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February 13, 2009
Fans go gaga for Deca Dance
Chutzpah! features world-renown Israeli dance group BatSheva.
DANA SCHLANGER
They move frenetically or stand staring in fierce concentration. They explode into an adrenaline-fueled disjointed movement that spreads like fire or explore minimalist, barely-there motion. They are the Israeli BatSheva Dance Co., considered one of the top contemporary dance groups in the world and they're coming to Vancouver, presented by the Chutzpah! festival, Dance House and the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad. Do not miss them!
Founded in 1964 by foremost pioneer of modern dance Martha Graham and philanthropist Baroness Batsheva De Rothschild, the Batsheva Dance Co. is well-known for its powerful combination of force, speed and drama. Based in Tel Aviv, Batsheva consists of two ensembles and 40 dancers from Israel and around the world. Under the artistic directorship of Ohad Naharin, Batsheva has become Israel's leading modern dance company, encouraging a collaborative approach from artists of all disciplines.
Born in Israel to a dancer mother and psychologist father, Naharin started his dance training with Batsheva itself. After a year with the troupe, he left for New York to train with Martha Graham's company and at Juilliard School. He also briefly danced with the Maurice Bejart Co. in Brussels before making his choreographic debut in New York in 1980. By the time he returned to Batsheva to assume the role of artistic director, Naharin had developed his own distinctive movement language – which he dubbed "Gaga" – and gained renown for creating provocative, sensual and, above all, passionate dances.
"We are very excited to come to Vancouver," said Naomi Bloch-Fortis, executive director and co-artistic director of the BatSheva Dance Co. "It's one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I'm told." I can almost hear her smile over the phone. After all, BatSheva tours extensively; they spend almost a third of the year on tour, literally travelling everywhere in the world. This is one of the reasons that the company defines itself as "international in nature, made up of individually unique dancers from Israel and abroad." Naomi explained: "It is very Israeli and very international at the same time. It is based and created in Israel, our work reflects the life of the society and the country, our work is done mainly by Israeli choreographers and we are considered the best cultural ambassador of Israel. Our Israeli side is very significant, but we do work globally, perform on many stages around the world. Our existence is global and part of the global creativity. The dancers of the company come from many different countries: Australia, Europe, Scandinavia, Japan. The world of artistic dance is very international anyhow, this profession does not require words or language, any professional dancer can work anywhere in the world."
BatSheva is bringing to Vancouver Deca Dance, an "anthology" work designed to showcase the breadth of Naharin's choreographic invention, where even the name (based on the initial performance on the occasion of Naharin's 10th anniversary as the company's artistic director) becomes a play on words in English. Bloch-Fortis described it as an "open-frame work, where Ohad deconstructs bigger works and reconstructs them into a new composition. He puts together a work that changes and evolves every year, with dances from the current repertoire or ones that he's in the process of creating. It's surprising and beautiful...." It's also brilliant and at times tongue-in-cheek. Set to music ranging from resonating Hebrew chants to "Cha-Cha de Amor," this high-spirited work is an exuberant ode to Naharin's creative vision.
It is difficult to appreciate this structured work and the ingenuity of its creators, including the dancers themselves, without mentioning Naharin's Gaga. A language of human values, it was born out of Naharin having suffered a serious back injury. It involves the extreme engagement of the entire body, along with an equally extreme clarity.
Bloch-Fortis said it's difficult to describe it in words, but chooses to use an interesting metaphor to convey the impact it has: "Do you remember working on computers that were operating on DOS? It was linear – you could only go forward and do one thing at a time. All of a sudden, there came Windows operating system and people learned how to open as many windows as they wanted and have all the functions at the same time. It's the same with Gaga – many windows open in our bodies and brains, sometimes functioning individually or simultaneously to create together a multi-dimensional, multi-tasking, multi- layered way of moving. Gaga is the BatSheva signature technique, a training language, but, when we do Gaga, it not only trains our bodies, it also trains our brains – we're more alert, more in control." In the words of one reviewer, it "combines the discipline of an adult, the articulation of a robot and the energy of a toddler and the BatSheva dancers wear it as a second skin."
The BatSheva Dance Co. challenges viewers to open their brains and hearts and take in movement that is explosive and space-devouring. It is either a highly refined academic dance vocabulary or an everyday gesture, where the beautiful rubs shoulders with the grotesque. Max Ribitsky of the Edinburgh Festival Review described Deca Dance as a mix of ballet, tango, pantomime, synchronized swimming on parquet and robot dance. He added that, the company dancers are "as talented as they are wilfully unkempt and asexual, sporting a carefully cultivated just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-into-some-random-attire-I've-found-in-my-attic chic, which seems a perfectly appropriate fit to their artistic director's asymmetrical movement philosophy."
For more details on Chutzpah! The Lisa Nemetz International Showcase of Jewish Performing Arts and for tickets to Deca Dance and other shows, visit www.chutzpahfestival.com.
Dana Schlanger is a Vancouver freelance writer and the director of the Dena Wosk School of Performing Arts at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.
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