BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANY Press Kit
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BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANY Press Kit Table of Contents 1. “Movement That Rides on a Pulse of Its Own,” NEW YORK TIMES, November 15, 2007 2. “Max,” JERUSALEM POST, March 21, 2007 3. “Journey into the roots of movement,” HABAMA 4. “A Treatise of Human Nature – Ohad Naharin’s “Max”,” EINAV KATAN, January 2008 5. “When Childlike Wonder Meets Eroticism,” NEW YORK TIMES, November 15, 2005 6. “Movement Complemented by Immobility and Silence,” NEW YORK TIMES, March 5, 2008 7. “Kaleidoscope on New York Stage,” ALL ABOUT JEWISH THEATRE, March 22, 2008 8. “Batsheva Technique is Ample Reason to go Gaga,” LOS ANGELES TIMES, November 6, 2006 9. “Batsheva Dancers are Fluid, Frisky and, Against all Odds, Human,” SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, October 28, 2006 10. “Divide and Re-form,” VILLAGE VOICE, July 24, 2006 11. “Choreography of 25 Years in ‘Deca Dance’,” THE NEWS-GAZETTE, October 17, 2006 12. “Beethoven Without Clothes and Other Unusual Moves,” NEW YORK TIMES, July 6, 2006 13. “Three Doses of Batsheva,” JERUSALEM POST, February 7, 2005 14. “Batsheva Dance Company,” WASHINGTON POST, February 28, 2004 15. “Deca Dance is an Extraordinary Feast of Movement,” SEATTLE POST- INTELLIGENCER, March 19, 2004 16. “Extravagant Fun with Batsheva,” SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE 17. “Batsheva Dance Company, Deca Dance,” VOICE OF DANCE, March 11, 2004 18. “Batsheva Pushes Edges of Expectation,” THE OREGONIAN, March 19, 2004 19. “Choosing Partners: Israel’s Provocative Batsheva Company,” THE STAR-LEDGER, March 2, 2004 20. “Dance on the Wild Side,” SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, March 12, 2004 21. “Batsheva Dance Company, This Celebration Worth Lining up For,” COLUMBUS DISPATCH, March 5, 2004 22. “Ambiguity as Text, a Blackboard as Backdrop,” NEW YORK TIMES, May 2, 2002 23. “An Infectious Virus,” NEWSDAY, May 3, 2002 24. “Strange Partners,” VILLAGE VOICE, May 14, 2002 DANCE REVIEW Movement That Rides on a Pulse of Its Own Nan Melville for The New York Times A scene from “Three” by Ohad Naharin, performed by the Batsheva Dance Company. By GIA KOURLAS November 15, 2007 In a discussion for the Works & Process series at the Guggenheim Museum on Monday, Ohad Naharin explained how his movement language, called Gaga, helps dancers focus on the space between the navel and groin: “You can ride on it and discover your power.” Lately, Gaga has served as a potent tool for Mr. Naharin, the choreographer and artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company, which performed his “Three” on Tuesday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His art, which is becoming addictive, creates a similar sort of trip: packed with Mr. Naharin’s entrancing, poetic texture, no matter the music, it rides on a pulse of its own. At first the dance for 17 performers in three sections appears to be an ensemble work; by the end the stage is bursting with individuals, in sharp contrast to what they are wearing: Rakefet Levy’s generic shirts and cropped pants. They may appear ready for a Gap ad, but “Three” is no Gap-ad dance. In “Bellus,” set to Bach, 10 dancers gaze boldly at the audience before abruptly abandoning and later rejoining Erez Zohar, who performs an undulating solo culminating in a streak of artlessly exuberant jumps. After a blackout Stefan Ferry walks onto the stage — an action he repeats later — holding a television monitor that shows his head, while a stilted, bored voice ticks off a few points about the next section: “There are short sections and long sections of four minutes.” The Brian Eno music, we are told, will be very quiet. Wittily, Mr. Naharin gets the tedious details over with so the audience can just watch. But there’s nothing dull about “Humus,” an especially beautiful dance for nine women, who move as one mesmerizing organism. In “Secus,” the final section set to an eclectic mix of songs, the entire group rushes onto the stage, with dancers kicking their legs, sinuously jutting their hips and twisting their torsos like ribbons. Teasing blackouts continually interrupt a duet for Sharon Eyal and Guy Shomroni. Later, as Avi- Yona Bueno’s lighting, marvelous as usual, gradually fades, the final song — a wholly appropriate one — plays: the Beach Boys’ “You’re Welcome.” Whenever Mr. Naharin’s company comes to town, we have much to be thankful for; in the case of his new dance, it came three times over. Batsheva Dance Company performs through Saturday at the Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Avenue, at Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; (718) 636-4100, bam.org. Mar. 21, 2007 | Dance Review: "Max" | By ORA BRAFMAN "Max" Batsheva Dance Company Suzanne Dellal, March 13 The superb ensemble work of 10 bright dancers makes "Max", Ohad Naharin's latest creation, an evening to remember. I doubt if Batsheva's dancers ever looked better, with each individual dancer compressing his utmost attention inward, yet concurrently aware of the surrounding space and action. Each dancer's personal manifestation becomes a part of the larger picture. In the first half, one might compare the dance to a group of birds, each a part of a grandiose pattern, yet busy within their own private space. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the group turns into a flock which swishes swiftly, shifting direction and speed in perfect sync. Original music composed for "Max" by Maxim Waratt (a name Naharin assumed for himself) contains numerous gibberish lyrics with various accents, all sung in Naharin's deep low voice. The lexicon of the dancers expands all the time following the GaGa technique, which is geared toward exploring new ways to move the body. It often leads to contrived, exaggerated and distorted motions. But sometimes the results produce truly touching new ways to perceive the body. In "Max", it all comes together. The range of the dance language is impressive in its originality and individuality and the audience enjoys the self-assured maturity of a talented group of dancers. Journey into the roots of movement HaBama, By Zvi Goren Modern Classic We are talking in fact about a journey – mine as a spectator – into the roots of movement as an expression of the human condition. Modern dance released the semiotic expression of classical ballet from its bonds and placed the role on an infinite treasure of movement, free choreographic ideas and the human individualistic expression of the dancers as the starting point, even when we see group dances. Modern dance evolved from ballet and contemporary dance came and seemingly broke all possible conventions. MAX by Ohad Naharin is the classic, the modern and the contemporary all at once. The two different casts of Batsheva dancers are excellent and give the piece distinct weight, different in the general impression of expression. Both together give to Naharin's ideas great vitality in their capabilities and in the perfection of the movement in a group which is necessary for unison or as a group of individuals, particularly in the solos, duets, trios, quartets and quintets. The clear affinity to classical ballet, which is the solid basis for the entire development of dance, reaches a climax in a solo (in wonderful and very different performances by Gilli Navot in the first cast and Yaara Moses in the second cast) and in the male trio which follows it. Not surprisingly, there was also something very swan-like in them. A Primal expression of pain and happiness This piece is constructed with classical meticulousness based on the affinity between the individual and the group, solo expressions or small group structures, return to the whole group and again de-construction and construction, creation of structures in space and in time. Deliberately, throughout the piece we have a precise count via a hidden sound score which is transmitted to the ears of the dancers, in parallel to the sound score which is broadcast through the sound system to the audience. The sense of structural precision is amplified by the spectacular lighting design of Bambi (Avi Yona Bueno), who painted the stage and the dancers with intense or soft strokes, with obscure and dark hues and with bright colors. The fascinating musical production of Ohad Fishoff and the complex sound design of Moshe Shasho have a particularly important role in the music of MAX, composed by Maxim Warrat, who is no other than Naharin himself. The music includes verbal segments (usually voiced by Naharin, or his alter-ego, Warrat), in supposedly "ethnic" languages or gibberish. One of the significant elements in the music is the repeated count from one to three or from one to ten, creating a climax of some 15 minutes towards the end of the performance. In this part the count from one to ten is performed progressively, time after time, while each count accompanies a different set of ten movements, in solos, duos, trios, quartets, quintets and of the whole group, and again in changing sets, counted in precise rhythmic unity, while the nature of movement in each set creates the sense of escalating rhythm. And after all this, the question is what this piece is all about. The answer is as complex as the complexity of each spectator. Not as commentators of a story but as the ones who create it together with the choreography. For Naharin this is a journey into human essence and he does it through his journey into the roots of movement - movement which is a primal expression of pain and happiness, of the solitude of the individual, the essence of the couple, the essence of a team and the essence of society as a whole. And this is the purpose of this art – on stage and in the audience together.