Latest news with #BatshevaDanceCompany
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
SFDanceworks' program of vulnerability is the hot dance ticket of the summer
The air was warm and the rafter seats were filled with the city's leading-edge dance artists for the opening of SFDanceworks. Over eight seasons, the annual pick-up project devoted to contemporary dance with international avant-garde cred has become not just summer's hot ticket, but one of the must-see dates of the annual dance calendar. Yes, the triple-bill that opened at Z Space on Thursday, July 10, and continues through Saturday, July 12, is just one hour and 15 minutes long — and yes, I would gladly watch another hour of whatever artistic director Dana Genshaft, with her taste for movement as explosive as it is touching, might curate. But with dancing of such vulnerability and virtuosity, 75 minutes leaves you stepping back out into the twilight with your senses still abuzz. We live in an age of viral dance clips on social media, and the big 'get' of this program was Emma Portner, a 30-year-old Canadian choreographer with nearly 250,000 followers on Instagram. Her wildly interesting biography includes choreographing a West End musical in London at the tender age of 20, directing movement for celebrity musicians and fashion campaigns, and now choreographing for ballet companies around the world. Her face without makeup, her hair in a utilitarian bun, she could be one of the unnervingly focused dancers of Batsheva Dance Company, except she's more relatable, more human than feral animal in her bite. In 'Elephant,' a duet Portner created last year with Dutch dancer Toon Lobach and has since been touring around the world, she begins sitting on the floor with her pale, naked back to us, chest to chest with her partner in black pants, their legs entwined. Like two symbiotic plants with one root, the dancers lock arms in twisty negotiations of intimacy, rocking a handshake back and forth one moment, flinging out fingers like a tendril the next. It's a simple choreographic premise that grows organically, aided by Portner's sensitivity to composers ranging from the richly classical work of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks to the jazz-inflected work of Finnish singer-songwriter Mirel Wagner, as well as music composed by arranger Alexander Mckenzie and recorded by his Trio Vitruvi. Repeat SFDanceworks collaborator Babatunji Johnson had been advertised to dance this engagement, but former Lines Ballet star and Nederlands Dans Theater member Brett Conway stepped in for this run, and though Johnson is missed, Conway's return to the stage feels like a gift. His precision is extraordinary, and his connection to Portner — who created the duet in response to a chronic facial pain condition — is exquisitely gentle. JA Collective is another viral Instagram phenomenon—the Los Angeles duo composed ofAidan Carberry and Jordan Johnson, who studied with the justly venerated William Forsythe at USC, took off when they choreographed a video for the band Half Alive. This second commission created expressly for SFDanceworks, 'Everything Happens Later,' finds them in a New York state of mind. Five standing dancers shake and rock to a soundscape of train rumblings and screeches; the effect of making us believe they are riding the subway is low-tech as it is compelling. The dance seems to bring us inside an inner world of intense emotions before regularly returning us to the simple, trudging reality of that train. JA Collective's movement style tends to be granular, built on intricate, tiny gestures. But here, Sarah Chou also explodes regularly in a big arabesque reach, and the canvas feels expanded. Emily Hansel becomes a human turnstile the others push, then has an especially beautiful duet with Lani Yamanaka, mouthing a whisper as she presses her face against an outstretched arm. The special effects-inspired music, by fellow USC grad Daniel Mangiaracino, isn't the most memorable, but it does the job. This program launches with flowing, hungry, bounding movement in 'A Measurable Existence,' a Bay Area premiere by New York choreographer Yue Yin, creator of a dance technique, FoCo, drawing on her Shanghai-born background in Chinese classical and folk dance. Ja'Moon Jones and Nat Wilson are jaw-droppingly lovely together, equally sensitive dancing in unison and in close embrace. The music by Dutch sound artist Rutger Zuydervelt is heavy on ominous chord builds, which didn't make for an optimal contrast with JA Collective's premiere. In the next SFDanceworks program, it might be good to have a touch more music in the soundscape, a little less atmosphere. And I do miss the piece in SFDanceworks' mission of placing the new alongside now-historical avant-garde works (in the past Genshaft has presented solos by Martha Graham and José Limón). But this isn't critique so much as begging: More SFDanceworks soon, please.
Korea Herald
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Ohad Naharin's 'Decadance' invites audience to break out of 'body jail'
Seoul Metropolitan Ballet kicks off season with ever-evolving masterpiece by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin has one rule: no mirrors in the rehearsal studio. 'The use of mirrors in the dance is a mistake. They spoil the soul of the dancer, (making them) look at himself instead of look at the world,' the 73-year-old Israeli choreographer said at a press conference Wednesday in Seoul, where he was overseeing final rehearsals for Seoul Metropolitan Ballet's 'Decadance.' So when the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet began preparing for its season opener running from Friday to March 23 at the Sejong Center's M Theater, every mirror in the studio was covered with curtains. 'We need to see the world. We need to sense the world when we move,' Naharin said. 'If you want to be exact and clear, you need to find it through the scope of sensation, not by correcting your movement by looking at it.' For nearly three decades, Naharin has shaped the landscape of contemporary dance, leading the renowned Batsheva Dance Company from 1990 to 2018. He is currently the company's house choreographer. His artistic journey has been chronicled in the documentary 'Mr. Gaga' and featured in Netflix's documentary series, 'Move.' He is best known for creating 'Gaga,' a unique language of movement that heightens physical awareness. Naharin likens it to strengthening one's "engine": Life is difficult, and if you have a weak engine, lifting the weight is hard. But with a stronger engine, what was heavy feels lighter. 'What I look in Gaga is not just the movement but the quality of movement,' he said. 'When you see two dancers doing the same movement -- one of them will make you cry and one of them will make you fall asleep. And you ask, 'Why is it? What is it?' I'm curious to find what it is that makes me cry.' Constantly evolving masterpiece 'Decadance' is a curated collage of Naharin's works, stitching excerpts from his past choreographies into a single performance. Originally created in 2000 to mark his 10th anniversary as Batsheva's artistic director, it has since been performed worldwide, including by the Paris Opera Ballet and the Gothenburg Opera Dance Company. No two productions are the same, as each is a unique version tailored to the company at that time. The Seoul Metropolitan Ballet's 2025 production of "Decadance' features eight pieces, spanning from 'Anaphaza' (1993) to 'Anafase' (2023), set to an eclectic soundscape ranging from Israeli folk music to Latin rhythms like cha-cha and mambo. One of its most iconic moments involves dancers in black suits using chairs as props, while other segments blend humor, improvisation and direct audience interaction. 'The work I'm doing here is a piece that is constantly evolving, changing and taking on many different versions.' Naharin described this reconstruction as a game on a playground and emphasized the ongoing sharing of his discoveries, both with dancers and audiences. ''Decadance' is an opportunity for me to share what I do now, but with a strong remembering of where I'm coming from. A lot about dancing is connected to being at the moment, but (it) also includes everything that has happened to me to this moment.' Beneath the work's dynamic evolution, Naharin's message remains simple: everyone should dance. 'Many of us know the feeling of being locked inside the body. The body becomes a jail. But actually, if you think of dancing, it becomes the means to get out of the jail. It's the dancing that gets us free,' he said. 'And 'Decadance' invites people not just to watch but also (embrace) the idea that we all need to dance.'
New York Times
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: Batsheva, and a Dance Divided
To attend the return of Batsheva Dance Company to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Thursday was to have your attention split in several ways. First was the split between the acts of theater happening inside BAM and those happening outside it. Batsheva is the most prominent dance company in Israel. Because of that, and because the company receives state funding, the group Dancers for Palestine staged a peaceful protest on the sidewalk and stairs, blocking several doors as they chanted 'Free Palestine!' and other slogans. And the work being performed inside, Ohad Naharin's 'Momo,' from 2022, is also a study in split attention — one dance laid over another, a double exposure. In the first, four bare-chested men in cargo pants move as a unit, slowly marching like soldiers or stepping hand-in-hand, as in folk dance. In the second, seven dancers — four women and three men (one in a tutu) — move as individuals, each introduced with a solo, expressing themselves in extraordinary feats of flexibility and eccentricity, as in most works by Naharin. For much of 'Momo,' these two tribes remain distinct, even while occupying the same stage and field of vision, accompanied by the same soundtrack — selections from 'Landfall,' an elegiac Laurie Anderson composition for the Kronos Quartet. Trading the positions of foreground and background, the two groups nearly touch, yet do not acknowledge each other. In the middle of this 70-minute work, the four men climb up a wall (equipped with handholds and platforms) at the rear of the stage and remain statue-still while the seven others bring out ballet barres and degenerate from doing ballet exercises to hanging on the bars like anti-conformist cool kids. (The soundtrack is now Philip Glass.) Later, Yarden Bareket, one of the women, gets up close and personal with each of the four men: nuzzling, clinging, pressing one down to his knees and pulling his face into her belly. This has the tension of taboo breaking. The men stay unresponsive. All this is formally fascinating, continually inventive and superbly danced. Naharin keeps establishing rules and rhythms, then breaking them. The somber tone is pierced by surprise and Naharin's cheeky humor — as when, amid a complex stage picture, one man among the seven starts twerking. The choreography for the four men, especially, is shot through with sculptural beauty and brotherly tenderness. Watching 'Momo,' though, you can't focus exclusively on form. The world rushes in. Not the protesters — who remained outside and were gone by the time the audience left the theater — but consciousness of the events they were responding to: the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and the brutal war in Gaza, which started after 'Momo' was made. Batsheva performances have long been shadowed by its country's crises, but the shadow has never before been this overwhelming. In a recurring motif, the seven each raise one hand. Every time the hands are raised, we hear a deep boom, like the impact of a bomb nearby. As the time between gesture and sound decreases, it seems as if the hands might be anticipating or even triggering the boom. The frequency of the sound increases. The boom becomes a beat. Do those raised hands signify complicity? Contrition? Solidarity? Resistance? 'Make it stop?' 'I'm in?' The art of 'Momo' is not to say. The dominant tone is antiwar, but the beauty of the choreography for the soldier-like men amounts to empathy. Near the end, both groups line up at the lip of the stage. Alone and together, the dancers rotate. One by one, though, each of the seven breaks off for a little solo. Some are tonally appropriate. Londiwe Khoza (extraordinary throughout) crumples to the ground. Nathan Chipps cups his hands to his mouth and shouts, maybe to warn, maybe to find someone in the rubble. Yet many of the solos seem like tone-deaf bids for attention, a choreographic choice that can be read as Naharin judging the potential indulgence of his signature style. Style can be a straitjacket, like the invisible ones that the four men seem to wear at one point. So can an artist's association with his or her country. The ballet section of 'Momo' might resemble recent pieces by William Forsythe, just as the climbing wall might recall similar ones in work by Rachid Ouramdane. But with those choreographers, these gestures don't unavoidably speak to the disasters facing Israelis and Palestinians. In a program note, Naharin writes about the necessity of reconciliation and a life of dignity for both Jews and Palestinians, and he offers a standard defense of art. 'Momo' is a statement of much more power and disturbing resonance. It is a dance that directs attention to what we see and what we don't see, intentionally or not. It is about the seemingly impossible difficulty of coexistence and its inevitability. The piece shows the distinction of art from life, and also the inescapable connections. Like life, it is unbearably ambiguous.
