BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANY

HORA

ONE OF ALL
Hora is a flagship in the complete corpus of Naharin's work. This whole piece offers a thrilling spectacle of movement encompassing an emotional roller-coaster, while successfully highlighting - in a company that deliberately works without soloists - the distinct uniqueness of each one of the dancers. In this sense, it is a very generous piece, acutely sensitive to the different voices and hues within this wondrous ensemble, whose immense strength lies as much in its quality as a group, as in the distinctiveness of the individuals who make it up.

Hora takes place in a green box. A wooden bench, on which we meet the seated dancers as soon as the curtain is up and to which they return throughout the piece, is the only element that breaks the green totality. There is something in all this green which hypnotically draws you to the action on the very minimalist stage, sharply focusing your look on the highlighted complex movement and the body parts. The feet, for example, that somehow always get swallowed on stage, get a special surprising spotlight.

11 dancers are on stage from beginning to end and this is no small responsibility. They are always there, always seen and always in constant movement. They are supported by magnificent lighting which at times adorns them, strikes them or turns them into silhouettes.

In constant movement
The individual work which Naharin undertook with each one of the dancers in very apparent. The aggregate constructed by Naharin highlights and reinforces individuality but does not override the group. Hora is not a composition but haute coutoure, a garment fit to the size of the wearer and the stage is a fusion of colors unified to a homorganic statement.

The work oscillates between clean phrases, as if taken from the morning class, and extreme movements of body twists and back bends which seem impossible. Naharin
interrupts the continuous movement when it reaches the limit with sudden pauses, freezing it and then resuming the exploratory ride.

Hora contains audacity, defiance, silliness, loneliness and togetherness, and humor which is apparent not only in the movement but also in the excellent sound score which is a mixture of surprising adaptations to great classical works - |Mussorgsky's Catabombs, Rodrigo's Aranjuez, Greig's Peer Gynt and even Star Wars.

Naharin also plays with velocity. He can stop the movement in an instant and then suddenly raises the volume and makes it into a caricature of itself. He tries movement, challenges it, he breaks it into quick segments, breaks the linear development and creates frame by frame by frame an effect of slow motion, but with extreme speed.

In one part of the piece Naharin divides the group into couples. The uniqueness of the individual is preserved also in the duet work. They move facing each other, in opposition or in parallel, touching sparingly but keeping a measure of yearning for a touch. One beautiful and bare duet presents an emotional essence of closeness. The dancers resist the integration, they push each other, looking to keep themselves separate but respond also to mutual attraction, finally melting into synchronized movement. Hora brings Batsheva to the essence. Amazing technique and skills and also layers of color and brilliant associative ideas. Nothing more to be said – Naharin and Batsehva did it again.
Merav Yudelevich, YNET, June 12, 2009

CONDENSED ENERGY
The heart of Ohad Naharin's new creation is gaga. This is another phase in Naharin's personal journey of exploration into the possibilities inherent in the new language he created.

To expose this language it all its clarity, he placed on stage a clean zone of light green walls, resembling a surgery room. A long floating bench (designed by Amir Raveh), stretches, sculpture like, along the back wall, on which the dancers sit while waiting. This is home from where they depart to dance and to where they return. They are dressed in black tops, almost ballet clothes, bare legged. Everything is straight-forward, without any adornment. Only what is necessary as a framework to the essence – the body language.

The dance is a bright composition which spatially connects and organizes the gaga movement phrases. The movement is designed by images, and it seems as if the body is driven by an inner hunger to dig into and discover the limits of all its internal boundaries.

The dance opens with slow movement and the dancers advance from the bench towards the audience like giant gods arriving from other plants. There are many freezes of positions, as if to allow the livid inner energy to become dense to the point where movement is no longer possible, so that this inner density can shine outward. It takes time and Naharin is attentive to it.

And suddenly the dancers are like a wild flock of birds, each one moving on stage with their own personal movement phrase. To give a comprehensive framework to the connection of seemingly arbitrary pieces of movement phrases, there is a recurring motif, taken rather from the classical ballet and known as a pas de bourre. This step is used in ballet as transition towards the main step, but here it is performed slowly, acquiring ritualistic volume and significance.

The movement composition meets music which is a collage of various styles and eras, arranged by Isao Tomita, with a segment by Ryoji Ikeda. It has themes from Wagner, Mussorgsky, Charles Ives and even familiar tunes from Star Wars. The pure composition opens a window of dialogue with images and associations which arise to the familiar musical segments.

It is interesting to witness the encounter with the music of "An afternoon of a Faun" by Debussy. Naharin is aware that when we see his gaga dance on stage, we cannot
avoid the simultaneous recollection of Nijinsky's masterpiece dating from the previous century. Throughout Naharin's dance there are moments when hands are held outwards, reminding us somehow of the two-dimensional figures on ancient Greek statues used richly by Nijinsky in his version. In one part one of the dancers lies on the floor, her back to the audience, in a pose reminiscent of Nijinsky looking at the dancing girls. In Naharin's version it is a female looking at a group of males.

Towards the end of the piece the relationship among the dancers changes. Whereas previously it was also reminiscent of Merce Cuuningham with the dead-pan faces of the dancers in compositions creating relationships of lines and rhythms, now the dancers shift their focus of attentions from the inside to their peers and an intimacy is suddenly created.
And this change does not support the wave-like assault of dancers getting up from their bench, reaching towards the audience while swallowing all that is on their way to the music of Star Wars. The duet becomes fragmented, electrified. The dancers return to their bench. The ceremony is over. Or maybe not – one dancer, as if forgotten, is left standing on one leg, asking for a solution.
Ruth Eshel, Ha'aretz, June 14, 2009

A THOUSAND LITTLE PIECES
Only in the deepest disorder can you find such sweetness. Hora is Ohad Naharin's best work in the past six years. If Anaphaza was an investigation of humanity within a carnival, Hora investigates it in a non-sterile laboratory.

The crystal opening scene reveals a magnificent stage: a bright green space with a long bench on which the dancers sit all dressed in short black attire. A thousand little pieces branch out in this floating aquarium. Batsheva has superb dancers- this is not new – and this time they mostly dance by themselves with the intensity and clarity that accompany an exposition of your secret inner life. .

This is molecular dance, operating on the cell level, a multi-layer creation which draws you in. It feels as if it has been danced for thousands of years already and this complements the futuristic element in it (the sound score is a brilliant mix of tunes from Star Wars, Space Odyssey and an Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy).

Naharin's investigation is so abundant that you are seized with an urge to invent for him additional bodily joints. He also has the wisdom to stop everything – as in the moment when the entire group is sprawled on the floor – and to endow us with a moment of total silence, of stillness, a moment charged with pure energy, a pause of pure potential. Only 10 minutes before the end, the dancers touch each other. It is almost painful to realize how satisfying this is.
Rona Kuperboym, Yediot Aharonot, June 10, 2009

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