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.
A few months ago, I started writing more frequent blogs with the intention of leading you all on a daily journey with me as I work on and grow LOLAstretch. But the stress and pace of the last few months has made that near impossible. We have had a huge growth in sales in the last year and some manufacturing delays as well as shipping debacles to boot, so in my oft frenzied state, it has been hard to distill moments lately.
I am, however, at a crossroads with the company and I must make some very pivotal decisions about the future. As I try to decipher which direction to take it, I have decided that the most important thing I can do right now is gather information from people in business, big and small, who have more experience and expertise to offer.
I have been lucky to have encountered many small business owners in NYC in the last few years, but few have been as generous and knowledgable as Joel and Barbie Christoph of Yogabela.
I met them when I sold them an industrial sewing machine for their workroom back in December. I had just made a full switch to a manufacturer and had not really ever figured out quite how to get it calibrated. As delays with my current manufacturer have persisted, I began the search last month for alternative ways to see to it that my customers receive their orders on time. And when you are a small company without the heavy hand of leverage, that can be a tall order. And it has been.
So, in addition to contacting large factories, such as the one I currently use, I decided to get in touch with anyone and everyone I know who produces in a smaller workroom. I was lucky enough to be able to pick the brains of Joel and Barbie, two of the collaborative designers and makers of Yogabela, on Saturday afternoon. They produce high quality yoga wear in Long Island City in a sunny workroom atmosphere which grants them greater control over their product and inherent problems/delays. It is a rather compact space and the atmosphere of the place is more like that of a design room than a factory. That being said, it is a huge endeavor– just to employ 3 sewers requires large consistent sales numbers, and comes with a great deal of responsibility. Not to mention it requires so much creativity and passion, not just for the product but for the overall operations and systems of production.
Joel and Barbie showed me around their space and explained how they operate. The knives for cutting, ordering/storing fabrics, storage for stock etc. In addition, Joel was kind enough to explain how he operated when the company was smaller and through each period of growth. He detailed similar experiences of delays and shipping problems they had before they started self-producing. Boxes of goods disappearing en route, products arriving in incorrect sizes or colors. I got a very clear idea of the pros and cons between using an existing factory and starting your own, there being long lists for both options.
Here is a photo of one of my favorite items they make, a short short with ruffle around the leg. They are so cute and flattering and are perfect for that bikram yoga class or hanging out at the pier on an obscenely warm day such as today.
The meeting left me with these great shorts in hand and a lot on my mind. The one thing I hear quite consistently is the warning tale of companies that grow too fast. So for now, it is keeping up with my customers for today and more research for tomorrow. The pros and cons lists have been started.
Many, many thanks to Yogabela. Click here to see check out these adorable shorties and more!
And many, many thanks to my customers who continue to enjoy LOLAstretch through this period of growth and change!
In Sidi Bou Said, a picturesque suburb of Tunis, on my way to a Fulbright reception at the U.S. ambassador’s residence.
A beautiful theater in Tunis. Several Fulbrighters saw an advertisement for a performance of African dance there and excitedly told me about it in case I wanted to go see it!
Why do I blog?
Well, I love being able to share what I’m learning with other people. I myself learn a lot in the process of writing, and I learn even more when readers share their comments and questions (please keep them coming, folks!).
I haven’t blogged in a few weeks because I just spent some time sharing my research - and learning about other scholars’ passions - at a Fulbright enrichment seminar in Tunisia. Forty-three young researchers working in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE came together to talk about their particular inquiries into the fields of political science, sociology, psychology, public health, oceanography, anthropology, journalism, economics, engineering, history, law, literature, art history, musicology, theater, film, Islamic studies, women’s studies, and Middle Eastern studies. It was a privilege to hear about the fascinating projects that the other Fulbrighters are pursuing and a pleasure to talk with them about the development of Israeli contemporary dance. Here - as in other academic settings - I found that few people had any background knowledge of dance history but nevertheless found the subject intriguing. While I must admit that I enjoy the reactions when I tell people about my research (”Dance history? I didn’t know you could study that! That’s so cool!”), I’m looking forward to the day when this field will be as established as art history, theater history, musicology, and performance studies. In the meantime, I suppose we need to keep learning, sharing, talking, and writing both within and beyond the dance community!
It’s been more than seven months since I have learned new repertory, and while I’m loving my dance classes and improvisational projects, I do miss the process of absorbing and living in a piece of choreography. So even though my body feels a bit tired now, my spirit is extremely happy after tasting a bit of Yasmeen Godder’s work! I just finished a five-day workshop at her studio in Jaffa (at the south of Tel Aviv - technically, the city is Tel Aviv-Yafo). Yasmeen is currently on tour in Europe with her production Sudden Birds, so two of her dancers led the intensive. Each day began with Eran Shanny’s technique class, which was very similar to Yasmeen’s with its influences of release technique, yoga, Feldenkrais, and more. After he helped us absorb the principles of Yasmeen’s movement style, Iris Erez took over for the repertory segment of the workshop. We did improvisational exercises like those Yasmeen uses in her creative process, and we learned solo and duet material from Two Playful Pink. Yasmeen’s choreography is meaty, both in its movement vocabulary and its emotional content, and Two Playful Pink – a piece originally performed in 2003 by Yasmeen and Iris – is no exception. The dance concerns attitudes towards femininity and the body, and the movement often shifts a conventional expression of sexuality into more unfamiliar (or unaccepted?) territory: a hand seductively placed on the upper thigh soon insistently clutches the crotch; the slow fixing of messy hair is paired with a sudden spank-like slap to the hip; a smile is distorted by tucking in the upper lip or tugging the cheek into a sneer.
There’s so much I could say about what I gained through this experience – in fact, my stream of consciousness free-write in my notes file was enough to make Word send me a few error messages last night – but I’ll try to keep my post here manageable . . . If you haven’t noticed yet, I tend to be a bit wordy!
I’ve found myself explaining recently that yes, I am both a dancer and a researcher, so I’ll write a bit about how these two activities are complementary. Quite wonderfully, this workshop reinforced my belief in the value of physical research. My experience in technique classes this year has provided me with important information about the physicality used in Israeli contemporary dance. Yet with repertory, there’s another level of experience and analysis to be found; instead of simply dealing with the raw material of technique – some of the building blocks of a finished dance – learning choreography allows me to explore issues of composition and content along with the movement itself. This week I got a physical sense of Yasmeen’s partnering work, which epitomizes an intricate, aggressive style employed by many young Israeli choreographers. Actually attempting to dance excerpts of this duet gave me a deeper appreciation of what I had admired from afar because I myself got to experience (or, well, try to experience) the speed, precision, and trust involved in this kind of partnering. I was also reminded that in the hands of the right choreographer (and ultimately in the bodies of the right dancers), movement can be wonderfully loaded with meaning. In the duet excerpts from Two Playful Pink, each tug, shove, jerk, drop, fall, and look is a challenge from one woman to the other, a chance to manipulate, dominate, taunt, display . . .
Learning repertory also provides an extraordinary opportunity for me to recognize and question the assumptions I make as a spectator of choreography. As I realized this week, what you perceive when you are an audience member does not always get at the truth of the matter from the performer’s perspective. What I often see in Israeli contemporary dance is power – but it’s not always a controlled power or a power composed of force. In my experience with Yasmeen’s choreography (and specifically thanks to the feedback Iris gave me), I understood that this power is at times a matter of energy unleashed by giving into momentum and gravity. Having trained primarily in ballet and older modern dance forms such as Cunningham technique and Graham, Taylor, and Limón-influenced styles, I find working in this released-influenced mode quite challenging – but also quite necessary for my growth as a dancer. You can bet I’ll be back in Yasmeen’s classes after she returns from her tour!
Here’s a link to information about Two Playful Pink on Yasmeen Godder’s website.
A bulletin board near my flat, plastered with posters about dance concerts, yoga and Pilates classes, and folk dancing.
I promise I’ll start posting the meat of my experience soon, but I decided that one more post of context might be helpful. If you want to see what I have written up until now, you can check out the blog on my website, which has posts from my first 6 months in Israel. I have also been assembling a set of links to Israeli choreographers, companies, studios, performance venues, festivals, and dance associations on my website’s links page.
Now a bit more context about some of what I will post here on The Winger:
I have always gravitated towards research that involves interviews with dancers and choreographers. Our art form is passed down body to body, and so it seems to me that our art form’s history can best be gleaned and understood through a similar, personal form of transmission. In the past, though, the conversations I have conducted have remained in raw form, stored on mini audio cassettes and painstakingly transcribed so that I could quote and cite the interview subjects in my writings.
My current research is also centered on interviews with dancers and choreographers, but there are a few differences in my practices and my goals. Besides the switch to a digital voice recorder (hallelujah!), I am now viewing interviews not just as raw material to be incorporated into academic writing but as ends in and of themselves. Inevitably, my written work can only hold a small bits of what I learn in each interview, and large amounts of interesting, important information remain tucked away in my files because it is not directly relevant to my particular research question. But how much richer would our history be if this material could be accessible? What if other practitioners, scholars, and dance enthusiasts could hear more of my interviewees’ voices, both literally and figuratively?
These questions have surfaced time and time again since I entered the field of dance scholarship. I did not embark on this particular research project with the explicit goal of addressing these issues or with the idea of making my interviews more accessible to the larger public. Indeed, at first I just was wrapped up in familiarizing myself with the Israeli contemporary dance scene! Over the summer, I screened a few videos of the Batsheva Dance Company and the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. I also read as much English-language writing about Israeli modern dance as I could prior to arriving in the country - old copies of the magazine Israel Dance, reviews of Batsheva from its founding in 1964 to the present, and academic articles by writers including Ruth Eshel and Gaby Aldor in journals such as Dance Research Journal and The Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review. Once I was in Israel, I put my eyes and my body to work so that I could gain my own perspective on the dance scene. I spent my first few months attending performances, watching selected videos at the Dance Library of Israel, observing classes at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and taking classes throughout Tel Aviv. I wanted to be as informed as possible before formally interviewing practitioners.
I spoke informally with people in the Israeli dance scene during these initial months but finally felt ready to interview dancers and choreographers in January. While schmoozing before a seminar on Jewish texts and Hebrew culture at Alma Hebrew College, my friend and fellow classmate Steve Ornstein suggested that I podcast some of my interviews on his website IsraelSeen, which hosts several blogs about Israeli society and has featured podcasts with major figures in Israeli culture. Brilliant! A new road on this journey opened up . . .
We got to work immediately. Steve has generously loaned me the use of an even-better digital voice recorder and microphone as well as his expertise in editing audio. After each interview, I type up my notes, mark them with time codes, and create a rough “edit plan” of how to tackle what can be anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours worth of material. Then we upload the sound file on his computer and trim it down to a more manageable 30 to 40-minute discussion that (we hope!) will be compelling for a wide range of listeners; the finished product is not the complete interview, but it is much more than what I could ever quote or cite in an article. I should note that all of the people I have interviewed so far do not speak English as their first language, but nevertheless, they are wonderfully articulate about their work.
So this is just a teaser of things to come . . . I’ll start posting interviews here on The Winger as well, and I will include links to the pages on IsraelSeen so that you can check out even more goodies like additional photographs and, best of all, links to short video clips of choreography by Israeli artists!
p.s. If you live in New York, or if you visit the city, I highly recommend a trip to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Besides the circulating collection, the dance division has an absolutely amazing assortment of films, videos, and DVDs featuring works by choreographers from around the world. It’s a great place to spend a rainy afternoon!
