Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company

GaGa technique of strength and restraint featured in BAM run
Encore Magazine
http://www.encoremag.com/?q=article&id=396
by Mary Staub

Countless methodologies maintain they will bring on a healthier, more natural, effortless way of moving. The Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Technique, Body-Mind Centering, and Ideokinesis are just a few that come to mind. Most of these encourage practitioners to become aware of their own existent movement patterns by focusing on the minutiae: the muscle used to curl a finger, whether one breathes in or out when raising an arm.

Once awareness of these details has been gained, patterns can be broken and new, more natural pathways can be nurtured by professionals—i.e., dancers, actors—and amateurs alike. However, in order for these methods to have significant effect, the miniscule must first be translated into the grand. This is no easy feat, and changes in posture and movement are often unrecognizable to the untrained eye.

One methodology whose effects are easily recognizable is GaGa. The technique was developed more than twenty years ago by Ohad Naharin, the artistic director of Israel’s powerful Batsheva Dance Company, which is revisiting the Brooklyn Academy of Music this month. Naharin developed GaGa after he was forced to find new ways of movement for himself due to a back injury.

GaGa has more to do with discovering a certain quality, texture, and intention of movement than a specific technique. “The first thing we do is cover the mirrors and we try to get the dancers to really start sensing their bodies,” Naharin told me on a past visit to New York. “So many dancers dance with just one idea; their school’s idea, a strength idea, an idea of line, or form, or drama.

But there’s always more than just one idea that you can work with.”
The outcome, among Naharin’s dancers at least, is a captivating mix of seemingly conflicting expressive qualities. Batsheva dancers exhibit an extraordinary combination of power and softness, energy and suppleness.

These textures will no doubt be on view in the company’s New York City premiere of Naharin’s Max at BAM. In Max, Naharin plays with extreme notions of pain and happiness, solitude and sharing, individuality and community. Batsheva dancers, with their seemingly innate command of the soft and stark, powerful and meek, are expertly equipped to deal with these inherently interlinked polar opposites.