MIMANSA KALA
INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY DANCE
PROFESSOR SAYLI KULKARNI
FLAME UNIVERSITY
ESSAY ON OHAD NAHARIN
Ohad Naharin was born in 1952 in Mizra, Israel. He is the House
Choreographer of Batsheva Dance Company and creator of the Gaga
movement language.
An Israeli choreographer known for his incisive style, Ohad Naharin has
transformed the landscape of contemporary dance in Israel, turning preconceived
ideas about dance upside down. His characteristic approach is to push the limits
of dance, for he is open to everything that is human, to all cultures and art forms,
to all manner of movement. Whimsical and rebellious, he is a much sought-after
choreographer.
Mr. Naharin can evoke states of pleasure, pain, madness and a kind of animality a
sheer state of being in the body through his movement. After Sadeh 21,
Decadance Paris, and Naharin’s Virus, in 2017 the Batsheva Dance Company
returned to Paris’s Theater national de Chaillot for its artistic director’s most
recent creation, Last Work. Premiered in the company’s home city of Tel Aviv, this
exciting and enigmatic ballet mirrors its creator Ohad Naharin. It also highlights
his innovative “Gaga” technique .The Tel Aviv-based Batsheva Dance Company is
one of the world’s most avant-garde contemporary dance companies. It brings
together 34 dancers from Israel and around the world and maintains an intense
rhythm of 250 performances with a total of around 100,000 spectators every
year.
Gaga, a movement language created by Ohad Naharin, is an intriguing cultural
and artistic phenomenon that continues to gain popularity in the contemporary
dance world. It is also a philosophy of working with the body, a comprehensive
training regimen for dancers and a form of physical activity available for people
who are professionally unrelated with movement.
It is largely based on working with mental images that go directly to the central
headquarters of the body — the nervous system. When stimulated by the images,
the body can break out of motor patterns, leave the comfort zone and let go of
repeatability. Effective mental images have to act on the nervous system just as
bait does to a fish — attract attention, arouse appetite and provoke action.
It is best to use visions that in some way are overly sharp, precise and dynamic —
so that the body can experience the image. In Gaga there are images such as a
snake in the spine, a ball traveling all over the body, bones moving under the skin
or a body boiling like spaghetti sauce.
Gaga is not a technique. It is a language, or a system of signs and a system for
their creation. It is used to communicate between the dancer and his body, the
choreographer and the dancers, the teacher, the learners, the performers and the
audience.
Naharin had set the Gaga framework, but the language is still evolving and
transforming under the influence of its users. Gaga teachers are obliged to come
to Tel Aviv to update their knowledge and to share what they have discovered
through their practice. In doing so, they create and spread a common language
around the world.
Naharin’s arrival as artistic director of Batsheva set the wheels in motion for a
monumental change in the country, one that would place Israel in the center of
the international dance map and bring contemporary dance into the forefront of
Israeli culture.
His approach was, at the time, radically at odds with the cookie-cutter
expectations placed on company dancers. Naharin asked his dancers to expose
their vulnerability, sexuality, and intensity both in the studio and onstage.
Batsheva’s performances presented individuality in its most raw form. His dances
provided a window into the turmoil of daily life, inspiring his Israeli peers to
match his candidness.
For the past 22 years, dance in Israel has been represented globally by Naharin’s
artistic sensibility, and Israeli dance companies are defined by their relationship to
his style either in their similarity to it or their divergence from it. His influence can
also be identified in the works of leading choreographers around the world,
including former Batsheva dancers Inbal Pinto (Tel Aviv), Hofesh Shechter
(London), and Andrea Miller (Gallim Dance/New York).
Ohad Naharin, as artistic director from 1990 to 2018, is one of contemporary
dance’s most important choreographers, and his strong artistic vision
transformed the company to make it the international powerhouse it is today
WORD COUNT- 703 WORDS
References
Lenkinski, O. (2019, September 16). Naharin's Influence. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from
https://www.dancemagazine.com/naharins-influence-2306886782.html
Http://palace.co, P. (2019, June 18). Ohad Naharin. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from
https://www.rambert.org.uk/about-us/people/current-creatives/ohad-naharin/
https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n97-868391/
