2019
Ohad Naharin

2019 is “homegrown.” The image of its place and its time, encompassing languages, bodies, sounds, local folklore, and nationalism duplicated and replicated throughout our lives; it touches the baggage held in the body and dives into culture’s repertoire of movement.

The space is a space of hospitality. And so, as we look at what is happening, we are also looking at one another. At any given moment, someone returns our gaze. The piece takes place in such close proximity, that it eventually overflows and finds comfort in our lap, forcing us to acknowledge a shared fate and to shoulder the physical and mental burden together.

Naharin’s stage weaves a thread of non-chronological history, populated by bodies whose movement inspires a certain sense of nostalgia. At the same time, they celebrate and conflate the diverse identities that imbue the body in this narrow realm between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. They move back and forth, proudly displaying local myths, intertwining joy and effort with pathos-filled intensity, and then slow down, sometimes to a complete halt, withdrawing to inconsolable sorrow.

The mechanisms at play throughout the piece mirror those of local reality – mechanisms of excess and lack, accelerating and braking, joy and grief. The space is a space of passage, a buffer zone. The dancers, and us with them, linger on the threshold, between what happened and what is about to happen. After all, in the local narrative we are all sitting on the balcony watching the birds migrate, our body beating with hope for the new year but also anticipating the inevitable imminent war.

*****

Choreography: Ohad Naharin
Lighting Design: Avi Yona (Bambi) Bueno
Costume Design, styling: Eri Nakamura
Stage and Set Design: Gadi Tzachor
Soundtrack Design and Original Music: Maxim Waratt
Sound Design: David (Dudi) Bell
Musical Advisor, Mastering: Nadav Barnea
Assistant to Ohad Naharin and Eri Nakamura: Ariel Cohen

Music: “Card Games” by Iarmi Kadoshi performed by Moshe Cohen, “Locust Star” by Neurosis, “Boukyou” by Hako Yamasaki, “Hine ma tov umanaim” Psalms/Moshe Yakobson, “Bashana Haba`a” – Ehud Manor/Nurit Hirsh, “Ana le Habibi” by Rahbani Brothers/Fairuz, “Saikai” by Hako Yamasaki, “Maqlooba” by V.F.M. style, “You, Me and the Next War” – Hanoch Levin/Maxim Waratt, “LaKova Sheli” – folk song, “Caspian” By Asadi.

Accordion: Uzi Rosenblat
Cello: Noa Ayali
Director of Sound: David (Dudi) Bell
Jewelry Design: Liron Etzion, Keren Wolf

Original cast: Etay Axelrod, Billy Barry, Yael Ben Ezer, Matan Cohen, Ben Green, Chiaki Horita, Chunwoong Kim, Shir Levy, Ohad Mazor, Eri Nakamura, Igor Ptashenchuk, Nitzan Ressler, Yoni (Yonatan) Simon, Kyle Scheurich, Maayan Sheinfeld, Hani Sirkis, Amalia Smith, Imre Van Opstal

Text about the piece: Shira Vitaly

75 Minutes

Originally commissioned for Batsheva Dance Company
World Premiere- December 9 , 2019, Varda Studio, Suzanne Dellal Center, Tel-Aviv.

Acknowledgments: Roni Azgad, Lillian Barreto, Zach Bar, Deaf Chunky, Michal Helfman, Wael Kubtan, Neta Lee Levi, Gil Markovich, Orly Morag, Avi Pitchon

Produced by Batsheva Dance Company. Co-producer: Montpellier Dance Festival 2020. With the support of the Chleck Family Foundation (Boston); Zita and Mark Bernstein Family Foundation (Winnipeg); Robert de Rothschild (New York); Batsheva’s New Works Fund; the American Friends of Batsheva New Works Fund; and additional Israeli and international friends.

Dedicated to Eliav Naharin 1927-2018

Drawing: Noga Nakamura