The latest virtual offering from Batsheva demonstrates, yet again, the painfully original arrangements that make Ohad Naharin one of today’s most pioneering choreographers. It boasts all of the force and inventiveness of modern conceptual dance with none of the pretentiousness that so frequently comes with the territory.
In the piece, Batsheva Dance Company’s dancers are as talented as they are willfully unkempt and asexual, sporting a carefully cultivated just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-into-some-random-attire-I’ve-found-in-my-attic chic which seems a perfectly appropriate fit to their artistic director’s asymmetrical movement philosophy. Naharin, through a host of progressive techniques such as barring the use of mirrors in his rehearsals, is able to draw raw, emotive motion and vulnerability from his terpsichoreans rather than conventionally suppressive body consciousness.

Naharin… is able to draw raw, emotive motion and vulnerability from his terpsichoreans

For YAG, Batsheva’s first production adapted specifically for the screen, Naharin gets to utilize the language of cinema to communicate his work both as director and choreographer. The absence of a stage and the sparse lighting of the frame, creates an unmitigated encounter with the dancers. Video artist Roee Shalti, a frequent collaborator, shot and cut the piece with Naharin. YAG was filmed during October 2020 at Batsheva’s Varda Studio, at Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv.

Tickets and further details available here.