I care about Naharin, his choreography and his ideas because I feel like not only is he a forerunner in the modern dance scene but he brings something unique to the saturated modern dance world. His Jewish and Israeli culture, the back injury that changed his life and evolved into Gaga Technique, his desire for intelligent and emotionally connected dancers, and above all, the passion that he feels for dance. This is what gives his work meaning for me; that it is so obvious from his interviews that he is in love with dance. Then, his intellectuality and culture easily falls into choreography but it is passion that is the deriving force underneath his success. His work has inspired me not only in dance but opened up my eyes to the different types and kinds of abstract and popular music that can be incorporated into a dance.
I was reminded of a Bill T. Jones quote in the recent reading we had, where Jones mentioned the "Ectasy of performing" - the passion the drives Naharin is evident in other successful choreographers. The legacy that Naharin leaves behind is one of new movement quality, passion, and the motivation for choreographers to start looking for "smart" dancers. Naharin is an indvidual in the sense he doesn't look to politics or world events for inspiration, but I also think this somehow connects him back to modern pioneers like Isadora Duncan. The origin of their creativity comes from an intrinsnic sense of artistry. I also admire that Naharin's down-to-earthness is relatable not only emotionally but physically, (see :47, 1:45 below)
Naharin wants to share his passion with other people, elderly, children, dancers, non-dancers and this very "human" and relatable quality of his is what I believe should and will get passed into other generations.
Batsheva Dance Company
Batsheva Dance Company
I love the audience involvement shown in the attached video. It clearly shows how he tries to connect to his audience on an emotional level. Do you think that part of the reason behind his goal to connect could come from his cultural background in Israel?
ReplyDeleteMadeleine,
ReplyDeleteI think that his desire to connect with the audience resonates from his own ideologies on humanism, which is intrinsically connected with his culture and Israel, so, in a way, yes to your question. In interviews I've seen with him, Naharin always seems interested in the dancer as a person, since he believes the way they feel shapes their movement (a distant cousin of Alexander Technique maybe? an interesting connection to explore maybe :) ). His respect for human feelings and emotions also bleeds into other "non-dancer" populations. His passion for dance, people, and finding the emotional and physical connectivity I think is important for his philosophies not only with Batsheva but involving the audience as well.
Kym
Yes and yes to everything kym said. Here is a link that I feel backs up what she is saying
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2KVVb62pnY
Also to talk a little bit further about the "non-dancer" is he does more than to connect with "non-dancers" than with audience participation. He actually teaches "non-dancers" as well. He began this practice with 5 people who worked for Batsheva; he taught them the gaga technique. From this process he "learned a lot about movement, movement habits… but in a new light because none of them had the ambition to be on stage. They just wanted to feel better, and to move better and to get stronger. So then GAGA became something that had nothing to do with the performing arts, just with the maintenance of your body — healing your body, finding pleasure and joy in movement. That became a very serious thing in [his] life — working with non-dancers." Yeah I could see a distant cousin of AT especially from this past quote. I actually just did a quick google search of Ohad and Alexander but nothing came up so maybe he hasn't studied it but just has similar values. But I agree it would be interesting to do a comparison of Gaga to AT.
Tasha
Ps. If you want to look at where I got the quote from here is the link :)
http://thevillager.com/villager_204/gagaforgaga.html