Batsheva Brings Contemporary Dance from Israel
Johnson County Community College |
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Batsheva, Israel's leading contemporary dance company, will perform Deca Dance at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22, in Yardley Hall of the Carlsen Center, Johnson County Community College, as a co-presentationby the Jewish Community Center and Carlsen Center. Batsheva proves there is no politics in dance, only humor and humanity. Artists Insights begin at 7 p.m. Oct. 21 and 1 p.m. Oct. 22.
Since its founding in 1964 by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, Batsheva has been one of the most influential cultural groups in Israel. The appointment of Ohad Naharin as artistic director in 1990 launched Batsheva into a new era. Naharin, a former member of Martha Graham Dance Company, choreographed Deca Dance, a work that combines excerpts from nine notable Naharin works, to celebrate his decade with the company.
“Instead of an angst-ridden program of modern dance (which might be expected from an Israeli company co-founded by Martha Graham) Batsheva offered vibrant, hilarious, fullthrottle dance that theatricalized the Israel experience and celebrated life,” wrote Michael Wade Simpson, dancer/writer (culturevulture.net).
Shown in an order subject to change are Black Milk (1985), Passomezzo (1989), Queens of Golub (1989), Mabul (1992), Anaphasa (1993), Sabotage Baby (1997), Zachacha (1998), Moshe (1999), and Naharin’s Virus (2001).
Naharin has taken a tongue-in-cheek approach to his material, shuffling well-known pieces and giving them new meaning. “It was like I was telling only either the beginning, middle or ending of many stories, but when I organized it, the result becomes as coherent as the original, if not more,” Naharin said.
Naharin began his training as a dancer with the Batsheva Dance Company. A year later at the invitation of Graham, he went to New York to join her company as well as to study with a scholarship at the School of American Ballet. After a year with the Graham Company, he continued his studies at the Juilliard School of Music. He made his choreographic debut in 1980 in the Kazuko Hirabayashi studio in New York, where he stayed until his appointment in 1990 to Batsheva. In May 2005, Naharin was awarded the Israel Prize for dance.
The Batsheva Dance Company is international in its makeup with individually unique dancers from Israel and abroad, who work as a team and take turns as soloists on stage. Batsheva is applauded in prestigious theaters and festivals with more than 200 performances a year in Israel and on the five continents.
The performance is funded in part by Norman Glazer & Jean Burstein Glazer Fund for Jewish Cultural Arts, Helen and Sam Kaplan Memorial Fund and Earl J. & Leona K. Tranin Special Fund.
Tickets for Batsheva Dance Company are $40 and $30, available by calling the Carlsen Center box office, 913-469-4445, or online at the Carlsen Center box office
