Suzanne Dellal Centre
for Dance & Theatre
Tel Aviv, Israel
Nov. 30–Dec. 4, 2011

The serene, spacious courtyard of the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance & Theatre, lying three minutes from the Mediterranean coast in Tel Aviv, is not most people’s image of Israel. Nor is a thriving dance scene that has made an extraordinary mark internationally in recent years. But for the presenters and curators attending the 17th Annual International Exposure—hailing from nearly 40 countries with the goal of bringing Israel’s best contemporary dance home to their fellow citizens—that is precisely the image they’re leaving with.

The nearly 30 Israeli companies and choreographers featured over the course of five days offered work that as a whole can be described as impressively physical, aggressive (sometimes to the point of disturbing), and often highly stylized.

Take, for example, the Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company. Their new work, Bombyx Mori, brings the duo’s celebrated quirky sensibility, grotesque beauty, clown-like men, and doll-like women into a dark and peculiar world where yards of string yield a particular power. This string eventually comes to imprison all, yet when subsequently shaped into a house or played like a harp, it’s as if to say that by re-imagining the physical and psychological cords that confine us, there is choice in how we perceive our limitations.

Similar power issues were apparent in glossy productions by the Vertigo Dance Company (Null) and the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (Between Sacred & Profane). In both, large casts draped in black and white battled against the elements (water for Vertigo, tons and tons of sand for Kibbutz). Though each yearned for something deep and spiritual, each relied on letting music and design do the thematic heavy lifting. Despite successfully creating sacred atmospheres, a deeper truth couldn’t be found.

Yasmeen Godder was also searching in Storm Come End, a stream-of-consciousness trip through the waking dreams and nightmares of a cast of lonely souls each trying to grasp onto some sense of purpose. Yet while the audience may have shared the dancers’ discomfort and appreciated the choreographer’s attempt to reflect and challenge her surroundings, we too came away unfilled.

Addressing the politics of her environment much more explicitly in The Diplomats, Renana Raz strung together 15 national anthems from around the globe. With interactions that morphed from playful to silly to provocative (Israeli folk dance to the anthem of Libya), Raz’s delegation of six dancers, dressed like athletes at the 1970s Olympics, subverted these calls to patriotism.

Sharing a bill with Raz, Barak Marshall served as the other half of the Suzanne Dellal Centre’s own production. Marshall, who choreographed two previous works under the Suzanne Dellal banner (Monger and Rooster), returned to his eclectic musical playlist, vaudeville vignettes, Yiddish humor, and the same sharp, urgent, gestures in Wonderland, Part I. Though once again immensely enjoyable, it’s unclear whether Marshall is really further researching a theme or merely sitting on a successful formula.

Perhaps because so many of the marquee names in Israeli dance seemed to collapse under the weight of their own heavy-handed design—conceptually buried by elaborate costumes, dramatic sets, and precious props—certain artists emerged with refreshing simplicity and heartfelt honesty.

One of the most talked-about works of the festival was Six Years Later… . A quiet duet by Roy Assaf performed by him and the radiant Hadar Yunger Harel, it cleverly side-stepped cliché and reinterpreted Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” offering a touching portrait of a relationship in which no one (thank God) was trying to control or manipulate someone else. Likewise, Lee Meir constructed her 10-minute solo Translation Included with nothing more than a few basic lines of dialogue paired with a neurotic physical charade that she scrambled and teased into conveying multiple meanings. A simple idea, well executed, that left an impression far larger than some of the behemoths with five times the cast and budget.

Additionally, Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor’s small-scale Ship of Fools was one of the few pieces during the festival that felt like it actually came from a place that, to put it mildly, has some issues. Sheinfeld and Laor didn’t lay it on too thick—the work was entertaining, at times humorous, and engaging. But then we were caught off guard—a harmless game turned cruel or a guitar suddenly erected like a gun—and in these subtle moments, we were reminded that there is a big world outside of the theater, and for many in this region, it is broken.

But if dance could somehow make things better, Ohad Naharin and the Batsheva Dance Company would be the ones to heal the wounds. Naharin has been at the helm of the company since 1990; his newest creation, Sadeh21, may reference the duration of his reign, serving as a type of autobiography. The episodic work has the contemplative, nostalgic feeling of an artist looking back, revisiting some of the motifs that have become signatures of his work—individuality vs. group cohesion (or conformity), numeric accumulation, and an almost militaristic precision paired with intense sensuality.

In Sadeh21, Naharin gives these ideas a polished cinematic treatment and an intimate, surprisingly sensitive core (rare and refreshing for this company). At the same time, it has an epic quality in its scale (at times, 19 dancers are on stage) and intentions, taking us on a rich, enigmatic journey through a reel of diverse and profound scenes that seem to resemble all the discoveries and struggles of life itself.

Which makes the startling conclusion so haunting, and so perfect: dancers gracefully and recklessly leaping from the top of the set into the abyss and then climbing up to do it again. It’s a dramatic statement of finality that also suggests the possibility of rebirth. Sadeh21, nothing short of a contemporary masterpiece, leaves us in emotional knots.

Thankfully, hope is tangled in there as well. And hope is also not usually part of Israel’s image. But as Israeli dance artists continue to communicate with the world, perhaps that too will start to change.

Representing the past, the Martha Graham Dance Company received an enthusiastic homecoming this weekend in Tel Aviv.  It can be referred to as a “homecoming” because the mother of American modern dance was no stranger to the Holy Land.  She played an important role in the development of dance in Israel in 1964 as a co-founder of the Batsheva Dance Company, the company that still reigns as Israel’s premiere contemporary dance troupe and one of the country’s most celebrated and important cultural ambassadors abroad.  While one would be hard-pressed to find any trace of Graham in the company today, nevertheless Israeli’s know that a debt of gratitude is owed the choreographer, who passed away in 1991.

Watching Graham’s works today is a bit like watching a classic Hollywood film with, say Bette Davis or Judy Garland; melodramas delivered by larger-than-life characters. At the time of Graham’s creations, the flexed feet and curved spines and arched leaps were as shocking and refreshing as the rainbow of Technicolor that swept through film at around the same time.

The first work on the program in Tel Aviv, “Embattled Garden”, visited Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. The second, “Chronicle”, was Graham’s pivotal three-part commentary on society in the throes of war and depression (from 1936).  “Death and Entrances,” considered the inner lives of the Bronte sisters, and the final work, the “Maple-Leaf Rag” (the last work that Graham created before she died), offered a playful and poignant swan-song that seemed to encapsulate her entire life.

The design of Graham’s work, particularly the “Embattled Garden” set by long-time collaborator Isamu Noguchi, and the costumes, especially the silks and ruffles worn in the Bronte piece by Halston, are bold and bright and not particularly subtle, which fit well with the sharply defined gestures and overly expressive faces.

The result is that Graham can feel a bit dated both aesthetically and dramatically.  But watching Graham is a rare opportunity to watch dance history “live on stage,” as they say.  One would never mistake her work for that of a contemporary company.  But that’s not to say that there isn’t something relevant and powerful still in Graham’s art, the way that those big studio Hollywood films will always be classics.

In particular, “Chronicle,” consisting of all women, convincingly conveys the momentum of war and social upheaval as it sweeps through our lives quickly and unexpectedly, something Israeli audiences might be familiar with.  And the “Maple Leaf Rag,” while a purely entertaining and joyful romp, also carries sad hints of nostalgia and reflection that give the work dimension and depth beyond the skippy music.

On the other side of town, at the Suzanne Dellal Centre, where Graham’s offspring Batsheva is a resident company, the annual Curtain Up Festival celebrated all that is new and forward thinking in Israeli contemporary dance.  It’s unclear whether the majority of the young crowd that crammed into the theatre (an eighth of the size of the Opera House) knew who Graham was, or what role she had in Israeli dance, or that her company was performing only twenty minutes away. Had they known, its unlikely that many would have been able to afford tickets to see her (the cheapest being more than twice as much as a ticket to Curtain Up).

And what was on stage at Curtain Up (at least on Friday night when I caught the second program, curated by Sahar Azimi) was a far cry from the grandness of Martha.  Instead, the four works offered intimate snapshots of undefined relationships set in ambiguous times and places.  The white floor and black background provided a stark, impersonal context.  Nude leotards or bland, loose costumes dominated aesthetically, true to contemporary tastes.  All were merely suggestive in terms of themes and stories (if one could even find a theme or story) in contrast to Graham who often followed a clear narrative with defined intentions (as explained to the audience prior to each section by current Graham Artistic Director Janet Elber).

But whereas Martha demands to be observed from a distance, the four small works at Curtain Up invite one to step inside.  Doron Raz’s “Valentia” captured a duet of anguished beauty between two women who might have been two halves of the same whole.  Gili Navot’s solo “Subject to Change” shifted from a stammering awkwardness, to confidence and grace.  Noa Zuk’s “SPEAKER” placed her three human dancers in the middle of what might have been a video game – the body morphed into a wired machine responding to sonic stimuli, perhaps external, perhaps internal.

Roy Assaf’s “Six Years Later…” followed the growth and development of a relationship through the years, and through several musical genres, including Beethoven’s ubiquitous “Moonlight Sonata.” Are choreographer’s even allowed to use that one anymore?  Can we retire it along with Avro Part’s “Spiegel im Spiegel” or anything by Bjork?  Well, if choreographers can infuse such overplayed songs with the freshness that Assaf did, all is fair game again.

His embracing duet, which devoured the stage in exciting bites, found a new urgency in Beethoven’s quiet composition.  The subsequent shift to a folksy rock tune and casual chatter between the dancers reminded us that this is a relationship for normal people as well and that love can be both as elegant and elevated as the perfect sonata, while also as simple and down-to-earth as a guitar riff.

And, of course, when you thought the story had reached an easy and comfortable end, Assaf concluded with a section of opera to remind us that love and life, however they start and end and wherever they take us, are always epic journeys.  And that’s something with which Martha Graham would happily agree.

Living in Israel for the past year, I have taken a number of Gaga classes, participated in a Gaga Intensive with the company in which Naharin himself taught daily class and in which we applied its principles to choreography from the company’s repertoire, and I have written about the technique for this blog as well as other sites, such as Makom/Haaretz.

Kourlas describes the sensations of a Gaga class well, captures the playful and deeply psychological language used, shows us the enthusiasm with which dancers around the world have embraced the technique (hundreds from abroad braved the Tel Aviv heat in July for the summer version of the workshop). But here’s where I’m disturbed: somehow she thinks that she shouldn’t be there.

“My job,” she writes, “means that I don’t belong in dance class anymore; that is a dancer’s sacred space.” She calls it a “personal rule,” though “In the case of Gaga,” she continues. “I needed to understand its mechanics.”

But why the self-imposed exile from dance classes? Why is the world of the studio off limits to those who write about dance? She even goes so far as to say that “dance critics must join gyms,” a statement that, frankly, gives me chills. I studied and fell in love with dance in college. Yet I simply decided early on that writing about it gave me more pleasure than performing it and that writing is where I wanted to make my contribution to the art form. But dance class is still my sacred space, too.

What is the fear? Is it that we might share a barre with a choreographer we will someday review and are hesitant to get too friendly to be objective? Is it because we are wary of the wrath of the choreographer we gently put down the weekend before? Or maybe it’s just that we’re afraid to be judged ourselves.

Kourlas doesn’t elaborate here and this article really isn’t about this issue, but her casual remark shouted aggressively at me, hiding an assumption that somehow participating in the dancers practice space leads to a professional conflict of interest, that experiencing on our own creative movement and strengthening our own bodies through dance somehow makes us less effective writers and reviewers of dance. Apparently, according to Kourlas, the proper critic sticks to Stairmasters and dumbbells. I can’t think of more mind-numbing activities and a more uninspiring place.

Granted, not all dance critics come from dance backgrounds – some of the best ones historically never studied it and I don’t believe dance training is necessary to be a good critic. If you prefer the gym, that’s great. But we shouldn’t force ourselves there because we feel it’s inappropriate to be in a dance class.

Has my casual study of Gaga made me a biased writer of Naharin’s work? I don’t think so. I found his work brilliant before my first class and I find it brilliant still. But Gaga has given me new insight into its origins and intentions, has given me a new vocabulary to discuss the way it affects and touches me. Kourlas’ comment implies that a true critic keeps a cold distance from dance. But in taking the Gaga class, she seems to have found a connection to pleasure by allowing herself to get in the middle of the technique and I wonder if perhaps we critics – and dance in general – would be well served to consider getting up close with dance (choose your technique, any style) and write from a place not of distance but of warmth and intimacy instead.

Photo by Tom Medwell

The work is perhaps the closest thing I’ve seen to a piece of dance approaching the scale, energy, and audacity of a rock concert. Three tiers of over twenty musicians, washed in dusty, ominous lighting, fading in and out of shadow throughout the performance, like ghosts from the past or angels of the future. Pounding drums on the lower level, driving strings on the middle tier, and a band of electric guitars and massive taiko drums assaulting us from above. The score, conceived and written in part by Schecter, is nothing short of a weapon.

From the pit of the theater (the first section of chairs had been removed for the show’s run) we stood throughout the hour and a half work, nodding our heads with the pounding rhythm of the score, the bass of the drums snaking through the floor and up into our bones. “Political Mother” is as much felt as it is seen.

If we allow the title to be further deconstructed and suggestive of the piece’s influences – or targets – the obvious path takes us to Israel, Schecter’s Motherland. The movement language of the work confirms this as well – a fusion of the lightness and joy of communal folk dance (complete with a cameo by Tevye’s Fiddler on the Roof arms) combined with the weight and precision of militaristic drills, both of which still factor prominently into contemporary Israeli society.

Perhaps after a year living in Tel Aviv, I am looking too hard. Perhaps the weekly folk dance sessions on the beach are too prominent in my mind and the olive-green uniforms of the Israel Defense Forces are too visible in my daily life to look objectively here. Or perhaps I’m just seeing what Schecter has seen his whole life. And in the gray, tattered rags of the dancers and their blank, mournful stares, its hard not to see the desperate and devastated post-World War II immigrants wandering lost in search of a Holy Land.

Schecter drives this point home in bright lights, literally. Where there is pressure, there is folkdance. Illuminated across the stage, unveiled part by part until we get the entire sentence and finally grasp the point… or the joke.

It’s a peculiar statement to splash across the work; its visual prominence has the effect of summing up all that has come before and influencing the way we read the remainder of the dance. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t appear to offer deeper insight or peel away any additional layers.

Which is overall how the work itself feels: bold and thrilling from start to finish but in the end, lacking the emotional punch that you feel it should give for all of the tools in its toolbox.

“Political Mother” is an exceptionally polished work: the production values are superior, the dancers extraordinary. Yet I kept waiting for it to say something, though maybe, like most political rhetoric, it merely states the same things over and over again just in a different uniform, like the dictator that screams at us from among the guitars and taiko drums of the third level (played by Schecter himself). In the brilliant, about-face that concludes the evening, we find ourselves back where we started, ready to repeat the past all over again.

At the end, you feel like you have really gone through a journey of sorts. It’s just a bit unclear what it all meant and where to proceed from here.

Batsheva Dance Company / Photo by Gadi Dagon

There’s the opening sequence of solos in which everyone gets a turn to present her or himself – a kind of introduction to the characters that we will be following for the coming hour and a half as they meet each other, face personal demons, and figure out their role in the larger world. It was there in Max as well and even there at the start of Sharon Eyal’s Bill.

There’s the deceptively simple set – a clean, solid wall in the back, similar to Hora and Three (this time white) – that serves to highlight the dancers and bring them closer to the audience while also seeming to imprison them, creating an immediate sense of claustrophobia and urgency while at the same time serving as a canvas on which to wash a spectrum of atmospheres.

There’s the casual, pedestrian costumes – t-shirts and tank tops that span the rainbow (save for a scene of full and fantastic black gowns for the men) – and there’s the dramatic lighting – cold whites and warm yellows that shoot from the side and bounce off the white floor, turning the set itself into a light source, with a splash of color every once in a while.

And of course, there’s that movement – a marathon of unrelated gestures, each of which tells its own story, piled on one another like layers of memory that can make you smile or break your heart even if you don’t know why.

It’s all very Ohad, and all very Batsheva. The look and feel of the company has become entirely recognizable. But it’s precisely that familiarity that allows Sadeh21 to pack the punch it does.

For those who follow the company, there’s a sense of cohesiveness, of referencing past creations and merging them into one dramatic statement. Not like the quilt-like montages that Ohad has favored recently that splice scenes from earlier works together to create new monsters (Decadance, Project 5, Kyr/Zina), but rather a careful weaving of the visual motifs and aesthetic and aural interests that have been preoccupying Naharin for the past decade and giving birth to some of the most daring, sensitive, humorous, and poignant dance in the world.

And for those who don’t follow the company, who may be meeting Batsheva for the first time in this vast field (the English meaning of sadeh), one can only advise to lay back with arms clasped under head and gaze into the sky to conjure a guess at its morphing cloud formations and overwhelmingly expansive constellations of stars. In many ways, Naharin’s choreography is a similar game of connect-the-dots, giving you the three points of Orion’s belt and asking you to find the entire hunter around it.

Yet despite the sense of being welcomed into the known and recognizable world of Batsheva, Sadeh21 stands noticeably apart from its older brothers and sisters. Naharin’s work has always been theatrical; this one verges on the cinematic. Something about the scope of its intentions, or the power of so many bodies in motion, or the ease with which the work flows from one scene to the next despite sudden shifts in mood, gives the feeling of watching an expertly edited and exquisitely polished piece of film, simultaneously intimate and epic.

Or maybe it’s just the startling concluding scene that suddenly, literally, takes your gaze to a new level, one that has been there all along but you didn’t notice – and couldn’t know – its fatal purpose. As the dancers tumble from grace, swan dive into the abyss, and recklessly leap into the distance – only to climb back up and do it again – actual projected credits roll along the white wall, now bordering an empty stage, imprisoning no one.

And at this moment, a revelation that perhaps all along we have been watching life itself unfold. The search for identity, the birth of sexuality, the struggle for communication, the comfort of community, the pain of fighting against or rediscovering that identity, and the many ways in which it can all possibly end.

There is no curtain call, no bows. Because if there were, it would mean that this is just another performance, and we’re merely members of an audience, and life is something that only waits for us outside the theater. None of which is true.

Choreographers in Israel, for the most part, seem uninterested in addressing the political tensions here explicitly. Maybe it’s because they ache to be associated with something – anything – else. Maybe it’s because living in Tel Aviv (where the large majority of dance artists and companies are centered) the conflict can often feel somewhat invisible (if one chooses to look the other way). Which is not to say that artists aren’t dealing with the effects of the tensions in their work. Thematically, however, one would be hard-pressed to find many overt connections or responses to politics.

Yet when an Israeli artist performs abroad, we foreigners cannot help but to view their work through a political lens, filtered through whatever stream of news and commentary we’ve digested. A foreign audience looks to an artist as an ambassador and expects her or him to shed light on the country he or she represents – whether it be Serbia, Sudan, India, or Israel. What an artist says, or doesn’t say, informs our perspectives and opinions.

And then the question becomes: What is the artist’s obligation to the political situation in which she or he works?

Such was the question posed to a panel of Israeli choreographers and foreign arts presenters at a symposium organized by the Israeli Choreographers Association this week, part of a week-long conference that showcased the work of some of the Associations’ sixty-plus independent choreographers.

The panelists included a producer from Norway, a curator from England, an artistic director from Jerusalem, and several Israeli dance makers.

As the conversation unfolded, it became clear that another issue was bubbling up from below the surface: Is there good political art and does it even influence the audience? To which many of the curators seemed doubtful at best. One stated: “I don’t think art should try to solve political issues. But I’m not interested in art that doesn’t think.” Another pointed out that political art can actually stifle conversation if avenues of dialogue are not intentionally included. “The problem with political art,” he said, “is that only one person [the artist] makes a statement. The audience is passive.”

I’m not sure I agree with this. An artist does not need to initiate a debate in the moment. An artist can invoke reflection or dissect a subject that allows audiences to consider their beliefs and assumptions in new ways. The effect of art can be subtle and personal. The debate can begin inside each of us.

But I do agree with the presenter who suggested, “The medium poses a problem. Maybe dance isn’t the best medium [for political discussion].” Dance’s strength is in its evocative nature, the way it creates mood and atmospheres, the way it represents relationships between people and between people and space. It can employ the “political aesthetics” of the moment and help us recognize the world we have created around us but a medium that generally tends to forego words is a difficult place to present an OpEd.

And sometimes, it is the presenters and consumers of art themselves who endow it with a political agenda that the artist never intended in the first place. As another producer put it, “politics interfere more in the dissemination of the art, not in its content.” The way foreign dance companies are marketed often plays up whatever recognizable aspect of that culture a foreign audience can connect to. Conflict, in news and in art, drives interest. There is much responsibility, too, in the hands of those who bring art to audiences.

So how to navigate these dilemmas? How does one both recognize the context in which art is made and yet not allow it to define the art or the artist? At one point the moderator asked of the presenters, “When you invite an Israeli company, do you invite Israel or do you invite dance?”

It was put best, or at least most succinctly, or perhaps it just most cleverly avoided the, um, conflict altogether when the response was: “I invite art.” If only it was that simple.

Adama sits at the edge of Mitzpe Ramon (look for the sign that says “Spice Trade Route” in English), in the middle of the Negev Desert, about an hour and a half south of the city of Be’er Sheva, itself a two-hour bus ride (more or less) from Tel Aviv. About as far from the feel of the Mediterranean Coast as you can get.

I arrived at Adama, the home of the Nir Ben Gal and Liat Dror Dance Company and school, two days after the start of Passover for their annual three-day festival of dance classes, yoga sessions, performances, dance jams, and all other forms of movement. Within half an hour, I’m rolling on the floor, finding my center, reconnecting with my body, sitting back to back with a woman I’ve never met with a wild mane of curly hair that tickles my neck and, a minute later, carrying some young dude with a scraggly beard and flowy parachute pants on my shoulders as he breathes deeply and sighs. “Take responsibility for your own comfort,” says our teacher. I feel strangely exposed.

Have you ever laid on the desert floor as the sun starts to wave goodnight, as stones are placed on top of your chest, thighs, forehead, and hands, pinning you to the land, pressing you into earth? It’s liberating to feel so stuck.

Handmade hemp clothes for sail, organic soap, leather notebooks with Buddhist symbols embossed on the covers, plates of veggies, lentils, beets, and other vegan fare. Yeah, it’s that kind of place. Lots of dreads, lots of nose piercings – the standardized aesthetic of the non-conformists.

At night, after the performances concluded, as the winds whipped through the empty valleys of the Negev and the children were carried back to their tents, the DJ poured over us the sounds of Jamaica and India and Morocco and Mexico and we danced the world away, each protected by our own arbitrary and shifting borders. Two men next to me ignored the music altogether and engaged in a contact improvisation duel – one moment ferociously joining bodies and the next tossing each other away. Oh, the contradictions of human relationships.

And then, the following afternoon, I’m on another bus on an exodus back to Tel Aviv, sitting in the aisle because there are no more seats available – the soldiers have occupied them all. From the floor, I can’t see out of the window to watch the promised land pass me by. But I can still feel the bite of its teeth and the lick of its tongue on the naked surface of my soul.

To whom this many concern,

I could write this letter as a former employee of ArtPower!, the organization that gave me and many other UCSD grads such an important and positive professional experience early in our careers. Clearly, my three years with the program has made me passionate about its work, invested in its goals, and with a clear understanding from the inside of its deep commitment to students and the community.

But I would rather write this letter as an alumnus of UCSD who experienced the power of ArtPower! as a student and who recognized then its unique and invaluable contributions to the university community.

It would be a mistake to consider the effect of ArtPower! merely through the performances it presents, the numbers of people who attend, even the reactions to its numerous university and community-wide engagement activities, though those are of course important indications of its reach and impact and I know you have those numbers, reports, and have seen first hand the way ArtPower! brings people of all ages and affiliations together in a way that no other university program does.

I didn’t see ArtPower! as a series of data and assessment as a student. ArtPower! was for me then, as I suspect it is still for students and community members now, a symbol. It represents the university’s recognition, concern, and embrace of the larger San Diego community outside our La Jolla walls. It represents the university’s engagement in global cultural exchange in visible, tangible ways that a book or even a guest lecture cannot achieve. It represents the university’s sincere efforts to turn the campus into a hub of creative, social interaction that is stimulating and relevant. And, most importantly, ArtPower! represents possibility. My interaction with the program was a crucial tool in helping me discover how I could put the skills and passions I was developing at UCSD toward a concrete professional career.

In other words, ArtPower! opened up the way I thought about my future and, indeed, the path I ended up taking. No academic class had such an impact, nor any career service panel. The existence of ArtPower!, beyond the specifics of its programming, is a statement about possibility – the possibilities of how to look at the world, the possibilities of how to be a citizen of the university and our society, and the possibilities of how we think imaginatively about the contributions we make in our lives beyond our time at UCSD.

To lose ArtPower! would be to lose a valuable pipeline between academic studies and life – not life defined by internships, starting salaries, and graduate admissions, but rather one defined by awareness, connection, insight, and possibility.

Sincerely,
Brian Schaefer ‘05

- VISIBILITY of our members – in attendance and in conversation with leaders of other national and international dance organizations through panels, seminars, workshops and other tangible opportunities to talk about the FUTURE of dance writing, initiated by DCA

- VISIBILITY of our writing – both on the DCA website (which I think can be a robust tool and archive for members, artists, and dance lovers) and as a presence in existing publications (imagine a regular DCA column in the Dance/USA newsletter or in Arts Journal, for example)

- VISIBILITY of our art form – joining in conversation and collaboration with critics and writers in other artistic disciplines to represent and speak on behalf of dance, its needs, its contributions, and its value

The Dance Critics Association must re-insert itself boldly into the national dance dialogue with openness and generosity and a willingness to engage, debate, and challenge artists, arts leaders, as well as ourselves and our assumptions of what dance criticism is and where it is found. I look forward to joining you all in that adventure.

Photographer: Gadi Dagon

“Kamuyot” is one of Ohad Naharin’s creations for the Batsheva Ensemble (the second company consisting of mostly younger dancers) that borrows some ideas and phrases from another intimate Batsheva work performed in a studio surrounded by the audience, “Mamootot.” But whereas the latter dance features a cast in identical, flesh-colored costumes with a nude solo in the middle, “Kamuyot” features bright Catholic schoolboy/girl-meets-retro-punk outfits and, well, no nude solo. That would be entirely inappropriate.

But the refreshing thing is how little the two differ from each other conceptually. Both challenge the traditional proscenium presentation of dance by bringing the audience into the game. Spaces are reserved throughout the audience for the dancers to sit during the work, blending the line between spectator and performer. The proximity of the dancers to the audience is utilized and exploited in moments such as when the dancers walk slowly around the perimeter, catching the gaze of audience members, pausing to hold hands and share a moment.

Some adults who attended “Mamootot” when I saw it found those moments uncomfortable. The children at “Kamuyot” seemed to find them thrilling. The sense of involvement and participation allowed the children, most quite young, to remain remarkably engaged and attentive for the hour-long work and they didn’t appear threatened by the invasion of personal space that we adults so carefully cultivate. Perhaps most striking, the children seemed to simply accept everything that was happening before their eyes and just enjoy the pure physical pictures being played out in front of them.

At a performance of Batsheva’s “Three,” a few weeks prior, several of my companions remarked following the show that they “just didn’t get it.” It’s a comment that I would imagine didn’t even cross the minds of the little ones sitting wide-eyed in the studio on Saturday. “What an uninteresting observation!” I imagine the kids would respond. “What is there to get?” It’s about letting go and allowing yourself to be taken on a journey, to simply respond to whatever unexpected image or idea pops up. In the United States, I don’t think we trust children’s ability to make sense of abstract art.

Of course there are presenters who offer student matinees with, for example, the Alvin Ailey or Paul Taylor dance companies, an important part of the process of welcoming young audiences to dance. But the scene that played out in the Varda Studio in Tel Aviv was something else entirely. Not an institution fulfilling an engagement or educational mission but rather a dance company creating innovative, challenging work specifically for children that is conceptually no different from what it gives to adults, crediting them with the ability to “get it”. So why aren’t we seeing similar efforts to reach this young audience, and their families, in the States?

Is it partially that we adults project our discomfort with work that doesn’t conform to a certain style or traditional notion of beauty and assume that children will share our apprehension? Consider that your children, or you as a child yourself, likely attended special matinees of the Nutcracker, or heard Bach at the symphony or toured a Monet exhibition at a fine art museum but likely didn’t have much exposure to, say, Merce Cunningham or John Cage or Mark Rothko. We decide that children won’t be able to make sense of these avant-garde artists or will be turned off by their quirky worldviews. But maybe it’s us that are holding them back.

As adults, we bring expectations into every situation – whether a job, a relationship, or a dance performance. We tend to demand that events unfold in an orderly fashion, that everything connects to something else, that in the end we are given a clear message so we can put it in a box, assign a label, and then evaluate accordingly. But perhaps there is something to learn from a child who accepts what is offered with generous curiosity. Perhaps that acceptance allows for even greater insight and enjoyment. Perhaps we can gain a lot from trusting their sense of wonder and actively seeking their participation. And perhaps that is something we can learn to bring into our lives as well.