Nir Ben-Gal was born in 1959 in Petach Tikva.
He moved with his family to Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra in 1969. As a boy he danced in the regional folk dancing company and also painted. In high school, he met Liat Dror, his future wife and dance partner. He completed a year of community service prior to his military service. After his discharge from the IDF, he left the kibbutz and joined his partner Dror to study in the Jerusalem Music and Dance Academy. In 1984-86, he trained in the Kibbutz Ga’aton Dance Workshop, where he experienced choreographing for the first time, both as part of the workshop itself and in Bimat Mahol (“dance stage”). In 1986, he moved to Jerusalem to dance with the Jerusalem Ensemble, where he choreographed Dying of Laughter. Later that year, the dance was commissioned by Refleks of Groningen, Holland, and he wone second prize for it at the Cologne Choreography Competition.
Beginning in 1985, Ben-Gal choreographed with Liat Dror. Their first choreography, Two Room Apartment (1987), won first prize in the Shades of Dance (Gvanim Bemachol) Festival, and later also important international awards, such as the French Bagnolet Award and the Cologne Dance Festival Award. This choreography is considered a turning point in the history of Israeli dance, and was restaged in 2012 by Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor, who dialogued with the original piece from a new perspective.
In 1991, Ben-Gal and Dror established the Liat Dror Nir Ben-Gal Company which was active in Tel Aviv and which staged several productions which were successful in Israel, Europe and the US. Their choreographies in this period included Figs (1993), Inta Omri (1994), and Interrogation (1996). In 1999 the created Dance of Nothing in the Loire Valley, which marked the end of an era. In 2000, Dror and Ben-Gal moved to live with their troupe in Mizpe Ramon in the Negev Desert, where they established Adama Hangar, which includes a dance school and provides various workshops. Their latest choreographies include Road (2014), Zen Dance (2013), and Airport (2011).
In addition to their own company, the duo have choreographed for theaters (Habima, Haifa, Cameri and Israeli Opera), and for other troupes, including Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, London Contemporary Dance Theatre (LCDT) and Batsheva. For Batsheva, they created Formless (1986), Misleading Moments (1987), and Romantica (1989).