Naharin's
"gaga" Language and Choreography Added to SFCD Curriculum
Always seeking to
expand learning opportunities for its students, the San Francisco
Conservatory of Dance has added the study of Ohad Naharin’s work
to that of William Forsythe and Jiri Kylian in its 2008 Summer
Intensive Program. With representatives of three of the world’s l eading contemporary
choreographers setting works on its students, the Conservatory’s
repertory is beginning to resemble that of such major international
companies as Nederlands
Dans Theatre,
Compañía Nacional de Danza, Paris Opera Ballet, and Hubbard Street
Dance Chicago.
Mr. Naharin is
artistic director of the highly-acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company in Tel
Aviv, Israel,
which was originally co-founded by Martha Graham in 1964. Among the
effusive press Naharin’s choreography has received, Dance
Magazine critic Wendy Perron wrote the following after seeing the piece
Three at San
Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in October 2006,
“Three was so
beautiful I could almost not bear it. Simple and complex, soft and
powerful, giddy and solemn, it was the kind of piece you want to linger
over."
Having worked with
many icons of contemporary ballet and modern dance across the globe,
Mr. Naharin background is extensive. Born Born in Tel Aviv, he
left Israel at age
22 for New York City to study at the Martha Graham
School and School of American
Ballet. He then fine-tuned his training
at the Juilliard
School before
moving into the professional sphere where he performed with the Martha
Graham Dance Company and Maurice Béjart Ballet before setting out to
create his own work. After spending ten years choreographing in New York City, he
returned to Tel Aviv in 1990 to accept the post of artistic director of
the Batsheva Dance Company. Mr. Naharin is also the recipient of
several honors for choreography and others which set him apart from his
peers such as a Doctorate of Philosophy awarded by the Weizmann
Institute of Science, and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres awarded by the French government.
But aside from the
remarkable training, illustrious career, and accolades, what makes Mr.
Naharin unique, and his work a point of study for SFCD, is his method
of moving called “gaga”. This form of dance, or dance
language, is highly experiential and encourages authenticity as well as
joy in movement. Directions are given primarily in images as
opposed to steps, and the object is to cultivate one’s own way of
moving through sensations. Joy Goodwin of the New York Times explains,
“Imagery — say, the suggestion of rubbing oil into the skin
— stimulates imagination and movement. Dancers are encouraged to
explore their weaknesses and break old movement habits. Other exercises
focus on the placement of the body in space and developing sensitivity
to the energy of the dancers nearby.” Mr. Naharin has also
explained that gaga teaches, “pleasure and effort, madness and
demons, and all the things that really create an interesting
performer.”
One-day gaga
workshops taught by members of the Batsheva Company in New York City at Steps on Broadway,
Dance New Amsterdam, and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet have been
filled to capacity. SFCD’s approach to learning gaga will
go far beyond those workshops over the course of several weeks.
Offered to
qualifying students 18 to 23 during Session 3 of the 2008 Summer
Intensive Program, the Naharin curriculum is designed to immerse
dancers into this new way of moving, treating it as a language to be
used as a vehicle for personal expression. Students will dive head
first into the nuance and intricate detail of the movement language.
By virtue of the
fact that language is ever-evolving, the Conservatory expects that as
students become fluent in it they will also contribute to its
evolution. While previous workshops may have taught participants the
skeleton of gaga, SFCD students will explore the bones by
deconstruction--taking them apart to see what lies underneath, and
reassembling the joints to see, with the new knowledge acquired, how
the body stands.
SFCD faculty members
are extremely excited about this opportunity for students. Glenn
Edgerton (associate artistic director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago)
describes Naharin’s technique as, “an overall comprehensive
study in the motion of the body delving into the fundamentals of
impetus, space, momentum, energy, and recovery. It's a physical
investment in movement and an in-depth look into the range of
qualities the body can encompass.” Christian Burns adds,
“I’m certain that [this] new approach to technique and
creative development, especially by such a renowned artist, will be
hugely beneficial to all that can participate.”
In an interview with
Mr. Naharin, journalist Patricia Boccadoro asked what he believed was
important in life. He replied, “Love, forgiveness, and the
joy of movement; dance which means going beyond limits.”
The Conservatory looks forward to studying the ideas of a man who can
reveal his integrity in words as well as movement.
-Heather
McCalden
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Faculty Interview: Thomas McManus
MK. Thomas, can you give us a
bit of biographical information, just to introduce you to readers who
haven't had the opportunity to meet you?
TM. Of course. I come from a farm
in the middle of Illinois
and a big Irish family—six older brothers and sisters. When you
get nine people in a house, there is always something going on; the
kinetic energy is unavoidable so I was riding on that kind of energy
for all of my childhood. I started dancing when I was 16, went to the North Carolina School of the Arts when I was
17, and at 18 landed in ABT 2, albeit as an apprentice. They paid me
$60 a week and I slept in a loft bed above a friend's washing machine.
I lived in New York
from 1981-86, and during that time worked with many different modern
and ballet choreographers. I remember working with Helgi Tomasson once,
but I can't remember the name of the ballet.
After five years in New York
, I felt
like I was ready for something new. So when [choreographer] Ann Marie
DeAngelo told me about William Forsythe and the Ballett Frankfurt, I
went. I didn't really know much about him when I got there, but it
turned out to be the best place for me. When I eventually left in 1999, Bill authorized me to teach his repertory—which I have since been doing for various companies around the world, in addition to doing my own choreography and teaching classes and workshops.
MK. How did
working with Mr. Forsythe influence the development of your own
artistic work as a dancer and choreographer?
TM. When I went to Frankfurt I was looking for an artistic home, a
particular point of view to have experienced and to come from. In New York there
is so much of everything and I think it is a great place to get new
experiences, but it was hard for me to find a place where the art I
wanted to make was being done--and was getting enough funding to
actually pay the dancers!
As dancers, we
influenced each other. Over the 13 years I was there, we got to know
each other’s habits, good points and bad. He [Forsythe] has a
brilliant mind so I don't think any of us could predict what was going
to come next, but on a physical level the stylistic language of the
Frankfurt Ballet became a common denominator we all understood.
One thing I most
admired about him was that he embraced the ephemeral reality of live
dancing and used that as a model of how to keep himself
motivated, to stay focused and continue searching for the new within
himself. He never apologized for having contradicted himself, which he
often did, and at first I wanted him to be consistent, like most
teachers I have had. But after awhile I observed a kind of rich quality
being built into the work through his meandering logic; and I realized
that his work wasn't great because he was "perfect," it was
more because he was so honestly human and himself.
MK. Last summer, one of the many
images you offered us was the comparison of the process of
improvisation to a door opening in your mind. What do you think
improvisation, particularly task-based work, offers to a dancer? How
can they develop that sort of creative investigation? How do you
experience it?
TM. For the
first creation I was involved in we focused on creating choreography
from everyone’s improvisations. Remember, this was 1987, so
ballet dancers were not used to choreographers asking for their
creative input. Of course, Bill's people had been doing this for a few
years before I got there so they would just get up and go! When I was
in high school I loved mathematics and a lot of our improv tasks have
to do with manipulating real and imagined geometry. Mathematicians say
that everything in life can be expressed through numbers--their
language. The way that Bill approached improv opened up my everyday
life as a source to be described and danced about, and I finally got a
sense of the validity of the communicative language of dance.
MK. What was
your experience teaching at the Conservatory last year like? What made
you decide to return this year, and what do you hope to work on with
students this summer?
TM. Great! Everyone was so
focused and hard working; I had to hustle to keep up with you all! What
the students and teachers pulled together in three weeks really
surprised me. Because of this kind of openness to devotion, devotion
just to the time period really, I thought it would be interesting to
see if we could recreate one of the creative processes of the Ballet
Frankfurt. Hypothetical Stream
was a piece where the dancers were asked to analyze the drawings and
paintings of Tiepolo, an Italian Baroque painter, and translate their
findings into movement which began the process of combining and subtracting,
juxtaposing and manipulating, and evolved into a set piece without
improv.
Improvisation
Technologies
is an educational CD-ROM that we created to help new dancers to our
company learn the improv tasks we used in our work. With this tool, I
hope we can learn a bunch of the tasks quickly so we can start to use
them in a comfortable and familiar way.
MK. What was
your favorite dance-related thing that you've seen in the past year?
TM. I've only seen excerpts on
YouTube, but there is a film by Édouard Lock and La La La Human Steps
called Amélia. I like
the set and music. I haven't seen the company since 1984! So for
me he has made a large evolution, although I hear he stays pretty much
in this style of dancing now.
MK. And because
I think an interview is more fun when there's just a bit of frivolity,
what book or movie or piece of music excites you so much that you want
to run out and tell everyone on the street that they must, must, must
begin reading, watching, or listening to it right now?
TM. A recording by Janine Jansen
of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. She plays this music like it was written
yesterday and like it's a matter of life and death!!
I started reading
some Samuel Beckett. It's so dense, but after awhile you can get into
its specific flow and logic, and it really gets your brain going!
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Summer Choreographic Apprentice Residency
Choreography, at its
most basic, is moving bodies in space and through time. Choreographers
need to have all three—bodies, space, and time—to practice
their art, not to mention the more elusive material of inspiration.
Securing these necessities can be difficult, especially for a young,
aspiring choreographer. Dancers have schedules, studios are expensive;
and getting time with both together, being free to experiment without
the pressure to produce, is often rare. Just as unusual is to find a
guide to help you illuminate the unnoticed corners in your work.
The San Francisco
Conservatory of Dance is addressing this problem through a mentorship
program for aspiring choreographers. The Choreographic Apprentice
Residency gives young choreographers support for their work and adds
another dimension to the school’s curriculum. Alex Ketley, a
teacher and resident choreographer at the Conservatory, as well as an
independent artist, explains that the residency reflects his own
experience of working with students. “I feel the Conservatory has
contributed tremendously to my development as a choreographer, if for
nothing else than allowing me vast amounts of time to experiment and
discover what is important to me about my voice.”
Finding one’s
individual voice is vital for any artist, and Summer Lee Rhatigan, the
Conservatory’s director, believes the collaboration of
choreographic work is a way into the process. “I think one of the
most important keys to a rich and sustainable career in dance is
becoming engaged and inspired by collaborations with artists who know
something you don’t, or whose ideas stem from different
experience.”
The first Choreographic
Apprentice Residency took place last year, running alongside the
Conservatory’s annual Summer Intensive Program. Seven
choreographers were selected on the basis of applications and
auditions. Each choreographer was assigned a small group of dancers and
given rehearsal time to use as they wished. At the end of each
week, all participants met to show and discuss their work under
Alex’s guidance.
“I chose the
format of weekly group discussion,” Alex says, “because I
thought the choreographers should have the benefit of multiple points
of view, not just my own. I wanted it to function more like a fine art
graduate program. I think it is important for young choreographers to
have a sense of mentorship, rather than simply going out and blindly
finding their way. In other art disciplines, there tends to be a more
rigorous sense of needing to know one’s art history. I think many
young choreographers feel very
unsupported.”
Malinda LaVelle and
Ellen Deutsche, both choreographers during the 2007 Summer Residency,
agree that this communication between dancers, choreographers, and
teachers inspired and clarified aspects of their own work. Malinda
describes the process like this: “The comments I received from
teachers and students allowed me and my dancers to consider new ideas
and reconsider old ones, which helped me stay fresh with what I was
doing.” What she found most unique about the program, however,
was the continuity of this dialogue. “You didn’t first
create a piece and then receive criticism. You were able to gradually
gain new insight during your entire process from a non-judgmental
place.” Ellen echoes her appreciation for feedback and adds,
“it was exciting to see what other choreographers in my
generation are creating. I’d definitely repeat the experience in
a heartbeat.”
Each week the
choreographers took away opinions, suggestions, questions, and
explanations to use in their own rehearsals. Most of these rehearsals
took place at the end of a very long day of dancing, for both
choreographers and dancers; so it was only with heroic stamina and
enthusiasm from all that explorations evolved into pieces possessing
structure and depth. At the end of the four week program, the
choreographers presented their work to an audience of students and
faculty.
During the summer of
2008, the Choreographic Apprentice Residency will offer twelve more
students the opportunity to create and learn. Professional
choreographers Alex Ketley, Christian Burns, and Manuelito Biag will
guide students throughout the program. By sharing their experience, and
digging into ideas and processes, these choreographers will both serve
as mentors and enrich their own work, exploring and learning alongside
their students.
-Megan Kurashige
Further
information on the 2008 Choreographic Apprentice Residency, including application requirements and deadlines,
is available on the SFCD website.
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