Paige Hollingsworth March 17, 2014 Dance History Mr. Gaga Urgency, not panic.

Find pleasure in your pain. Dance with fireworks. Beautiful things take resistance. Floating bones. Unseen forces. Constantly expanding. Always available. Shape the space around you. Be a creature. Melt flesh off your bones. Gaga. Ohad Naharin is seen as one of the most influential contemporary chorographers of our time. Being the director of Batsheva since 1990, he has taken the company on an innovating journey with his artistic vision and captivating repertoire. With his creation of Gaga, an inventive movement language, he has changed the way people move, dancers and non-dancers combined. Gaga stresses the exploration of sensations and availability for movement. Gaga is now the primary training of the Batsheva company, with open classes offered for the general public. Naharin believes that ordinary people who dont know a pli from a jet can think up movement more interesting than steps devised by dancers who have spent years at the ballet barr. Purpose: To get dancers to move from the inside out to connect the imagination to the body. (1) The Gaga body language encourages the dancers to be very alert, always sensing, all the time, says Naomi Bloch Fortis, co-director of the company, in a telephone interview from Tel Aviv. It allows them to use their bodies in organic, unique, never-ending ways, to connect pleasure and effort to produce exploding power. (2)

When the dancers do not move Naharin is known for building movement silence into his dances they present many different dynamics in their stillness. Naharin was asked in an interview with the BAM audience what a Gaga experience is like? He responded with this example when interview for Dance Magazine. First, pretend your chair is shaking so your whole body trembles. When you have figured out how to do that, make a fist with one hand but keep it still. When you can both shake your body and clench your fist, move your head slowly, smoothly, from side to side. Doing three things simultaneously can put your senses off balance and leave you more open to experiencing different impulses and textures. (3) Naharin wants dancers to have fabulous technique, but he also wants them to open themselves and reach deep into their psyches to connect their emotions with their movement. After all, as Martha Graham would say, Movement does not lie. (4) If the statement movement does not lie (4) is true, does Ohads movement tell us more of who he is? Who is this mysterious Mr. Gaga? Ohad Naharian, Mr.Gaga was born in 1952, in Kibbutz Mizra. He had never auditioned for a company. In his new film Mr.Gaga he said , It was one or two months before I was released from the army. My mother called Batsheva Dance Company and told them my son is very talented you must see him dance. My mother then packed my bags and arranged me to go to Tel Aliv and arranged me to take a class with Batsheva Dance Company. (Mr.Gaga Film) By 1974 he was officially dancing with the company. His fist year on the company Martha Graham visited for a master class and to teach choreography. During rehearsal she singled him out for his brilliant talent and invited him to join her company in New York. While in New York, Naharin received a scholarship to train at School of American Ballet. He then

furthered his training at The Juilliard School, and polished his technique with master teachers Maggie Black and David Howard. His career then took him to perform internationally with Israels Bat-Dor Dance Company and Maurice Bjarts Ballet du XXe Sicle in Brussels. After performing internationally Naharin returned to New York in 1980, making his choreographic debut at the Kazuko Hirabayshi studio. That year, he also formed the Ohad Naharin Dance Company with his wife, Mari Kajiwara. She then passed alway from cancer in 2001, which was devastating for Ohad. From 1980 until 1990, Naharins company performed in New York as well as abroad to great critical acclaim. As his choreographic voice developed, he received commissions from world-renowned companies including Batsheva, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, and Nederlands Dans Theater. (6) Through his recognition from these prestigious companies Naharin was then appointed Artistic Director of Batsheva Dance Company in 1990. The Batsheva Company is an international company, made up of unique, talented dancers from Israel and abroad. Ohad encourages his dancers to affirm their distinct creative gifts, as creators on their own (6) During his tenure with the company, Naharin has choreographed over 20 works for Batsheva and its junior division, Batsheva Ensemble. He has also restaged over 10 of his dances for the company and recombined excerpts from his repertory to create Deca Dance, a constantly evolving evening-length work. Deca Dance highlights many excerpts from his previous works. Naharin says himself, Deca Dance is not a new work. It is more about reconstruction: I like to take pieces or sections of existing works and rework it, reorganize it and create the possibility to look at

it from a new angle. It always teaches me something new about my work and composition. In Deca Dance I took sections from different works. It was like I was telling only either the beginning, middle or ending of many stories but when I organized it the result become as coherent as the original if not more. (1) Ohad continual evolving style and technique has developed during his time with Batsheva. His enlightening style is distinguished by stunningly flexible limbs and spines, deeply grounded movement, explosive bursts and a vitality that grabs the collar. (1) Mirrors are forbidden for his dancers during rehearsal and gaga class. This facilitates dancers the move away from self-critique and feel the movement within. Ohad is known to be a reserved and a private person, and this is very apparent in the studio as well. When he corrects his dancers he never gets angry or raises his voice, but comments constructively and calmly. He is not only brilliant as a choreographer, but because of his musical training he often collaborates on the compositions used for his pieces. Through his intense involvement in both the music and obviously the movement, he seeks to create movement that is universal yet personal. All his works have a clear social and political conscience, but his dancers are not meant to be political. He believes storytelling and the worlds problems boring in comparison to a persons ability to use texture and multi-layered movement. He contrasts physical explosiveness with stillness, taking an interest in contrasts, edges, and extremes, which creates vital distance and space in dances. His famous philosophy is everyone should dance (4). This is very clear in his development of his technique of Gaga. This is seen in the two venues for technique: one for dancers and one for people. The distinction is meant to draw a line between those who perform and those who are dancing simply to better themselves.

In his technique, he has a series of words that signify particular ways to initiate movement and the parts of the body involved in initiating and feeling that movement. One example is Luna.(6) When he says this, he is referring to the joint between the metacarpals and the proximal phalanges on the palm. These circular areas, which can be found at the base of the fingers as well as the toes, are our moons, hence the name Luna.(6) In this movement, the objective is to isolate the moons, both on the hands and the feet. This develops a rich sensation and sensitivity in the hands and feet that are important for movement throughout the body. I had the amazing opportunity to take Gaga class everyday for a month and a half for the last three summers. There are some crucial things that have changed me as a dancer because of Gaga, as well as learning the repertoire. In a specific Gaga class Bobbi Jene Smith, A dancer of Batsheva company currently, had us hold our arms out to the side for a full hour. She constantly repented find pleasure in your pain, find pleasure in your pain! Dancers were trembling, as well as crying and I thought I could not do it but I did. This taught me a very critical life lesson. Through pain or difficult times you can either be bitter or be better. The second thing I learn was the concept of dancing with fireworks. I did not understand this idea so I asked one of our Gaga instructors Tom Wein, who is currently dancing with Batsheva. He told me Paige, what do you think of when you think of fireworks? I replied, I think of Fourth of July, celebration, graduation, and family. He then said Ok, close your eyes for me. Now what to do think of when you hear fireworks? hmmmm, I think of war, destruction, and fear. He then proceeded to tell me that anything you love will have two contrasting side. The thing you love might feel as though its killing you but push through because there will be

celebration in the end. The third thought was beautiful things take resistances. They explained that anything beautiful would have some form of resistance. They told us to think of a flower and its process of growing. A flower must push with all its force through solid ground to fully grow into a beautiful rose. Or think of a diamond and the process it goes through to become a pure diamond. Starting off as a piece of coal and the beating and battering to turn into a diamond. Another thought was dance is work, 100% physical not emotional. Bobbi would always talk about how you must forget your difficulty in life; your rent you owe, your break up, how exhausted you are. This way you are constantly working and your work isnt determined by how you feel emotionally. These concepts, along with many others, not only changed the way I move and the sensations that move me, but also formed a lot of the ways I view life. Ohad believes that the sensation that comes from moving is what drives him to dance. In a dance magazine interview he stated The love of moving has been always at the heart of why I dance; it is also partially why I choreograph. Ive learned that listening to the body is a lot more meaningful than telling it what to do. One can get from dancing a great sense of clarity, explosiveness, and delicacy while allowing us to go far beyond our familiar limits. All these things are necessary ingredients to fuel a good process in and out of the studio.(3) Ohad lives his life in this very way. Dance is his [the] hidden language of the soul. (4) Soften the moons of your hands and feet. Available spine. Always ready to explode. Floating. Layla (connection between finger tips and heart). Generous palms. Lena. Gaga.

Works Cited 1. "BatSheva." Batsheva. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. 2. "Gaga." Gaga. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. 3. "In This Issue." Dance Magazine If It's Happening in the World of Dance, It's Happening in Dance Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. 4. "Martha Graham Quotes." About.com Women's History. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. 5. "Ohad Naharin Going Gaga Is the Difference between Dancer and Gymnast." Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 07 Mar. 2014. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. 6. "Ohad Naharin." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Mar. 2014. Web. 08 Apr. 2014.