Batsheva Dance Company

Batsheva Dance Company
Three
Sunday, November 5, 2006, 7pm
UCLA Royce Hall

Photo of Batsheva Dance Company in Three (Humus), courtesy of UCLA Live.

Saw a really well done, one hour ten minutes of modern/contemporary dance on Sunday night, with Batsheva Dance Company. Very well trained dancers and really interesting, quirky choreography made it a completely watchable evening of modern dance - and a very accessible evening, too. There wasn't much to get, only stuff to watch on stage.

Batsheva is from Israel, a dance company formed in 1964 with the assistance of Martha Graham. Three is choreograhed by Ohad Naharrin, a choreographer new to me but who apparently has been creating a bunch of great dances for European and Euro-inspired dance companies. This work was created on Batsheva, and was divided into three sections: : Bellus (Beauty), Humus (Earth) and Secus. Each section was separated brief interlude on a dark stage, where one of the dancer hauled a small television monitor to center stage, and a narrator is displayed on the screen. Speaking in chopped up, thickly accented English - tells us what to expect in the next section (it sounded like this "Next. Section. Music is QUIET. QUIIIIET." The words were all separated by cuts in the film). It was certainly an attempt at being absurd and it set the tone for the pieces.

My favorite part was the second section, Humus, or Earth (pictured above). It was for all the women in the company, and for 18 minutes they all moved around the stage performing exactly the same choreography to virtually silent music - only a few string hums here and there. What was most fascinating about it was that there was total uniformity from the dancers, but still total individuality. It was fascinating to see how each of the women accomplished the choreography in a very individual way. Certain women worked with their legs better, other with their arms - still each achieved the same end result. The sight of all of them moving around the stage together and of the same mind was exhilarting.

When the piece started, I was a bit apprehensive - a solo for a guy wearing red, it was weird flailing that looked like contact improv. Not a fan of contact improv, personally, so this didn't make me very excited, but soon the movement developed themes and variations - it was clear movement themes were being explored. By the time the second section arrived, I was taken in.

The third section was admitedly more odd, especially for a lot of the audience (some of whom left during its longer 45 min length). In one section, the company forms three separate lines on the stage (two diagonally on either side of the stage, the other coming directly downstage in the center). Each dancer comes to the front of the line and does something: a big dance step, a weird noise, or - perhaps most interestingly - pulls his/her pants down to reveal butt or pubic hair. Odd? Yes. Definitely a modern dance thing.

Still though, it was just great to watch all of the dancers. I have no idea what there is to say insightfully about it, only that it was just cool to watch. I wasn't comprehending everything all the time, but I had something very interesting to watch for the entire piece.

And it's just a joy to watch fanastically well trained dancers. I'll watch good dancers do all sorts of weird modern stuff - thought this was way more interesting than, say, Jose Limon Dance Company's exercise in pedestrian modernism last April. Batsheva, Lyon Opera Ballet earlier last month, and Les Grand Ballets Canadiens at the beginning of October were just great to watch.