensemble were about to perform Ohad Naharin’s Kamuyot along with Swedish dancers – and Eldad invited me to join the audience of school children in Studio Varda for the show.

That was the first time I had the pleasure of seeing the Batsheva Ensemble, the second company of the Batsheva Dance Company. Since then, I have accompanied the Ensemble as they have toured to Be’er Sheva, Kiryat Shmona, and Kfar Saba, and I have attended their performances at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv. Many of the dancers who were in the Ensemble last year are now in the Batsheva Dance Company, and I’m happy to note that they will be touring throughout the U.S. from late January to early March. I hope you too will have the pleasure of seeing them perform!

I first wrote about the Batsheva Ensemble after joining them for a trip to Be’er Sheva, in the Negev desert, and I published a version of the article below on my own blog on January 10, 2008. Expect more accounts of my experiences with the group in the coming months.

* * *

I am not a morning person.

These days, it takes multiple alarms to get me out of bed, and more often than not, the snooze button takes a beating. But at 5 a.m. on Thursday morning, I successfully arose after a single ring of my alarm. It takes something special for me to get up before the sun rises – something like the chance to accompany the Batsheva Ensemble on their trip to perform for students in Be’er Sheva.

I shouldn’t have worried about a lack of sleep. Like several of the company’s dancers and staff members, I dozed for the better part of the bus ride to Be’er Sheva, and besides, I wasn’t about to perform in two back-to-back, hour-long concerts! I also suspected (correctly) that the excitement of joining the Batsheva Ensemble for this excursion would keep me on my toes, so to speak.

We awoke as the bus arrived in Be’er Sheva, and after drowsily piling into the theater, the dancers ate a light, healthy breakfast backstage to bolster their strength. Then it was time to get down to work. As the crew busied themselves with costumes and technical equipment, I followed the dancers onstage and took Gaga class led by Ines, an Ensemble dancer from France. Thanks to the presence of other foreigners – 6 of the company’s 16 dancers hail from abroad – the class was directed in English.

While I have taken Gaga for nearly two months, this was my first opportunity to take a class populated entirely by dancers. I enjoyed the experience immensely. Now familiar Gaga instructions like floating, quaking, and becoming like a string of spaghetti in boiling water existed side-by-side with first position, pliés, and leg swings. It was just what my body needed in the morning, and I imagine that it was a good preparation for the performers as well.

After class, rehearsal director Claire Bayliss Nagar gathered the company and announced casting for each performance of Ohad Naharin’s Zachacha. As they walked through spacing arrangements, I was impressed by how quickly the dancers adjusted to working in different places. The Ensemble’s dancers may be on the younger end of the spectrum, ranging in age from eighteen to twenty-four, but they are working in a rigorous professional environment. They are not simply learning multiple roles in a single dance and jumping from part to part at a moment’s notice – they are doing so for several full-length works. Currently, the group’s repertory includes Naharin’s Zachacha, Kamuyot, Seder, and Deca Dance, and they also join with the main company to perform versions of Naharin’s Telophaza and Anaphaza as well as Sharon Eyal’s Bertolina. They typically present four to six shows per week selected from the above repertory. When they are not in the theater, they spend seven hours per day warming up with Gaga and rehearsing in their studio at the Suzanne Dellal Center. It is a demanding schedule that can take its toll on the dancers’ bodies, but I got the sense that the Ensemble members, who were selected from a competitive pool of approximately 300 dancers, were happy to meet the challenge.

With spacing and sound checks finished, the company retreated to do makeup and get dressed. Last minute questions were answered backstage, and then I returned to the audience with Claire. One dancer was already downstage entertaining the entering audience with a gentle, bobbing groove. After the other dancers filtered into the space, company manager Eldad Mannheim made a brief introduction and the show took off.

Performing in front of chatty school groups can be a test of focus, and the Batsheva Ensemble successfully survived both rowdy crowds. They may not have had the benefit of a captive audience, but they gradually won over a fair portion of the first show’s viewers, and I myself was entranced by Zachacha during both concerts. Naharin mixes excerpts from his rich repertory in his Deca Dance, and in previous performances of that work I had seen parts of Zachacha including “Diva,” with a fiercely glammed-up woman strutting on stilts and lip-syncing downstage; “Names,” with dancers’ solos accompanied by recorded text of them introducing themselves; and the ever-popular “Dancing with the Audience,” in which dancers pull unsuspecting audience members onstage and boogie with their partners.

Most of Zachacha, however, was new to me. In two early segments, I enjoyed the visual trickery of having dancers suspended by Velcro on a wall upstage. Later I was charmed by the theatricality of “Carolina,” in which two dancers told a story (in Hebrew) of a sad girl with a rare disease and recurring dream; meanwhile, five men tugged, twisted, shook, and lifted a woman center stage to match the narration with puppet-like movement. And throughout, I feasted my eyes on the performers’ sumptuous dancing. I started musing about what makes Naharin’s work so satisfying for me while watching the second show. Purely from a movement standpoint, I am consistently struck by the range he elicits from his dancers. They juxtapose tight, tiny motions with explosive, full-bodied movement; they are equally adept at sliding low across the floor and soaring high through the air; they can slink, slice, jerk, shake, snake, squirm, undulate, pop, and float. Thanks in large part to Gaga, they have a full menu of movement options, which is something I discussed later that day with Ariel Freedman, a Juilliard-trained Ensemble dancer from Maryland who is now performing with the main company.

I talked with a few other dancers on the ride back to Tel Aviv, though after their two shows and multiple rounds of notes, many took well-deserved naps (and yes, I was tempted to shut my eyes for a bit as well). I am tremendously grateful for Eldad’s invitation to join the Batsheva Ensemble for this trip – it’s an experience I won’t forget any time soon! – and I look forward to watching the company perform and talking more with the dancers throughout my time here. Many thanks to all of the company’s dancers and staff for making me feel welcome, humoring my never-ending questions, and keeping me engaged and entertained on very little sleep!

* * *

The Batsheva Dance Company is performing Ohad Naharin’s Project 5 and Mamootot this week at the Suzanne Dellal Center. After more performances this month including Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance 2009 and Sharon Eyal’s Makarova Kabisa, the company will tour North America from January 28 through March 7. For more details, visit Batsheva Dance Company’s website and see Dance In Israel’s Events page.

Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Gaga in the Dance Blogosphere

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We become available…”

-Ohad Naharin, March 2008

* * *

Going Gaga: My Intro to Gaga Dance Classes

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

Gaga Dance Classes: The Logistics

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

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

What is Gaga?

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

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

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

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

My First Experiences with Gaga

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Americans in Israel: Cedar Lake in Tel Aviv Dance 2008

Deborah Friedes Galili — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:52:09 +0000

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in Ohad Naharin’s Decadance. Photo by Paul B. Goode

It used to be that Israeli companies like Batsheva Dance Company and the now defunct Bat-Dor toured to the U.S. with American repertory (( Batsheva Dance Company was founded in 1964 by the Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, a patroness of Martha Graham. Graham was the company’s artistic adviser, and the group performed not only several of her works but also dances by numerous Americans and Europeans – some of who became artistic directors during the group’s early decades. )). But Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s appearance at the Tel Aviv Dance 2008 festival marks a turning point in dance history: this American company is bringing Israeli repertory to Israel. Cedar Lake’s programs will include excerpts from Decadance by Ohad Naharin, Batsheva’s artistic director.

Last year I peeked into Cedar Lake’s rehearsal process with Naharin by watching Tomer Heymann’s documentary, Out of Focus. Whereas the Batsheva dancers take class daily in Gaga, a movement practice developed by Naharin, Cedar Lake’s dancers had to move away from their ballet background and immerse themselves in a dramatically different method of training and working. This shift required the dancers to trade a traditional emphasis on external appearances for an intense process of personal and physical exploration – a major challenge for dancers reared and rooted in the ballet studio, with its ever-present mirror.

But Cedar Lake is explicitly billed as a contemporary ballet company. Its repertory is not drawn from 19th century ballet classics but from a range of modern-day works, some of which blur the borders between genres of dance. Thus the dancers that tackled this challenge did so with within the company’s framework of versatility and physical facility, which is beautifully captured in this video below:

Cedar Lake Demo from Caleb Custer on Vimeo.

(Readers/viewers familiar with Decadance might recognize a quick clip from the dance midway through the video.)

Cedar Lake’s performance of Israeli repertory in Israel provides a fitting opportunity to raise a few issues:

How has Israeli concert dance evolved from its beginnings in the 20th century?
When and how did choreography by Israelis become an attractive commodity on the global stage? (In less formal terms, when and how did Israeli contemporary dance become hot?)
What differences will Israeli audiences perceive when they see an American troupe performing Israeli repertory?
More broadly, are there differences between how Israelis and Americans (or any other group) move? Are there certain qualities which characterize an Israeli physicality?
What else characterizes the Israeli concert dance scene?
Why is ballet largely absent from the Israeli concert stage?
How do we distinguish between genres of dance? How do we label dance?

I’m afraid I’ll have to leave these questions hanging right now. They can become much more complex and detailed, and their answers are far from simple. But expect to find many more posts on Dance In Israel which will probe these issues!

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s performances in Israel will also include Crystal Pite’s Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue and Joe Stromgren’s Sunday Again. You can find more logistical details about the company’s concerts in Tel Aviv, Herzliya, and Jerusalem by clicking on Events, which is located at the top of Dance In Israel. I am just starting to place events on the calendars. If you want to submit events, please contact us!

For more, see my related post, Tel Aviv Dance 2008, or visit Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet’s website. And finally, here are two more striking photos of the company in Decadance, both by Paul B. Goode:

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*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.

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*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.

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