There is a community of movement in Batsheva\u2019s Varda Studio at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv. Yesterday, as Artistic Director Ohad Naharin and Executive Director Dina Eldor announced plans for the upcoming 2012 \u2013 2013 season, dancers and guests sat together on low benches on all four sides of the room, for a town meeting in which the most important statements are made without words.<\/p>\n
It began almost imperceptibly, first one male dancer rose from the bench, then another man and woman.\u00a0 More dancers join in, one sliding backwards from the bench onto the floor. Dream like slow movements suddenly exploding into action, each moment different, fresh, unexpected. This exquisitely choreographed chaos teases images and associations from the mind. Flashes of familiar sequences play out to an ever-changing soundtrack, sometimes in ironic contrast to the choreography: Danny Kaye sings \u201cInchworm\u201d in a gentle voice as dancers pound the air with their fists; the poetic sequence from Ohad Naharin\u2019s Sadeh 21, the dancers joining hands and dancing in a slow, almost ceremonial circle to the theme song from \u201cIt\u2019s About Time\u201d <\/a>(a US tv series 1966 \u2013 67).<\/p>\n At one point the dancers all moved slowly forward in unison, looking around with eyes wide, their slow progression and expressions creating a sense of wonder and discovery somehow merged with wary anticipation. Then the moment dissolved and opened up into disparate movement. Each choreographic sequence setting a trajectory of images and associations into play \u2013 at almost any given moment, there is not one story, but many.<\/p>\n This is the experience of Session<\/em> by Ohad Naharin in collaboration with the Batsheva Dancers. The work was first performed as a dance installation at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel in November 2011. It\u2019s a wonderful game with simple rules, as Naharin explained to the guests in the studio: \u201cThe dancers are allowed to quote everything from the repertoire that they know. It is based on their decisions.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, the performance is not at all improvised, everything that takes place is taken from Ohad Naharin\u2019s choreographic repertoire; yet at the same time, within those boundaries, the dancers have complete freedom to choose. It is an arena in which anything can happen; watching the dancers, their awareness of one another is palpable, all senses alert, the energy in the room is contagious.<\/p>\n The meeting of movement and music, eclectic, exciting and often in surprising and unexpected configurations, is under the sure hand of DJ Guy Shomroni, formerly a dancer in the Bat Sheva Company. According to Naharin, in performances of Session, Shomroni is \u201ctotally free\u201d to choose the music at will. Later, chatting with Shomroni, he explained that he is always searching and listening to a wide variety of music, creating a continually updated vast reservoir to draw upon during performances. Shomroni is also working on the music for a new dance piece that Naharin will be creating for the company, and said that Session is like a \u201cplayground for researching the soundtrack for the new work on the dancers. I can try things out and see how it plays and we discuss it later.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, chatting with dancers Iyar Elezra and Chen-Wei Li, it was clear that performing Session<\/em> is a lot of fun for the dancers as well. When I asked them whether having to make decisions in real-time in front of an audience might feel a bit scary, Iyar explained that as Naharin works with the company through Gaga, one of the main tenets of this movement language is to be always \u201cavailable for movement\u201d \u2013 in other words: ready for anything.<\/p>\n In addition to Session<\/em>, the Batsheva 2012 \u2013 2013 season will include a dance piece choreographed by Hofesh Schecter, a new work for the Bat Sheva Ensemble choreographed by former Batsheva dancer Danielle Agami, and a new work for the company choreographed by Ohad Naharin. Batsheva has recently experienced a significant turn-over in both the company and the ensemble and are welcoming several new dancers as the season begins. Naharin said, “It’s a bonding time for us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a community of movement in Batsheva\u2019s Varda Studio at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv. Yesterday, as Artistic Director Ohad Naharin and Executive Director Dina Eldor announced plans for the upcoming 2012 \u2013 2013 season, dancers and guests sat together on low benches on all four sides of the room, for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}