Ohad Naharin

Ohad Naharin (born 1952 in the kibbutz Mazra, Israel) is an Israeli contemporary dancer, choreographer, artistic director, and musician.

Early Years

Ohad Naharin was born in 1952 in Israel. Raised in an artistic home, he wrote stories, composed music, and painted as a child. His father was a doctor in psychology, previously an actor, and his mother was a dance teacher. Nevertheless, Ohad Naharin did not start dancing until age 22, at which time he danced with the Batsheva Dance Company. The Batsheva Dance Company was founded in 1964 by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva De Rothschild. Soon after, in 1975, Naharin left Israel to go to Manhattan and study with Martha Graham. In New York he received much of his training, attending Juilliard for a year as well as attending the Graham School and the School of American Ballet. In 1978, he married Mari Kajiwara, a native New Yorker and an Alvin Ailey dancer. After working alongside him for over 20 years, his wife died of cancer in 2001 at age 50. Also in New York, he choreographed and presented his first dances from 1980-1990.

Batsheva Dance Company

The Batsheva Dance Company

In 1990, Naharin was appointed the artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company, thereby launching the company into a new stage. “The company is international in nature, made up of individually unique dancers from Israel and abroad. Dancers are encouraged to affirm their distinct creative gifts, as creators on their own.” Naharin’s signature style and technique has developed during his time with Batsheva. His style is “distinguished by stunningly flexible limbs and spines, deeply grounded movement, explosive bursts and a vitality that grabs a viewer by the collar.” His dancers do not rehearse in front of a mirror. This enables them to move away from self-critique and feel the movement from within. Naharin is known to be a reserved and private person, and this is apparent in the studio as well. He does not get angry or raise his voice, but comments constructively and calmly. Since he has also been musically trained, Naharin sometimes collaborates on the compositions used in his pieces.

Gaga

Ohad Naharin has also developed a type of technique called Gaga. There are two venues for this technique: one for dancers and one for people. This distinction is meant to draw a line between those who will 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.” 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.” In this movement, the objective is to create isolations between 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. Naharin’s technique establishes a flow throughout the entire body that allows complete fluidity, no matter where the movement is initiated.

Accomplishments

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Naharin shows his apparent humility despite his success. His works have been commissioned by the Frankfurt Ballet, Opéra National de Paris, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Sydney Dance Company, Lyon Opera Ballet, Les Grand Ballets Canadiens, Rambert Dance Company, Compañia Nacional de Danza, Cullberg Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, Balet da Cidade de Sao Paulo, Bavarian State Ballet,Cedar Lake Contemporary BalletPittsburgh Ballet Theatre and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He was awarded the “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government in 1998, and he was awarded the 2005 Israel Prize. In 2009, he was honored with the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in dance.

Choreography

After his many years of experience, his purpose remains to make movement that is universal in its ability to be personal to many. He always has a clear social and political conscience in his works, but his dances are not meant to be political. He finds storytelling of suffering and the world’s problems boring in comparison to a person’s 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 philosophy, shared with many who devote their lives to choreography, is that everyone should dance.

“Deca Dance” is Naharin’s most well-known piece, as it highlights many flavored excerpts from his previous works. Of the piece, 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.”

His most recent work is “Max,” in which “Mr. Naharin’s theatrical ingredients are space, movement and light.” A critic comments, “In this tremendously potent work, there are few obvious displays of emotion, yet 'Max' is full of imagery that slips between real life and dance in fleeting flashes.” Other pieces he has choreographed include “Three,” “Tabula Rasa,” “Mabul,” “Pas de Pepsi,” “Haru No Umi,” “In Common,” “Sixty a Minute,” “Black Milk,” “Innostress,” and “Mamootot.”

External links

• Batsheva Dance Company Official Site
• Batsheva Dance Company: Deca Dance
• Gaga Movement Language:
  • Gaga Video Explanation
  • Gaga: Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language, in His Own Words - Quotation from Ohad Naharin about Gaga (from March 2008)
  • Intro to Gaga Dance Classes - an intro to Ohad Naharin's movement language, by Deborah Friedes.
  • Gaga: A Foreigner Explores Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language - An article about taking gaga class with Ohad Naharin, by Deborah Friedes.
• Choreography:
  • “Deca Dance” in Israel - a view of Ohad Naharin’s "Deca Dance" within the context of Israel's dance history.
  • “MAX” - Connecting to Ohad Naharin’s Choreography
  • "Hora" - a report from the world premiere preview