Choreographer Nimrod Freed. Photo by Eyal Landesman.
Nimrod Freed’s Peep Dance. Photo by Anatoly Michaelo.
Spectators at Nimrod Freed’s Peep Dance. Photo by Itamar Freed.
My initial encounter with Nimrod Freed was last autumn via e-mail. I first contacted him because he was on the faculty of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, my host institution here in Israel. We met, though, at a different college with a focus on teacher training: Seminar HaKibbutzim in northern Tel Aviv. Not only does Nimrod teach at both of these institutions, but he also is the artistic director at Tel Aviv’s Beit Tami, a spectacularly located community center that is equipped with a few studios and a small performance space popular with independent choreographers. There he runs the Tami Dance Company, which currently brings together one actor with several dancers in dance theater works. As I learned about all of Nimrod’s roles during that first meeting at Seminar HaKibbutzim, I realized - in the very best way - that I had got more than I bargained for! Speaking with him gave me a much clearer sense of the institutional map of Israeli contemporary dance.
I also learned about Nimrod’s own career, from his beginnings in folk dance to his intensive study of concert dance, which was sparked by his involvement in an opera production of Samson and Delilah at age 16. His interest in dance theater developed after seeing Pina Bausch’s Café Müller , and subsequently, he studied acting and directing at Tel Aviv University. A class there with guest teacher Kei Takei proved to be a major turning point; indeed, soon afterwards, he joined her company Moving Earth in New York. Nimrod stayed in the U.S. for just over a decade, and during this time, he also formed his own dance theater company. It was an invitation to perform in the Israel Festival which paved the way back to his native country. Through his teaching of improvisation and pedagogy, his choreography, and his leadership at Beit Tami, he has contributed enormously to the vibrant Israeli contemporary dance scene - but even as he maintains a home base in Tel Aviv, he continues to work internationally. Nimrod’s company has toured to Europe and Japan, where he met Min Tanaka and picked up a butoh influence. Now he will return to New York with the Tami Dance Company for a performance of Peep Dance at Central Park SummerStage. Here’s a taste of Peep Dance to whet your appetite:
Peep Dance will share the July 26th bill with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, which will perform Rami Be’er’s Kef Kefim.
Books, journals, DVDs, CDs from my time here in Tel Aviv.
More tools of the trade for a blogging/podcasting dance researcher: the technology bin, complete with camcorder, mini-DV tapes, digital voice recorder, computer software, battery charger, manuals, and way too many cords that look similar.
Publicity, programs, photocopies, oh my!
It’s that time - I’m packing up! At 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning, I leave Israel and head back to the U.S. after 10 months of research. I’ve accumulated quite a lot of materials in that time, and somehow I need to get them sorted into boxes and bags. Yikes. Here’s the good news, though: I’m not done here. I fell in love with Tel Aviv, the Israeli contemporary dance scene, and a great Israeli guy, so after a few months in the U.S., I’m moving back to Israel! And so the journey continues . . .
Ohad Naharin’s Shalosh ( Three ), which supplied some movement material for Deca Dance. Photo by Gadi Dagon.
The Batsheva Ensemble in Ohad Naharin’s Seder.
It’s fitting that I saw the Batsheva Ensemble perform the latest version Ohad Naharin’s Deca Dance at the Suzanne Dellal Center last week. You see, Deca Dance is the piece that drew me here to Israel. I wrote my Fulbright grant proposal having only seen the Batsheva Dance Company perform an earlier incarnation of this work (albeit 3 times). I hadn’t seen any of Naharin’s other dances, nor had I seen any other Israeli companies. Now - 4 years after I last saw Deca Dance, 9 and 1/2 months after landing in Israel, 2 days after finishing the term of my Fulbright grant, and 90-some dance concerts later - I feel I have come to the end of a cycle. I set out to learn about the wider field of Israeli contemporary dance, and although there is still more to explore, I have a much deeper understanding of dance’s history in Israel as well as the scope of the field today. I devoted a considerable amount of time to independent choreographers and to companies other than Batsheva, but again and again, my attention returned to the origin of my interest, the center point of Israeli contemporary dance. With many avenues of entry, my research on this company was extraordinarily rich. To learn about the past, I sorted through files of newspaper clippings, viewed old repertoire on video at the Dance Library of Israel, and heard Batsheva’s history retold by former dancers and directors. To learn about Batsheva’s more recent years, I traveled with the Batsheva Ensemble, spoke with company dancers and ensemble members, studied Gaga, and attended live performances: Ohad Naharin’s Camuyot, Zachacha, Seder, MAX, Shalosh, and Furo; Sharon Eyal’s Bertolina and Makarova Kabisa; and several evenings featuring short creations by company dancers.
And then came Deca Dance.
Just as I have changed, so too has Deca Dance, an unfixed assemblage of excerpts from Ohad Naharin’s repertory. Sure, there were some old favorites which I recognized from past versions, most notably the accumulative “Echad Mi Yodea” segment and the perennial crowd pleaser, “Dancing with the Audience” (and at this show the audience members invited onstage were more than willing to participate, with one man hamming it up to great applause). But much of this Deca Dance was built from segments of the more recent MAX, Shalosh, and Seder – none of which existed when I last saw Deca Dance in 2004 – and there was even a brand new female duet to an unusual rendering of Ravel’s “Bolero.” Having seen these later works multiple times, I found myself engaged in an interplay with this new Deca Dance : expecting certain sequencing, guessing what would come next, cataloging where I had seen each segment. The direct contrast of these excerpts next to older sections and the absence of other portions that I remembered from my previous Deca Dance viewings provided a chance to reflect on what I perceive as a shift in Ohad Naharin’s choreography towards sparer works which emphasize marvelously textured movement and finely tuned compositional forms over theatricality.
As I place Deca Dance within the context of Naharin’s repertory, Batsheva’s history, and the larger frame of Israeli contemporary dance, I realize how much I have gained from my research. I love being able to look at a dance from different angles, and with the information I have gathered, I now have a tempting menu of choices for how to view each performance. I also have had the pleasure of watching the same dancers develop over the course of the season and talking with them offstage; as I’m sure many of you know, it’s a delight to watch dancers that you know, to seek them out during the sections at which you know they excel, and to find your attention captured unexpectedly by them when they perform something with added nuance or new skill. A part of me wishes that my Fulbright could continue - after all, it’s been a dream to structure my own time and pursue independent research with few restraints! - but I am blessed with the gifts of this grant as I complete this cycle and start the next.
Hydra, the newest work by Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak. Photo credit: Seto Hidemi.
A video clip from Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak’s Shaker.
The very first work I saw at the Suzanne Dellal Center was Shaker, by Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak. Despite my jet lag, I realized that Inbal and Avshalom’s visually stunning work was special - and when I later saw the Inbal Pinto Dance Company in Oyster (twice!) and Hydra, I knew that my initial assessment of these artists was correct. Want more proof of this couple’s exceptional talent and ability to win over audiences with their artistry? Several hundred performances after its premiere, Oyster still fills the house at Suzanne Dellal, and the Israel Festival had to add a third performance of Hydra this June because of the demand for tickets.
In between rehearsals for their new production and tours of their existing repertory, I caught up with Inbal and Avshalom to learn more about their work. You can learn more too if you tune in to our podcast!
If you’re in the U.S. next fall, you may get to see the Inbal Pinto Dance Company! From October to November, they will be touring with Shaker to Portland, San Francisco, Davis, Newport News, Gainesville, Miami, Philadelphia, Chapel Hill, Purchase, and New York. Check the Inbal Pinto Dance Company’s website for details soon.
I’ll leave you with one more treat:
Excerpts from Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak’s What Good Would the Moon Be,
Bruchim Habaim LeKibbutz Ga’aton - Welcome to Kibbutz Ga’aton.
I almost didn’t make it to Kibbtuz Ga’aton today. After finishing my morning Gaga class in Tel Aviv, I found out that the train was not running from Hadera to Haifa, and I needed to get even further north. But as they say, when there’s a will, there’s a way! I caught a ride to the bus station in Tel Aviv, hopped a bus to Haifa, picked up the train from there to Nahariya, and then jumped in a cab to Kibbutz Ga’aton in the Western Galilee.
Why make the effort?
This wasn’t merely an outing to a beautiful part of Israel. Kibbutz Ga’aton is home to the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, one of Israel’s oldest and most renowned modern dance companies. When the taxi pulled up to the kibbutz and I saw this sign outside the company’s office, I exhaled and smiled. It took me several hours today - and more than nine months in total - but I finally made it here!
The kibbutz movement in Israel has undergone a lot of change in recent years. While the kibbutzim used to function in a socialist framework, with everyone working on the grounds and sharing income equally, many of these communities have abandoned the traditional model. On Kibbutz Ga’aton, which has changed with the times, the building which housed the old communal dining hall is being renovated - and new dance studios, such as this one, are being created. Company dancers rent housing on the kibbutz, and though in the early years they labored on the kibbutz like other residents, now they work full-time as professional dancers.
The Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company was founded in 1970 by Yehudit Arnon, who moved to Kibbutz Ga’aton in 1948 after surviving the Holocaust and studying dance in Europe. Under her direction, the group - known in Israel as the “Kibbutzit” - performed works by leading Israeli and foreign choreographers. The company toured all over the world and has the posters to prove it!
As I followed the strains of piano music past these posters and into another set of studios, Yehudit - who still serves as the company’s artistic adviser - poked her head out of her office and invited me to watch a bit of the company’s ballet class. It was a wonderful surprise to meet her and a great treat to see the dancers warming up. But for what, may you ask, were the dancers preparing? It was 4:15 p.m. when I spied them doing petit allegro!
At 5:00, the company was scheduled to do an open rehearsal of Rami Be’er’s newest work, 60 Hz, which will premiere next week at the opera house in Tel Aviv. Rami was born on Kibbutz Ga’aton and, as Yehudit proudly told me, he studied dance with her when was a young boy. A former dancer with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, he has been its artistic director and primary choreographer since 1996.
I went next door with Yehudit to a small, new theater for the open rehearsal. Residents of the kibbutz and company staff members filtered into the space, and many of them came over to Yehudit to exchange warm hellos and hugs. We settled into front row seats and readied ourselves for the run of the dance - which, as with the other works of Rami’s that I have seen, combined highly athletic choreography with visually stunning sets and beautifully designed lighting.
Intrigued? See for yourself!
This 11 minute video gives some background on the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company and the dance center at Kibbutz Ga’aton. There are clips of performances, rehearsals, and classes, as well as interviews with Rami Be’er, company dancers, and others.
And stay tuned, New Yorkers, because the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company is performing at Central Park SummerStage on July 26th! They’ll be doing Rami Be’er’s Kef Kefim, which I enjoyed at Suzanne Dellal in the fall. Here are some excerpts:
So save the date! I’m actually heading back to the U.S. for a bit on July 22nd, and I’m trying to figure out if I can make it to the SummerStage show myself; after 4 days out of the country, I may be feeling withdrawal from Israeli dance and this just might be the shot I need . . .
Link to Central Park SummerStage to learn more about the performance by the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, which will be on the same bill with PeepDance, an installation by Israeli choreographer Nimrod Freed.
Singular Sensation, Yasmeen’s latest work, is premiering this week in Tel Aviv. Photo by Tamar Lamm.
A video clip of Yasmeen Godder’s Sudden Birds.
If you’re part of the New York dance scene, you’ve probably stepped through some of the same doors as Yasmeen Godder. Born in Israel and raised in Jerusalem until age 11, Yasmeen moved to the U.S. with her family, attended the High School of the Performing Arts in New York City, studied at Movement Research and the Klein School, and received her undergraduate degree from NYU’s Tisch School. The Kitchen, DTW, and Dancing in the Streets have all commissioned work from her, and she was awarded a Bessie in 2001 for I Feel Funny Today.
If you’re part of the Israeli dance scene, you’ve undoubtedly felt Yasmeen’s influence and quite possibly crossed paths with her. I had heard of Yasmeen prior to arriving in Israel because of her activities in the U.S. and the acclaim which has greeted her works both in the states and Europe, and as soon as I arrived in Israel, I began to realize the impact she has made in her home country. Her name frequently came up in conversations about both choreographers and teachers, and many people urged me to see her work and take her class. So it was that I ventured down to Yafo to take technique at her studio, attended a performance there of Sudden Birds (see the video above), and went to a performance of I’m Mean, I Am at the Suzanne Dellal Center.
Months later, I’m not surprised that I heard so much buzz about Yasmeen. I found Yasmeen’s classes to be quite challenging and enormously helpful in their specificity, especially as I attempt to widen my body’s range and move with less muscular effort. She welcomes students’ reflections in class and presents her own ideas with clarity and details that enable me to adjust my mindset and body to a more unfamiliar technical framework. I also found Yasmeen’s choreography to be as challenging as her classes, and refreshingly so. Since my earliest research on the socially conscious New Dance Group, I have always been attracted to choreographers who examine social issues, but while many choreographers try to touch such subject matter, it is all too easy for their investigations to remain superficial and cursory. Not so with Yasmeen. She doesn’t shy away from difficult topics, and regardless of the subject at hand, she isn’t afraid to display even the most disturbing findings from her creative process onstage. It’s a tribute to her artistic integrity that at the second performance of Singular Sensation at Suzanne Dellal on Friday, the packed audience was peppered with dancers, choreographers, artists in other disciplines, and committed dance enthusiasts who were eager to see her latest work. The five dancers’ exploration of sensation was surreal at times - with green slime oozing down dancers’ bodies and a nightmarish section in which four dancers covered the fifth performer’s head in pantyhose and saran wrap, shoved oranges into his hands for squeezing, and pulled him into splits over a jello mold - but the applause filling the theater at the work’s conclusion was very, very real.
Back in April, Yasmeen sat down with me after a rehearsal so that we could chat a bit about her work. As in most of these conversations, we started at the beginning, talking about Yasmeen’s pathway from ballet and Graham technique through to her investigations of Klein technique, more broadly labeled release classes, improvisation, and yoga. Yasmeen had prefaced some of her classes with a disclaimer that she did not teach a particular technique, and so we talked at length about the various influences on her approach to movement. Klein features prominently in this array of influences, with its emphasis on releasing the exterior muscles and finding the bones; from Yasmeen’s exposure to this and other classes in the release spectrum, she also developed her strong connection to the floor, deep trust in space, and ability to use less effort. Yet Yasmeen also incorporates approaches that are, in some ways, at odds with the typical release practice and aesthetic. She can be shape-based at times, and through both her own process of questioning and her collaboration with a dramaturge, she ventures into a world which is more emotional and (for lack of a better word - this is admittedly inexact) theatrical. Yasmeen also discussed yoga’s impact on her training, which is evident in her use of particular sequences and stretches in the classes she teaches, and she further noted that the combination of physical, mental, and emotional aspects within yoga meshes with her own creative process and development of movement for choreographic works.
Speaking of choreographic works, we spent some time discussing one of Yasmeen’s dances which had a particularly powerful impact on me. Strawberry Cream and Gunpowder was made during the second intifada, and when I screened it on DVD in the autumn, it kept me up all night thinking and writing. I had wondered if I would see any dances here which tackled the Israeli-Arab conflict head-on, and I have found remarkably few either on stage this season or on video from previous years. Thus Strawberry Cream and Gunpowder stood out for me not only because of the strength of the choreography and its performance but also because of the subject matter. Surrounded by images in the news media in 2004, Yasmeen felt that she simply had to deal with what was happening in her country, and she assembled a series of photographs - a “catalog” of images - as a starting point. Dancers were instructed to “be” the photograph, without political or emotional comment, and each artist worked with a few photographs so that they switched roles: male, female, young, old, wounded, able, civilian, soldier. In this way, the boundaries between “victim” and “perpetrator” become blurred, just as these roles aren’t always clear or constant in the actual events of the situation here. I had recognized this particular blurring upon watching the piece, but listening to Yasmeen recount the choreographic process, my mind reached beyond the dancers’ appearances - their genders and ages - and I realized even more how complex and intense this exploration must have been.
Yasmeen continued to talk about images of war and images of heroes, raising questions both about how these subjects are photographed and how people look at and identify with these pictures; Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, she said, delved into many of the issues which were at the heart of Strawberry Cream and Gunpowder. We also discussed the response of audiences, which varied based on geographical location (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and cities abroad) as well as performance space (more intimate settings versus traditional proscenium stages which create a stronger division between the action onstage and the spectators in the house). Some Israelis didn’t perceive Strawberry Cream and Gunpowder as being about the situation here, whereas outside of the country - of course billed as a work by an Israeli choreographer - the dance was almost uniformly viewed as a piece concerning the Israeli-Palestinian situation. While audience members in any country are subject to the flood of war images these days, though, the Israeli crowds contained people who were directly connected to the dance’s source material including survivors of suicide bombings. As Yasmeen recounted one Israeli woman’s emotional response to the work, I couldn’t help thinking of how a woman mourning her young son tearfully approached Martha Graham after a performance of her signature solo, Lamentation. Like Graham before her, Yasmeen Godder knows that she may move members of the audience with her dances - and in my experience, she moves many viewers with her honest, probing work.
Read my initial response, Dancing through the Intifada, to Strawberry Cream and Gunpowderhere at my own blog.
