Gaga Moving Beyond Technique With Ohad Naharin in The Twenty First Century

Dance Chronicle
ISSN: 0147-2526 (Print) 1532-4257 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ldnc20
Gaga: Moving beyond Technique with Ohad

Naharin in the Twenty-First Century
Deborah Friedes Galili
To cite this article: Deborah Friedes Galili (2015) Gaga: Moving beyond Technique
with Ohad Naharin in the Twenty-First Century, Dance Chronicle, 38:3, 360-392, DOI:
10.1080/01472526.2015.1085759
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01472526.2015.1085759
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Dance Chronicle, 38:360–392, 2015
Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0147-2526 print / 1532-4257 online
DOI: 10.1080/01472526.2015.1085759
Gaga: Moving beyond Technique with Ohad

Naharin in the Twenty-First Century
DEBORAH FRIEDES GALILI
Gaga, the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin in con-

junction with his work as artistic director of Israel’s Batsheva Dance
Company, has in the last decade been introduced as a training
option for dancers. Examining Gaga’s evolution, structure, and
characteristics, this article suggests that Gaga’s divergence from
conventional models of technique allows it to address many needs
of dancers working in the twenty-first century. I consider how Gaga
fits into contemporary training paradigms and assert that the free-
dom to explore concrete directives and creative imagery in classes
helps dancers develop the link between their physicality and their
artistry.
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the market for dance train-
∗
ing was flush with options. Besides the time-honored mainstay of ballet,
a plethora of modern dance techniques accumulated throughout the early
and mid-twentieth century were joined by newer approaches that cropped
up as postmodern dance came to the fore. Still other classes outside the
realm of dance, such as yoga and Pilates, were adopted as alternative ways
to prepare the body for rehearsals.1 Advanced dancers—particularly those
professionals who increasingly design their own training regimen2—now
face many considerations as they decide which classes to take. Do they pre-
fer a traditional model of a technique class or a less conventional one?
For those dancers freelancing with multiple choreographers, what train-
ing will support the diverse array of styles that they already must grasp?
What will help keep them in shape, both in the short term and in the long
run, and perhaps even enable them to enrich their physical capabilities?
∗
I use the broad label “training” to denote any practice used by dancers in pursuit of
improving their physical and artistic skills. Training can include (but is not limited to) classes
in dance techniques, somatic practices, and other approaches such as yoga and Pilates.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at
www.tandfonline.com/ldnc.
360
Gaga: Moving beyond Technique 361
What will challenge them and help them to grow artistically without con-
tradicting the principles of their preferred genre(s) or the work(s) they are
rehearsing?
As dancers have weighed these and other questions, over the last decade
a new option—Gaga—has been introduced at studios, workshops, and dance
departments around the world. Developed by Ohad Naharin, the artistic di-
rector of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, Gaga is a movement language
offered to the public in two tracks. Gaga/dancers classes, designed for pro-
fessional and student dancers, resemble Batsheva’s classes and have been
included in organized training programs. In contrast, Gaga/people classes
welcome participants regardless of their movement background, although
dancers occasionally use them as a component of their individualized phys-
ical practice.
While the Gaga language itself has become increasingly articulated in
recent years, and while it has grown in influence among dance students
and professionals, little scholarly literature exists on the topic. Besides some
important graduate research studies, including Yossi Naharin’s 2006 master’s
thesis on the therapeutic potential of Gaga and Einav Katan’s 2013 doc-
toral dissertation on Gaga and embodied hermeneutics,3 most writing about
Gaga has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Such articles have
introduced Gaga to the general public and dance community, but with lit-
tle serious analysis. Moreover, some journalistic accounts have perpetuated
myths and misunderstandings, ranging from the causal claim that Naharin
developed Gaga in response to a back injury4 to the unexamined, automatic
labeling of Gaga as a technique.5
“Technique” is, perhaps, one of the words most frequently applied to
Gaga, whether by journalists or those whom Naharin refers to as “Gaga
users.” Yet Naharin has often repudiated this labeling.6 This dissonance re-
flects a broader misapprehension of Gaga within the dance world—a phe-
nomenon I have encountered repeatedly since becoming an administrator
for Gaga in 2009 and a certified teacher in 2012. With little scholarly treatment
of the subject, many questions remain about what Gaga is, how it operates
(both in and of itself and within twenty-first-century training paradigms),
and concomitantly, what it offers to dancers. In this article, I argue that it
is precisely by eschewing traditional models of technique class that Gaga
addresses the diverse yet specific needs of advanced dancers working in the
contemporary dance landscape.
Drawing on existing literature about Gaga as dance training, articles in
the press about Batsheva, and texts authored by Ohad Naharin, my research
also springs from my physical engagement with Gaga. Since November 2007,
I have participated in multiple classes per week in Israel, and my experience
as a student encompasses open “Gaga/people” and “Gaga/dancers” classes,
Batsheva company classes, Gaga intensives, “Gaga in the Desert” workshops,
and the 2011–2012 Gaga teacher-training program. Especially since autumn
362 Dance Chronicle
2011, I have maintained notes that document and analyze classes taught
by Naharin and other instructors as well as my own teaching. Moreover,
I have conducted interviews with Naharin and other senior teachers and
participated in discussions with them during teacher training and intensives.
My research is further informed by my work as the communications and
site director for Gaga, in which capacity I have coordinated with dancers
attending Gaga’s programs as well as with teachers around the world; be-
sides managing a variety of Gaga Movement Ltd.’s logistics, I have been
responsible for maintaining both the Gaga website and an archive of Gaga
activity. This role has enabled me to understand the spread of Gaga in recent
years.
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE EMERGENCE OF GAGA
An overview of Naharin’s background and his gradual development of Gaga

at Batsheva provides a helpful context for understanding the nature and
dissemination of his movement language. Although he did not take formal
dance classes as a child, Ohad Naharin grew up in a home rich with creativity
and movement. His father, Eliav Naharin, was an actor before launching
a career in psychodrama. His mother, Sofia Naharin, had a wide-ranging
education in music and dance, including studies with Noa Eshkol and Moshe
Feldenkrais, two significant movement theorists whom the young Naharin
grew to appreciate. She went on to teach music, dance, composition, and
Feldenkrais.7 Both mother and son recall lively movement games and a sense
of play in the house, and the son credits his mother with nurturing his love
of music, understanding of rhythm, propensity for coordination, and ability
to channel emotion into movement.8 The young Naharin performed in the
Israeli army’s entertainment troupe in which he sang, danced, and, thanks to
his already evident connection to movement, choreographed.9 He also took
some dance classes in the north of Israel during this time, though without
aspirations of a professional dance career.10
As Naharin’s army service came to a close, his mother called Pinhas
Postel, Batsheva’s general manager, to arrange for her son to take class.11
This quickly led to a contract as an apprentice, and the timing was auspicious.
To celebrate the company’s tenth anniversary in 1974, Martha Graham, who
had served as artistic adviser when the Baroness Bethsabée de Rothschild
founded the troupe, arrived in Tel Aviv to choreograph Dream. Drawn to
Naharin, Graham charged him with creating a two-minute solo for his role
of Esau in her biblically inspired work and subsequently invited him to
New York.12 There, Naharin performed in Graham’s company and deepened
his training. Both at Graham’s school and at Juilliard, he gravitated toward
Kazuko Hirabayashi’s classes, and while at Juilliard he also studied Limón
technique. Encouraged by Graham, Naharin studied ballet on scholarship
with Stanley Williams and Richard Rapp at the School of American Ballet,
and, further exploring the field, he also attended classes taught by Maggie
Black and David Howard. This education in New York would continue
to influence Naharin in the decades to come; he acknowledged that the
elegance ever-present in ballet, the sense of weight that characterizes Limón,
and the emphasis on moving from the pelvis along with the texture, stretch,
and passion prevalent in Graham technique are “all things that I incorporate
or listen to” to this day.13
Having honed his dance skills, Naharin performed with Israel’s Bat-Dor
Dance Company and Maurice Béjart’s Brussels-based Ballet du XXe Siècle
before returning in 1980 to New York, where he first presented his own
choreography at Hirabayashi’s studio. In the early 1980s, he also danced
with Gina Buntz. Recalling her as “very quick, very light, and really highly
coordinated” with a knack for “sometimes disjointed but beautiful, intricate,”
multilayered tasks, Naharin noted that she was “the most influential chore-
ographer I ever worked with . . . I feel like she really set me free . . . from
the Graham, Béjart approach to movement, space, tasks.”14
Selected by Affiliate Artists, Inc., an organization that promoted artist
residencies throughout the U.S., Naharin performed his own compositions
and commissioned short pieces from David Gordon and Billy Siegenfeld.
From Gordon, he learned about spatial dimensions, repetition, and dynam-
ics, while his experience with Siegenfeld taught him about showmanship.15
As the decade progressed, Naharin poured his energy and newfound knowl-
edge into his choreography, creating not only for his Ohad Naharin Dance
Company, but also fielding commissions from troupes such as Pittsburgh Bal-
let Theatre, Batsheva, Kibbutz Dance Company, and the Nederlands Dans
Theater (NDT).
Naharin took the reins of Batsheva in February 1990. The repertory
company, originally steeped in Graham and ballet training, with program-
ming strongly influenced by Graham’s idiom, had been transformed since
Naharin’s apprenticeship. In the early 1980s, Batsheva’s daily training had
switched to ballet, and its performances showcased works by a younger
generation of American, European, and Israeli choreographers. Naharin led
the company through another metamorphosis in the 1990s, inviting such
high-profile guest artists as William Forsythe and Angelin Preljocaj, restaging
his own dances, and creating full-evening productions that garnered both
popular and critical acclaim. Batsheva became increasingly identified with
Naharin’s artistry, especially as its repertory focused on his work and that
∗
of his protégé Sharon Eyal from 2004 until late 2011. Gaga, which became
∗
Batsheva Dance Company Archive, http://www.batsheva.co.il/en/?iid=3183 (accessed
February 18, 2014). Sharon Eyal, who danced with Batsheva from 1990 to 2008, was the
company’s house choreographer from 2005 to 2012. At the end of the 2011–2012 season, she
left Batsheva and, with her partner Gai Behar, launched L-E-V.
364 Dance Chronicle
the troupe’s primary mode of training in the early 2000s, assumed a ma-
jor role in the excitement surrounding Batsheva and its director’s repertory.
Some critics have asserted that a full appreciation of Naharin’s dances re-
quires some understanding of Gaga.16 Others have touted the magnitude
of Gaga’s influence on the choreographer’s body of work, calling it “a po-
tent tool for Mr. Naharin,” “a secret weapon,” and a “bottomless treasure
chest.”17 Still other reviewers have connected Gaga to the Batsheva dancers’
preternaturally acute awareness, onstage intensity, and mastery of a myriad
of movement qualities.18
The evolution of Gaga has been gradual, beginning prior to Naharin’s
tenure at Batsheva. Indeed, he has explained its development as a continu-
ous process that started long before his first structured dance training, with
insights gleaned from his observations of movement and his own physical
experience.19 Naharin’s approach to movement was also influenced by what
he refers to as “stations” throughout his dance career, some of which include
his formal training as detailed above; a severe injury that nearly paralyzed
his left leg and his subsequent back surgery; a rehabilitation process that
included working with a physiotherapist and studying t’ai chi and Pilates;
and viewing of numerous performances.20 These and other wide-ranging
experiences formed a foundation particularly well suited to the creation of a
multifaceted mode of training.
Naharin’s growth as a choreographer propelled his development of a
language that could be transmitted to others. He started teaching while chore-
ographing in New York during the early 1980s, incorporating his ideas about
movement into classes for his pick-up troupe and for the companies that
commissioned his work. Of this progression into teaching, he explained, “It
was the need to prepare my body, the need to meditate with your body
with no connection to a process of choreography, but [to] get in touch
with the elements. And then also the need to prepare other people for
rehearsal.”21 Further linking the evolving content of his teaching to the chal-
lenge of helping dancers to embody his repertory, he remarked, “The need
to communicate to dancers as a choreographer, to help dancers to better
their interpretation of my work, the realization that my work is only as good
as the interpretation of my dancers, was very much a source. It fueled my
research.”22 Notably, although scholar Melanie Bales cites “the apparent dis-
junction between technique training and performing or choreography” as
characteristic of the post-Judson era, Naharin’s investment in the training of
the dancers with whom he worked would only deepen over time, smooth-
ing the transition from class to rehearsal and performance.23 To this end,
at Batsheva, Naharin added his own weekly class—simply referred to as
“class of Ohad”—to the dancers’ ballet regimen. The connection between
the choreographer’s teaching and the rest of the workday was palpable to
company members. Shi Pratt remembered, “It really felt like he was always
building up in class what he wanted to do in rehearsal,” and Stefan Ferry
noted that Naharin’s research inside class was strongly correlated with his
∗
creative process.
While the “class of Ohad” developed out of Naharin’s need to share a
common language with dancers who performed his repertory, the broader
application of his classes became apparent when he started working with
people who had no dance background. In the late 1990s, Naharin began to
teach nondancers after one of Batsheva’s seamstresses told him that she, too,
wanted to dance. For the next three years, Naharin worked twice weekly with
Batsheva staff members and friends. He refrained from employing dance ter-
minology in these classes, instead using layman’s terms to direct participants
through a series of physical explorations. This experience proved just as sig-
nificant for the teacher as for the students. Naharin highlighted it as “one of
the most meaningful stations,” explaining that it enabled him to connect his
teaching more thoroughly to the elements central to the discourse on Gaga
today: “floating, availability, traveling stuff, texture, explosive power, dynam-
ics, efficiency of movement. I really remember all of this became evident and
transparent through the needs I have to make nondancers move.”24
Several important developments occurred in the early 2000s. In 2001,
classes were opened to the general public in Tel Aviv, and over time, the
number of classes and teachers grew (see Figure 1).† During these early years
(and since), Naharin referred to his approach as his “movement language.”
This designation, unlike “technique” or “method,” conveyed the fluidity of
his physical research by referencing language’s capacity for development
and change.‡ Then in late 2003, Naharin began using the name “Gaga.”25 In
2009, he reflected,
I really was tired of calling it my “movement language.” I wanted to disas-

sociate it a little bit from me, from my name and from saying “my.” Just to
call it a name. . . . And then it didn’t take long somehow to come [up] with
Gaga. It came out from the connection—the very strong connection—of
∗
Shi Pratt, Skype interview with the author, January 28, 2014; Stefan Ferry, interview
with the author, January 30, 2014, Tel Aviv. Pratt danced with Batsheva Ensemble from 2000
through 2003, and Ferry danced with Batsheva Dance Company from 1999 through 2008. Pratt,
Ferry, and the other dancers cited in this article are Gaga teachers. Detailed biographies can
be found on the Gaga website at http://gagapeople.com/english/category/team/teachers/.
†
In the early years, Shira Brukner, who participated in Naharin’s classes while working
as the marketing director of the junior wing of the Batsheva Ensemble, taught the classes. She
was instrumental in opening Gaga to the broader public. In a telephone conversation with
the author on March 12, 2013, Brukner noted that dancers from the company and ensemble
joined the teaching roster as classes became more frequent, and she recalled a growing need
to give Naharin’s movement language a name as classes became more publicized.
‡
Ohad Naharin, interview with the author, June 16, 2015, Tel Aviv. Throughout this
article, I use the phrase “movement language” to refer to Gaga with this historical context in
mind; the term is not meant to imply that Gaga displays the full characteristics of a system of
language.
366 Dance Chronicle
FIGURE 1 Ohad Naharin teaching a “Gaga/people class” in Tel Aviv in 2008. Gaga/people
classes grew out of Naharin’s experiments with nondancers in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Photograph by Gadi Dagon. C Gaga Movement Ltd. Reproduced by permission of Gaga
Movement Ltd. Permission to reuse must be obtained from the rightsholder.
Gaga to the ability to laugh at [ourselves]. And the sound—that it’s a little
bit like a baby [talks]. And at the same time, it’s something that visually I
like. I like how it sounds, I like how it looks, and I like the lightness of
it.26
The remove that Naharin sought between his name and his approach antic-
ipated Gaga’s ability to touch those who would study with teachers other
than the choreographer himself.
Even as Gaga became available outside Batsheva, it also began to serve
as the primary training for the company’s members. Naharin had previously
considered increasing the number of classes he offered to Batsheva dancers,
but because his movement language was at the time less advanced than it
ultimately became, he recalled, “it was less obvious that it [could] replace
their training and actually be better for them.”27 Naharin preferred to wait
until the dancers themselves proposed a shift, and eventually some company
∗
members asked him to eliminate ballet and to offer Gaga daily. In response,
∗
Some company members recall that, in some periods prior to the shift, the “class of
Ohad” may have been taught more than once per week (Noa Zuk, interview with the author,
November 21, 2013, Tel Aviv; Doron Raz Avraham, interview with the author, January 4, 2014,
Naharin implemented a modified training schedule at the start of Batsheva’s

2002–2003 season, retaining one ballet class per week to observe how ideas
from Gaga could be applied to that technique. Over time these ballet classes
became less regular, but they are still held occasionally. Moreover, partic-
ularly crucial for the frequently touring junior Batsheva Ensemble, Naharin
began to call upon company members to teach when he was unavailable,
and thus the number of teachers gradually expanded.28
Outside Batsheva, Gaga continued to spread during the 2000s. By late
2011, the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv offered thirteen Gaga/people
classes each week, and other venues in Israel hosted weekly classes.
Meanwhile, Gaga/dancers classes entered the curriculum at the Jerusalem
Academy of Music and Dance, the Mateh Asher School of the Performing
Arts on Kibbutz Ga’aton, and other programs for aspiring dancers in Israel.
An annual two-week Gaga intensive began in summer 2008 in Tel Aviv,
drawing dancers from around the globe who wished to study Gaga and
learn Naharin’s repertory; a shorter winter program was added in 2010. In-
tensives and workshops have also been held in various locations throughout
North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. In addition to master classes
given by Naharin and Batsheva dancers during international tours, former
company members and the twenty-four graduates of the inaugural Gaga
teacher-training program (2011–2012) have increased the global presence of
Gaga (see Figure 2). Indeed, during the year 2013, Gaga was taught in at
∗
least 125 cities in thirty different countries, albeit with varying frequency.
Although some dancers who have studied Gaga have learned Naharin’s
repertory in workshops, many have not; regardless, most practitioners are not
gearing up to perform his choreography. They are not driven by the need to
share a common language with Naharin. Instead, their more general interest
in Gaga suggests that its practice addresses dancers’ broader needs. In order
to examine how Gaga develops dancers (including those who do not perform
with Batsheva) and supports their skill set, one must first understand the
nature of Naharin’s movement language itself and its pedagogical practice.
ARTICULATING A MOVEMENT LANGUAGE THROUGH

PHYSICAL RESEARCH
As they have developed, most Gaga classes involve movement exploration

with and without locomotion, in standing postures and in floor work, but
Tel Aviv; Shi Pratt, Skype interview with the author, January 28, 2014; Stefan Ferry, interview
with
∗
the author, February 11, 2014, Tel Aviv).
Listings on the website for Gaga (http://gagapeople.com/english) reflect the spread of
classes around the world and the growing number of Gaga teachers, which at the time of this
writing surpasses seventy. The author gathered data on Gaga class offerings during the 2013
calendar year through ongoing correspondence with teachers and administrators.
368 Dance Chronicle
FIGURE 2 The graduates of the 2011–2012 teacher-training program. Photograph by Ascaf.

C Ascaf. Reproduced by permission of Ascaf. Permission to reuse must be obtained from the
rightsholder.
neither does a formula dictate the precise order, duration, or scope of these
phases of the class, nor must a laundry list of concepts be covered in each ses-
sion. Gaga/people classes last one hour and Gaga/dancers classes, seventy-
five minutes, with both the teacher and the participants moving throughout
∗
the entire lesson. There are no pauses between exercises or segments of the
class. Encouraged to listen to their bodies throughout, students may work at
a lower intensity if need be, but may not stop and watch; indeed, no one
is allowed to observe Gaga class, and notably, mirrors are not allowed in
the studio. The teacher challenges participants with multilayered tasks that
heighten awareness to specific usage of body parts, speed, level of intensity,
direction, texture, and action. Participants are also encouraged to absorb
visual information from the teacher.
∗
During the Gaga intensive summer course in Tel Aviv on July 31, 2009, Naharin noted
that far more overlap than contrast exists in the Gaga/people and Gaga/dancers classes.
Everything done in Gaga/people classes may also be done in Gaga/dancers classes, but
not the converse. While Gaga/dancers classes often incorporate the use of ballet vocab-
ulary, Gaga/people classes largely bypass this content, although certain actions—pliés, for
instance—may be elicited without referring to the technical term. Moreover, jumping and
occasional physical contact between participants occurs in Gaga/dancers classes, but not
Gaga/people classes. Throughout this article, if Gaga/people or Gaga/dancers is not speci-
fied, then the discussion is relevant to both types of class.
Dancers who joined Batsheva Ensemble in the late 1990s and early
2000s attest that even while Gaga was still in its infancy, the main tenets of
Naharin’s movement language were already guiding classes. “Class of Ohad
was the essence of Gaga . . . the raw material of Gaga,” recounted dancer
∗
Yaniv Avraham. Longtime company member Noa Zuk remembered, “it was
always about that you need to connect to what you’re doing and not do
it automatically—sensing things,” and Yaara Moses concurred, “We were a
lot about sensations.”† Recalling that “the idea of not being with dead flesh”
was ever-present by his arrival in 2001, Guy Shomroni mused, “I think this
idea was very important for [Naharin] that people will practice being alert
and they would practice some sort of maintained continuity of movement
everywhere in the body.”‡ Building on her colleagues’ recollection of the
importance of awareness and sensation, Bosmat Nossan added, “The joy of
movement, the joy of connecting to your sensual self or sensual body,” was
a key element in her first Gaga classes in 2004.§
Asked what has guided him throughout Gaga’s development, Naharin
asserted, “It’s always the [curiosity] for discovery . . . —the feeling that teach-
ing is a laboratory for discovery, and you discover something and then
you have a chance to experiment [with] it right away.”29 Accordingly, many
dancers interviewed used variations on the words “exploration,” “experi-
mentation,” “discovery,” and “research” to describe their classes at Batsheva,
pairing these terms with the most salient subjects of inquiry.30 Shomroni
maintained that the “exploration of richness of movement” was fundamental
to Naharin’s classes, and Avraham averred, “Textures were always there; the
research of speed was always there.”31 Avraham also reminisced, “It was
years of experimental classes,” citing a full class conducted with walking
throughout, another class done entirely on the floor, and forty-five minutes
of a third class focusing on the “thick” and “soft” textures of the “flesh.”32
Stefan Ferry recalled Naharin’s explorations at the ballet barre including ex-
periments with pliés, tendus, figure-eights of the leg, and working with one
leg on the barre; other company members also recollected exercises at the
barre, although that had disappeared by the time Nossan arrived in 2004.33
∗
Yaniv Avraham, interview with the author, November 25, 2013, Tel Aviv. Avraham began
working with Batsheva Ensemble in April 2001 and performed with Batsheva Dance Company
from 2004 through 2010.
†
Noa Zuk, interview with the author, November 21, 2013, Tel Aviv; Yaara Moses, interview
with the author, December 27, 2013, Tel Aviv. Zuk joined Batsheva Ensemble in 1997 and
danced with the main company from 2000 through 2009. Moses joined Batsheva Ensemble in
2002 and danced with the main company from 2005 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2012.
‡
Guy Shomroni, interview with the author, November 20, 2013, Tel Aviv. Shomroni joined
Batsheva Ensemble in 2001 and performed with Batsheva Dance Company from 2004 through
2012.
§
Bosmat Nossan, interview with the author, November 27, 2013, Tel Aviv. Nossan danced
with Batsheva Ensemble from 2004 to 2007 and performed with the main company from 2008
to 2011.
370 Dance Chronicle
Several dancers remembered briefer experiments in the mid-to-late

2000s, such as the use of the “Gaga bar” (a walking stick that could be
leaned on) and the “Gaga weights,” beanbag-like soft weights held during
portions of the class.34 Doron Raz Avraham also brought up a period in
the early 2000s during which Naharin and the dancers received short treat-
ments in the Ilan Lev method, an outgrowth of Feldenkrais, prior to company
classes. She remembered the ensuing classes as extraordinary and noted a
connection between Lev’s work and Gaga, explaining that both are “full of
∗
information, full of traveling movement.”
The centrality of physical research to Gaga is reflected in Naharin’s
nearly perpetual exploration both in and outside the studio. As he has noted,
“The research doesn’t really leave me.”35 And Naharin’s ongoing inquiry
has yielded many discoveries that in turn shape the movement language.
By the early 2000s, he had already articulated a significant physical and
corresponding verbal vocabulary that may be considered the basis of Gaga.
From this era, the dancers interviewed remember “floating,” “curves and
circles,” “pulling the bones out of soft flesh,” “thick” and “soft” textures,
“letting go,” “quaking” and “shaking,” “other forces,” “traveling movement”
and “traveling balls” in the body, and finding “a good taste in your mouth.”36
In her 2000 book on dance composition, Sofia Naharin—who had par-
ticipated in some of her son’s classes and whose own writing reveals such
shared principles as listening to the body, awakening the senses, and ex-
ploring options—offered a page-long “experience of improvisation inspired
by Ohad Naharin,” including “floating,” “circles,” and “shaking,” along with
instructions to draw attention to different body parts, to find pleasure in
movement, and to connect to “plenty of time.”37 Writing about an October
2001 workshop with Naharin that was open to the public, dance scholar
Einav Rosenblit described several of the above directives as well as drum-
ming on the body and connecting to a “silly dance.” Covering the same
class, journalist Merav Yudilevitch included the image of “spaghetti in boil-
ing water.”38
Ferry recounted that when the company shifted from ballet to Gaga,
Naharin decided that they would create “a laboratory about the language,”
including occasional discussions after class. The aim, as Ferry recalled, was
not simply to establish an alternative daily training but to actually “develop a
proper language” and “a lexicon of Gaga.” Ferry remembered that every few
weeks, Naharin would arrive with new concepts and corresponding words
∗
Doron Raz Avraham, interview with the author, January 4, 2014, Tel Aviv. Raz Avraham
danced with Batsheva Ensemble between 2000 and 2005, and she also served as rehearsal
manager of the Ensemble in 2005. More information about Ilan Lev’s principles can be
found in the “Method” section of the Ilan Lev website, http://ilanlev.org/home/paragraph/19?
from_parent_page=true&id_lang=2 (accessed January 19, 2014).
∗
that he coined such as “lena,” “biba,” “pika,” “dolfi,” “ashi,” and “tashi.”
Several words were inspired by people around Naharin: “gina” (lightness as
a virtue) paid tribute to Gina Buntz; Dolfi was Naharin’s always available
gardener in Klil in northern Israel; Lena was the daughter of then rehearsal
director Aya Israeli, and Biba was Israeli’s mother. Some terminology, such as
“ashi,” “tashi,” and the more recently introduced “tama,” “kanta,” and “yoyo,”
evolved from an initial association with words in Japanese.†
Reflecting on the initial period of developing the lexicon, Naharin ex-
plained, “We needed the words for shortcuts, and for reference. Instead of
describing something, it [the word] becomes it.”39 Ferry also viewed the lex-
icon as creating “some shortcuts with the dancers,” highlighting the efficient
communication established when Naharin “doesn’t need to explain a mode
or vision that he has, but he gives target words.”40 Significantly, Ferry used the
term “mode,” which illuminates a difference between Naharin’s movement
language and Batsheva’s previous training. Whereas ballet’s lexicon denotes
particular steps (tendu, pirouette, jeté, etc.), Gaga’s lexicon more broadly
outlines a state, place in the body, or quality available for research, leaving
the physical form relatively open, unless the research is channeled into a
more structured exercise (which may itself be built upon ballet vocabulary).
Although Naharin distributed a list of terminology to Batsheva dancers in
the mid-2000s, so that these words could serve as communicative shortcuts,41
they pose a challenge to people whose engagement with Gaga is occasional
and who are consequently less familiar with the invented lexicon. Perhaps in
response to the issue of accessibility, some of Naharin’s invented terminology
has faded from use in recent years, with more common language being
ascendant; the words “available” and “ready to snap,” for instance, are often
used alongside or sometimes substituted for the term “dolfi.” In still other
cases, Naharin bypassed invented words and strung English words together
to describe a concept or to denote an action, for example, the “snake of
the spine” or “move your hands from your heart.”‡ Like other languages in
constant use, Gaga is alive and adaptable, and its verbal lexicon continues
∗
Ferry, interviews, January 30, 2014 and February 11, 2014. The “lena” is the engine
located between the navel and the groin. “Biba” is the action of pulling away from the sits
bones. The “pika” is the area between the groin and the rectum. “Dolfi” refers to availability,
a state in which the entire body is ready to move in any direction and in any mode. Whereas
“tashi” involves gluing the foot to the floor and researching the movement of the ankle, “ashi”
examines the outer edges of the feet and often involves usage of the ankle, knees, and pelvis
to facilitate this research. See the appendix for more terminology.
†
Ohad Naharin, interview, June 8, 2014. “Tama,” a system exploring the directional op-
tions of curves, came into usage in 2008. “Kanta,” coined in December 2011, refers to mea-
suring the weight of body parts. “Yoyo” emerged in autumn 2013 and involves engaging the
“pika” together with the lower abdomen.
‡
Because Batsheva’s dancers hail from around the world, company classes, in which
Gaga’s lexicon has developed, are conducted in English.
372 Dance Chronicle
to absorb new terms—both fanciful and descriptive—and to shed old ones,

∗
as the research continues.
As evinced by the vocabulary described thus far, Gaga’s lexicon incor-
porates imagery. The use of imagery in motivating movement is not unique
to Gaga. Accounts of Martha Graham’s teaching and butoh classes are replete
with it; Anna Halprin has worked extensively with imagery, particularly in
her work with cancer patients; and numerous choreographers and dance
teachers also draw on images.42 Like that used by Graham and others, Na-
harin’s imagery frequently accentuates movement quality.43 Yet in Gaga class
the images not only clarify the quality of a movement, but also are essential
to the action, providing the very frame of the movement in lieu of modifying
a preset form.
In other schools of movement, instructors may conjure their own images
to evoke the essence of an action in technique or improvisation classes, in
some cases even welcoming students to develop their own images. More-
over, images in Halprin’s work are highly personal, springing from each
participant’s experience.44 In contrast, Gaga teachers use the imagery inher-
ent in Naharin’s lexicon. Grounded in approachable reference points, Gaga’s
images are simultaneously broad enough to have a wide appeal and specific
enough to steer participants toward common research. Yaara Moses illumi-
nated this point by citing the frequently used image of having a good taste
in your mouth. “Someone can eat chocolate and someone can eat steak,”
she noted, “And both create an experience of sensation.”45 Although some
Gaga images are especially conducive to personal choice, most provide for
individual exploration of more circumscribed terms (e.g., “body builder with
a soft spine,” “collapse into water”).
Dancers also frequently use imagery in somatic practices. However,
while some of Gaga’s metaphorical images pertain to a specific part of the
body, they do not explicitly harness anatomical knowledge for the pur-
pose of altering alignment and muscular patterning as do the images in
Lulu Sweigard’s Ideokinesis, the Franklin Method, or other related somatic
methods.46 Sweigard’s Ideokinesis, for example, builds upon imagined “lines
of movement” that rehabilitate the body’s ability to stabilize postures under-
lying active movement. Dancers imagine these postural cues in still positions
(e.g., the “constructive rest position”) and imagine planes of joint action be-
fore actually initiating the motion, in order to allow the neural reorganization
of movement to take effect. Gaga, on the other hand, primarily deploys im-
ages during movement, without practicing stillness (or meditation) to evoke
clear or vivid images (as occurs in the practice of both Ideokinesis and
∗
Nancy Stark Smith expressed a similar sentiment about the evolution and flexibility of
contact improvisation’s movement language in a 1986 essay originally published in Contact
Quarterly, and excerpted in Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader, ed. Ann
Cooper Albright and David Gere (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003), 166–67.
butoh).47 Whereas Ideokinesis and other approaches explicitly engage “the

mind’s eye,” Gaga’s use of visualization is more implicit.48 Instead, images
are usually framed with verbs that spur a kinesthetic engagement (“sense the
snake of your spine,” “connect to the envelope of your skin”) and, some-
times, a clear action (“fold the rope of your arms,” “go under the table”).
Additional research is needed to thoroughly understand the mechanisms of
Gaga’s imagery and its somatic outcomes.
Ultimately, Naharin’s specific movement language with its attendant lexi-
con and imagery forms the bedrock for all Gaga classes. What Yaniv Avraham
called the “exact bank account of words” chosen by Naharin enables instruc-
tors to communicate clearly with their students.49 Having emerged directly
from the physical research conducted by Naharin, these words express the
language’s movement principles and guide the ongoing exploration in class.
“If you want to do a good Gaga class, you need to hear or say the information
that can connect you to the source of it,” asserted Avraham.50 He recalled
teaching his earliest classes in 2002 by “giving what Ohad is giving word by
word,” while Ferry remembered that before others in the company began
to teach, dancer and rehearsal director Yoshifumi Inao replicated Naharin’s
classes with remarkable precision down to the smallest detail.51
Avraham and others used the term “loyal” in describing their use of
the Gaga language in their own teaching, but this loyalty is itself complexly
multilayered.52 Indeed, by adhering to Naharin’s language, the teachers en-
gage in the seemingly contradictory task of committing to a specific, shared
vocabulary whose underpinnings expressly require further research stem-
∗
ming from each person’s individual physical experience. Raz Avraham de-
scribed navigating this issue: “it’s like I have a center, and around it, I can
play with it.”53 Discussing her attempts to imitate Naharin, Nossan clarified
that rather than simply copying the end product or the words, she seeks to
“do ‘copy paste’ with the process he goes through in the body,” which yields
a deep, open-ended physical exploration.54
Naharin has encouraged teachers to continue their research of Gaga as
they lead class,55 and the unique way in which a Gaga teacher operates is
closely connected to this ongoing inquiry. Whereas in many dance classes,
the teacher demonstrates prepared material before observing the students’
rendition of these exercises and offering feedback, the Gaga teacher moves
during the entire class and is thus simultaneously engaged in multiple ped-
agogical tasks. While remaining acutely attuned to the students, the teacher
must be highly tuned in to his/her own body, which serves as the wellspring
∗
Similarly, Einav Katan notes that because an instruction, such as “float,” is subject to
the experience of the individual user, individual inquiry and interpretation necessarily take
place inside the shared research of Gaga. See Einav Katan, “Body of Knowledge: Embodied
Philosophy in Gaga, Ohad Naharin’s Movement Research” (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University,
2013), 86–87.
374 Dance Chronicle
of the process of discovery in the material. Throughout the class, the teacher
invites participants, with verbal instructions, to join in actively exploring
movement and sensation; he or she often frames physical information with
directives to find or check these actions, occasionally welcomes users to dis-
cover what an instruction means to them, and sometimes offers a moment
for students to interconnect the ideas proposed during the session. Asked if
he feels free to try something new while teaching, Guy Shomroni’s response
underscored his desire to lead students in their own research:
In my eyes, you’re supposed to teach a class where the identification

you have with your body, with yourself, with your students, is with
a lot of emphasis, and it has to be authentic, authentic investigation,
exploration—a true experience of you asking questions, physically or
theoretically, and trying out stuff. So if these questions float in your
consciousness and you give them the proper time or the proper attention
or investigation to check if they’re relevant for you, then I think you’ve
made a good practice with the facility of Gaga class. You’ve taken the
liberty to go forth and explore for yourself, and you can [transfer] this
notion to your students; if they’re used to Gaga classes but not to this
idea, this can spark something new and also inspire them to refresh, to
look for themselves, to be independent in the research.56
While Naharin’s language guides the research conducted by teachers, it

simultaneously allows room for each instructor’s individuality. Several teach-
ers highlighted this point, noting that instructors have different energies,
personalities, flavors, and approaches.57 Commenting on the concurrent in-
terconnectedness and individuality of Gaga teachers, Shi Pratt explained, “It’s
like many minds working together on the same tasks, and whoever you’re
going to take a class with, you’re getting their point of view on it, their twist
on it.”58 Both the nature of Naharin’s lexicon and the overall structure of his
movement language support this variation. Ferry remarked that “even with
one word . . . the options [Naharin] gives to the teachers are so big.” Offering
the example of the “lena” (the engine between the navel and the groin), he
elaborated, “everyone will . . . explain it in a different way and will work
with it in a different way.”59 Consequently, dance scholar Einav Rosenblit
observes that participants must constantly reevaluate and explore anew the
content of words used in Gaga instructions.60
With regards to structure, there are certain verbal conventions for offer-
ing instructions and feedback, such as the use of language to foster an atmo-
sphere of inclusion (“let’s”) and the avoidance of language that proscribes
certain behaviors (“don’t”). Some patterns of speech used by many teachers,
including the author—for example, “Find yourself on one leg,” “Behave with
your head,” or “And we’re walking”—succinctly convey the broader spirit of
exploration and “availability” (readiness for diverse movement options) em-
bedded within Gaga’s physical instructions. Moreover, rather than mandating
specific progressions in the order or development of exercises, the syntax

of Gaga’s movement language is flexible, allowing for novel constructions,
information, and layering of modes. Two teachers may well combine the
same modes, such as “quaking” and “pulling the bones out of soft flesh,” but
in a different sequence and to a different purpose.
The delicate balance between self-directed and in-the-moment research
on the one hand and fidelity to a shared language on the other requires indi-
vidual teachers to constantly engage with Naharin and the larger community
of Gaga instructors. Teachers in Israel are expected to attend several of Na-
harin’s company classes monthly, his once-a-month Gaga/people classes,
and classes taught by their peers. Teachers working abroad periodically re-
turn to continue their immersion and to update their knowledge of the evolv-
ing language. Reflecting the principle of individual discovery, teachers rarely
discuss the contents of their teaching with Naharin.61 Yet senior teachers are
regularly assigned to give feedback to colleagues, thus providing a measure
of quality control and encouraging dialogue. It remains a question as to what
will happen when Naharin is no longer actively charting the main avenues
of physical research, delineating the evolution of the movement language,
and providing the unifying framework within which teachers continue their
exploration.
BEYOND THE LABEL OF TECHNIQUE
A comparison of Gaga with the systematic, underlying projects of any number

of ballet and modern dance techniques reveals both convergences with and
divergences from traditional conceptions of technique. Applying the matrix
Susan Leigh Foster presents in the essay “Dancing Bodies,” one can see that
Gaga, like many training techniques, has its own “body topography,” and that
it, too, “cultivates body strength, flexibility, and alignment, the shapes made
by the body, the rhythm of its movement, and the quality and amount of
tension throughout it,” albeit with less emphasis on a repertory of particular
shapes.62
However, in her discussion of the repetitive nature of exercises and
directives given in a technique class, Foster argues, “Drilling is necessary be-
cause the aim is nothing less than creating the body” (emphasis in original).63
When certain directives or exercises are repeated in Gaga class (see Figure 3),
the approach is not one of “drilling” specific movements until the body con-
forms to a perfect mold with an idealized way of functioning. Rather, it is one
of gently rekindling sensation, illuminating habits, and reminding students of
alternative options. The repetition becomes a framework for digging deeper
into the research and exploring movement ideas from new angles. Foster’s
subsequent point—that initially elusive images ultimately impact the body to
the extent that they “become the body”—does reflect the strong connection
between metaphors and the body in Gaga. Over time, Gaga users can “turn
376
FIGURE 3 Ohad Naharin teaching in the Gaga summer intensive course in Tel Aviv in 2009. Structured exercises serve as loci of research in Gaga.
C Gaga Movement Ltd. Reproduced by permission of Gaga Movement Ltd. Permission to reuse must be obtained
Photograph by Gadi Dagon.
from the rightsholder.
on their lena,” “ignite many engines” throughout their body, “cancel the box
in their chest,” connect to the “snake of their spine” and “rope of their arms,”
and so forth.
But can Gaga create the body of a dancer? And is creating the body
of a dancer even a goal of Gaga? The basic organizational division be-
tween Gaga/people and Gaga/dancers classes—two separate tracks for dif-
ferent populations, rather than successive levels through which one can
progress—suggests that Gaga does not aim to transform a layman’s body
into a dancer’s body. Speaking about Gaga/people classes with Pia Fors-
gren of the Jewish Theatre Stockholm, Naharin noted, “We have done it for
ten years with people on all different levels that have no ambition to be
onstage. . . . It’s not a dance training—even though we dance, because we
move. But it’s not a dance training; it’s not a technique training. We’re not
[preparing] you for a show; we don’t teach you steps so you can perform.”64
Instead of centering on fundamental dance skills, Gaga/people classes cul-
tivate participants’ physical awareness and fitness while enlarging the scope
of their movement options.
And what of the ability of Gaga/dancers classes to create the body? Na-
harin has frequently called Gaga “higher education,” often using this phrase
to explain why classes are geared toward adults who possess the maturity
and desire for such research. Yet it also reflects the fact that Gaga/dancers
classes are intended for dancers already trained in Western concert dance
∗
techniques. Asked by Aimee Ts’ao of the Dance Insider, “Is it possible for
someone to start [Gaga] as a child and be completely trained as a dancer? Or
do you need to supplement with other forms?,” Naharin replied:
Right now I think of Gaga as the higher education of dance. You do

elementary school, high school and go to college. So Gaga is this part of
your education. We do have schools which approach us to teach kids.
I’m more interested [in working] with adults. This year we allowed Gaga
to be in the curriculum of the performing arts school in Jerusalem. But
that is for 17-year-olds and over, not for kids. All the people already
have [dance] training. The important idea is to make people excel in the
method they already know. It’s not to abolish or cancel or change their
techniques.65
Positioned as higher education for those already trained as dancers,

Gaga/dancers classes are not usually implemented in order to create the
∗
Ohad Naharin, toolbox classes in the Gaga teacher-training program, July 6 and August
26, 2012, Tel Aviv; Ohad Naharin, closing discussion in the Gaga intensive, August 3, 2012,
Tel Aviv. A few cases exist in which someone has entered the professional dance world via
Gaga. Idan Porges, whose initial training was in physical theater, had his first dance exposure
through Gaga and shortly thereafter auditioned successfully for the Batsheva Ensemble, in
which he danced from 2005 through 2007 before working with other choreographers (Idan
Porges, conversation with students at Gaga in the Desert, October 25, 2013, Moa Oasis, Israel).
378 Dance Chronicle
dancer’s body ex nihilo. Yet working in tandem with the other techniques
dancers have studied or are in the process of studying, the practice of Gaga
further builds and equips their bodies, enhancing their ongoing artistic prac-
tice.
Gaga’s departure from the norms of training in dance technique—for
example, Gaga’s conception of the teacher as researcher and Gaga’s fluid,
nontraditional class structure—reflects a broader shift in dance training. In
recent decades, a disparity has arisen between the actual practices fulfilling
the purpose of technical training and the conventional conception of the
term. As Wendell Beavers has argued, the usage and understanding of the
word “technique” is a remnant from earlier eras and may no longer be
relevant to or encompassing of contemporary dance practices.66 Beavers
adds,
Technique used to mean we had to refer to certain vocabularies of move-

ment based on certain principles. To be recognized as technique we
had to conform to a certain teaching form like: some floor work, some
standup work, some across the floor combinations, and out the door.
I realized a while ago that many people were teaching technique in a
whole new way, choosing not to call it technique to get out from under
certain limitations.67
The limitations associated with the term “technique,” and the potentially
rigid codification often implied by it, may factor into Naharin’s preference
for other terms. Naharin explained in an interview, “I don’t like to call it a
technique. Because also it’s still evolving, it’s still so open; it’s still so open to
change its mind.”68 Moving beyond the confines of traditional technique and
embracing an ethos of openness and evolution, Gaga proposes an alternative
approach to addressing the broader needs of dancers who already possess
a strong background in existing techniques.
GAGA AS BRICOLAGE AND DECONSTRUCTION
In The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training, coeditors Melanie

Bales and Rebecca Nettl-Fiol highlight two overarching trends in what they
term post-Judson dance training: bricolage and deconstruction. While “brico-
lage” refers to an eclectic, multilayered training approach, deconstruction in-
volves a return to fundamentals that can aid in repatterning and eliminating
habits.69 Assuming that these trends emerged in response to the changing
dance world from the 1960s through the early twenty-first century, an exami-
nation of Gaga’s relationship to them will illuminate the place of this training
for dancers in the field today.
While a small number of dancers pursue it as their sole training,
Gaga most often serves as one of many components within a formalized
framework and/or one of many approaches for dancers shaping their own,
individualized training programs. For example, although Guy Shomroni, Noa
Zuk, Stefan Ferry, and Doron Raz Avraham did not take other classes while
dancing with Batsheva, some of their colleagues supplemented the in-house
Gaga and occasional ballet classes with different methods; Yaniv Avraham,
Yaara Moses, Bosmat Nossan, and Shi Pratt recalled periods in which they
took outside classes such as improvisation, Pilates, or yoga.70 And, after
leaving Batsheva, Moses, Nossan, Raz Avraham, Pratt, and Ferry have com-
plemented their ongoing practice of Gaga with other practices such as yoga,
Pilates, gyrokinesis, gyrotonics, and, in Pratt and Ferry’s case, ballet. (Some
have also dabbled in “release” and other techniques during warm-ups with
diverse choreographers.)71 Significantly, Naharin has frequently stated that
he does not view Gaga as negating existing techniques.72 This open-minded
attitude makes Gaga compatible with a “bricolage” approach to training, for
it does not demand the renunciation of material from other methods.
Focusing on the American context, Bales connects eclectic training to
the versatility needed to work with multiple choreographers in today’s free-
lance dance economy.73 This ability to shift into different physical modes, so
crucial to dancers worldwide, is consonant with Gaga’s professed openness
to a multitude of movement options. As Naharin notes in an oft-quoted text
on Gaga, “We connect to the sense of the endlessness of possibilities. . . . We
become available.”74 Yaniv Avraham, whose post-Batsheva career as a free-
lance dancer, choreographer, and codirector of the Mateh Asher School of
Performing Arts on Kibbutz Ga’aton corroborates Naharin’s claim, attested,
“Gaga makes you very adjustable and adaptable.”75 And Naharin has directly
addressed the connection between training in Gaga and working with a va-
riety of choreographers, explaining, “Gaga is about enlarging your ability
to accommodate different styles, different choreographers. . . . There is no
Gaga way of actually dancing. It’s not a style. The idea of Gaga is to just
give you a bigger toolbox so whatever you’re going to do, you can use it.”76
Here Naharin raises two interrelated points that bear further examina-
tion. First, he proposes that Gaga is not a style. Nonetheless, dance crit-
ics have used the term “Gaga style” or coined some variation of the term
“Gagaist” to describe dancers, movement, and choreographic works.77 Writ-
ers have also referred to Batsheva dancers “moving in the rhythm of Gaga”
or to watching Naharin’s “Gaga dance on the stage.” One critic followed
her comment that a performer “moved with a freedom that awakened envy”
with the statement, “This is called Gaga, Ohad Naharin’s dance language.”78
While these reviews problematically conflate Gaga training with Na-
harin’s choreography, they allude to some stylistic markers of Gaga that
surface in performances by Batsheva dancers (and perhaps by other dancers
steeped in Gaga). Asked whether there is a perceivable commonality among
the Batsheva dancers even after they have left the company, several vet-
erans concurred that shared physical knowledge colored their approach to
movement.79 Yaniv Avraham explained, “You can recognize that we are from
380 Dance Chronicle
the same family,” and, while noting that a similar phenomenon occurs with
dancers from other companies, Doron Raz Avraham pointed out that certain
qualities of movement link Batsheva alumni.80
With regard to style in the Gaga movement language, dancers can imitate
the external appearance of movement produced in class (for instance, in an
illustration from Guy Shomroni, by “walking around with their arms a little
bit lifted and their spine a little bit seaweedy”).81 Yet copying the look
of the movement without investing in the actual research does not yield
Gaga, nor does it represent the essence of Gaga. Noting that with movement
“there’s always a style,” Shomroni explained, “the difference is when the
methodology comes to serve a style or a style occurs as byproduct of the
methodology, of the ideas and the principles.”82 Gaga is an exemplar of the
latter case. Stylistic markers have emerged through the research, but Gaga is
not about style.
Scholar Einav Katan acknowledges a Gaga style characterized by a par-
ticular sense of flow and texture, but, as she writes, “the inquiry of Gaga
presents a world of values that goes beyond acquiring a certain artistic
taste. Instead of being fixated on ideal ideas, the dancers gain flexibility
of mind to perceive different variations of physical behavior.”83 Indeed,
Naharin’s assertion that his movement language is not a style expresses
Gaga’s aim to eschew a narrowly delineated range of options along several
dimensions—including not only shape, but also speed, size, texture, and
intensity—that might be recognized as a style or school. Accordingly, Gaga
classes urge dancers to explore a multitude of options along the spectrums
of these dimensions.
Diminishing the focus on style in turn allows the more global task of
increasing participants’ awareness of their bodies and their movement to be
emphasized. The work instructions given to new students proclaim that Gaga
offers a “way of gaining knowledge and self-awareness through your body.”
The text continues, “Gaga raises awareness of physical weaknesses, awakens
numb areas, exposes physical fixations, and offers ways for their elimina-
tion. The work improves instinctive movement and connects conscious and
unconscious movement.”84
These objectives reflect Naharin’s second point: that Gaga offers a tool-
box. Much as many Alexander Technique teachers view that technique as
a tool rather than a style, Naharin and his teachers conceive of Gaga as
providing a portable set of tools that can be applied in any class, rehearsal,
or performance, as well as in daily life.85 On this subject, Bosmat Nossan re-
marked, “Gaga tries to give me the tools to be capable of whatever I want to
do for every horizon, more like technology and not really like technique.”86
Gaga’s tools are geared toward increasing physical sensation, efficiency, co-
ordination, and modulation of movement. This broadly applicable toolbox,
combined with a reduced emphasis on style, helps Gaga to fit into an eclectic
training approach for dancers who practice any genre and seek to improve
their versatility.
Gaga’s tools also facilitate a process of deconstruction, the second trend

in post-Judson training identified by Bales and Nettl-Fiol. The two editors
and their contributors cite somatic practices including Alexander Technique,
Bartenieff Fundamentals, Feldenkrais, and Body-Mind Centering as examples
of deconstructive methods commonly used in dance training. Commenting
on the overarching trend, Bales explains, “The idea is often to pare down, not
build up (muscle, habits); to get out of the way (of nature’s better decision),
to allow rather than to make something happen; to ‘listen’ to the movement
impulse before acting.”87 These concepts, so central to the somatic practices
embraced by dancers in recent decades, are part and parcel of Gaga classes.
Such directives as looking for new beginnings or reversing an action
prompt Gaga users to trade familiar habits for novel options. Instructions
like “floating,” “letting go,” “yielding,” and connecting to “other forces” can
help foster a sense of ease and greater efficiency. Turning up the volume
on sensations, noticing the “echo” of movements in the body, and feeling
the “traveling stuff” running inside the body promote Bales’s concept of
inner listening. The occasional use of sight or of touch, such as placing the
hands on the shins to tune in to the action happening in this part of the
body, also heightens this sensory perception. Moreover, during the teacher-
training course, Gaga instructor Ohad Fishof highlighted the following key
challenges in Gaga: integrating what we decide to do and what is happening
to us, combining conscious and unconscious choices, and mixing between
∗
being in and out of control. Whether riding on “traveling stuff,” “waves,” or
a “grid” in the room, or connecting to “horizontal forces,” “quaking,” or an
“uncontrollable laugh,” Gaga is awash with prompts that encourage students
to let things happen rather than to make them happen.
The deconstructive component of Gaga reflects Naharin’s response to
his physical injuries. “I really needed to dance both to heal and as a source
for body pleasure, to compensate for the pain that my body gave me,” he ex-
plained, “and to be able to overcome the injury by becoming more efficient,
more coordinated, more clever, so I can bypass the injury and still do more
with less.”88 Analyzing Gaga from a therapeutic standpoint, Yossi Naharin
asserts its ability to improve listening and to free users from physical and
mental fixations.89 And Ohad Naharin elaborates on deconstructive benefits
in his central text on Gaga:
We are aware of where we hold unnecessary tension, we let go only

to bring life and efficient movement to where we let go. . . . We are
turning on the volume of listening to our body. . . . We learn to appreciate
understatement and exaggeration, we become more delicate and we
recognize the importance of the flow of energy and information through
∗
Ohad Fishof, toolbox class in the Gaga teacher-training program, August 8, 2012, Tel
Aviv. Fishof noted that Naharin himself has frequently articulated these principles both inside
and outside of class.
382 Dance Chronicle
our body in all directions. We learn to apply our force in an efficient way
and we learn to use “other” forces. . . . We change our movement habits
by finding new ones, we can be calm and alert at once.90
These excerpts resonate with descriptions of various somatic practices, but,

although Gaga and somatics share some aims and generate some similar
effects, several fundamental differences exist between them. First, many so-
matic practices have emerged from and incorporate scientific knowledge
about anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology.91 While Naharin has some
knowledge of anatomy, other Gaga teachers may come with an educa-
tion in these fields, and the teacher-training program includes classes in
basic anatomy, Gaga itself is not predicated on a thorough scientific un-
derstanding of the body. (Perhaps as a result, Gaga rarely addresses cer-
tain subjects frequently targeted by somatic approaches, such as alignment.)
Second, whereas somatic practices often include pauses in activity for de-
tailed analytical explanations or periods of rest, Gaga classes are typically
conducted with a through-line of near-constant motion.92 Furthermore, the
“paring-down” process in somatic practices can be applied to such an extent
that the actual scope of movement can be greatly reduced.93 While Gaga
teachers may direct their students to work with small gestures, delicacy,
and reduced volume, ultimately, the goal is to summon a similar amount
of listening, awareness, and efficiency when the instructor calls for accel-
eration, amplification, and intensification. Thus, not only does Gaga offer
dancers deconstructive tools, but it also leads them through a process of
reconstruction in which they visit levels of speed, size, and effort that may
more closely reflect those generated in their other dance activities. This pro-
cess may prime dancers to reach similar levels of awareness and efficiency
when they face physically demanding material in their technique classes and
rehearsals. Indeed, several interviewees remarked that their Gaga training
enabled them to approach ballet class with a greater awareness of sensa-
tions, total body connectivity, energy flow, ease, and confidence, as well as
an ability to proactively research movement and quality within the balletic
form.94 For example, Shi Pratt, who has taught Gaga in European dance
schools, frequently hears the following sentiment from her students: “I took
your class, and then when I went into ballet, everything was open, I could
suddenly move, it was so much easier.”95
GAGA AS WORKOUT: MAINTAINING THE BODY
The deconstructive side of Gaga may help dancers to work in a healthful

manner and thus to sustain their bodies over time. But to meet the daily
demands of a professional career, dancers must also regularly exercise their
physical fitness. Researchers in the late 1990s observed that supplementary
training systems for dancers tended to be either somatic approaches with
minimal movement or vigorous exercise-based programs.96 Without sacrific-

ing speed, size, and effort for the sake of deconstruction, Gaga occupies a
middle ground geared toward both immediate and long-term maintenance
of the body.
The element of physical conditioning is so fundamental to Gaga that,
when tackling the question “What is Gaga?” with Pia Forsgren, Naharin pro-
claimed that Gaga “is about strengthening our engine. It’s a workout.”97 He
also addresses this facet of Gaga when he writes, “We learn to love our sweat,
we discover our passion to move and connect it to effort, we discover both
the animal we are and the power of our imagination. We are ‘body builders
with a soft spine.’ . . . We explore multi-dimensional movement, we enjoy
the burning sensation in our muscles, we are aware of our explosive power
and sometimes we use it.”98
As these words suggest, Gaga classes urge users to surpass familiar limits
and reach moments of physical climax. Toward this purpose, teachers often
call upon participants to actively engage their “flesh” (the layer between
skin and bone, including, but not restricted to, muscle). Directives to bring
a “thick” texture into the flesh, to “activate the flesh,” and to use the flesh to
“grab” body parts in the course of movement generate an intense workout.
So too do references to “engines” in the body, including the “lena” between
the navel and groin. In order to attain faster speeds and to support the
body in moments of greater effort, instructions often refer to the “lena” and
other metaphorical engines. During periods of sustained speed or effort,
teachers sometimes invoke the image of using a small portion of power
from extremely strong engines.
Additionally, the integration of disparate actions, textures, and speeds
in multilayered tasks allows dancers to exert a different kind of effort in an
increasingly complex coordination. Not only does Gaga regularly involve a
range of efforts, but it also fundamentally reframes effort as a challenge to
be embraced by closely linking it to pleasure. This connection, and the addi-
tional sensitivity to physical sensation that it awakens, may aid users in safely
∗
reaching and enjoying moments of effort that exceed their perceived limits.
Functioning as a workout, Gaga may help dancers to maintain and
perhaps even improve their strength, stamina, agility, and flexibility. This
point was not obvious when Batsheva switched to Gaga as its primary mode
of training. Several dancers present during the transition recalled questions,
concerns, and pushback from some of their colleagues as well as doubts and
criticism from outside the company.99 Yet, asked if Batsheva’s Gaga regimen
was sufficient to sustain their physical condition, the dancers interviewed
overwhelmingly answered in the affirmative. While a few noted that they
∗
Yossi Naharin raises similar points about the use of effort in Gaga while noting the
overall physical benefits of employing effort in “‘Gaga,’ Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language
and Its Therapeutic Effect,” trans. Martha Ramon (master’s thesis, Lesley University, Netanya,
2006), 64–69.
384 Dance Chronicle
might also work with other modalities in times of injury, Shi Pratt observed
that, when faced with a knee injury, she preferred Gaga to ballet classes.100
Stefan Ferry, who danced with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in the 1990s
and taught Gaga as a guest artist at the troupe’s academy in 2013, added
that, upon taking a week of ballet classes during his residency in Monaco,
his colleagues exclaimed that he was in better shape than they were even
though he was approaching forty.101
Because Gaga/dancers class serves as a thorough warm-up, it can
and does fill the company-class slot once reserved for technique in some
companies besides Batsheva. Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s L-E-V, Lee Sher
and Saar Harari’s New York–based Lee Saar The Company, and Danielle
Agami’s Los Angeles–based Ate9 use Gaga as a regular training regimen,
and companies like Carte Blanche in Bergen, Norway, and Cullberg Ballet in
Norsborg, Sweden, have invited Gaga teachers for shorter periods. Likewise,
when dance departments such as those at The Ohio State University
and University of Colorado Boulder have brought guest artists to offer
Gaga/dancers classes, they have been scheduled alongside conventional
options in the modern-technique slot.
GAGA AND IMPROVISATION: CULTIVATING THE ARTIST
Beyond conditioning, which could be achieved through other means,

Gaga/dancers classes holistically serve the physical and artistic needs of
dancers, according to Naharin. Asked about the fluid structure of class in an
interview, he remarked,
In every class that the dancer does, the dancer has to go beyond its
familiar limits. And this has the sense of discovery. The dancer has to
strengthen [the] body, heal [the] body, and protect [the] body in every
class, which means the dancer has to better [their] coordination and
efficiency of movement. The dancer has to get more explosive, be more
stretched, be [quicker], be more developed in [their] multidimensional
movement and coordination. . . . and also to be more sensitive, . . . to
find the connection between the dancer’s demons and creative force and
the power of imagination. So all of this has to come into the structure
of class, into the exercise, into what we do in class; this has to push all
those buttons and many more.102
In this conception, Gaga/dancers training aims to prepare body and mind,

thoroughly warming up the athlete and stimulating the artist during the
course of a seventy-five-minute class. The improvisational structure of Gaga
classes inherently supports this dual action. By allowing freedom to explore
concrete directives and creative imagery, rather than prescribing predeter-
mined series of movements, the class helps dancers to develop the link
between their physicality and their imagination, using one to inform the
other in an ongoing feedback loop.
An analysis of the nexus between Gaga and improvisation sheds light on

how Gaga further addresses the needs of dancers in the twenty-first century.
Just as Gaga is not an improvisation class per se, neither is it intended as a
practice undertaken for the purpose of improvising. Yet, as Kent De Spain
notes, improvisation “can be seen as a kind of tool for accomplishing some
purpose”—and that is precisely its connection to Gaga.103 Improvisation is
a tool for research in Gaga, facilitating each participant’s personal engage-
ment with Naharin’s movement language and allowing for new discoveries.
Contributors to Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader (2003)
cite, among other benefits of improvisation, those of shedding habits, ex-
panding options, heightening physical sensation, increasing awareness, and
igniting curiosity.104 Various modalities in Gaga also foster the development
of these capabilities, but improvisation may be particularly effective in bring-
ing them to fruition within Gaga training. Additional Gaga principles, such
as “availability,” mesh well with an improvisational approach. Annie Klop-
penberg claims that improvisation “cultivates a responsive physical state,”
and she cites Paul Matteson’s description of “a facile body that is able to be
powerful and soft and attacking and elegant and blunt and predictable and
unpredictable.”105 The use of improvisation as a tool within Gaga class, in
combination with “availability” prompts, may maximize participants’ ability
to be “ready to snap” and to be receptive to a range of movement options.
In actuality, the relationship between Gaga and improvisation is recip-
rocal, for the tools offered by Gaga become assets as dancers participate
∗
in the many contemporary practices involving improvisation. Furthermore,
because so many choreographers employ what Kloppenberg terms “post-
control” choreography, in which the dancers’ improvisation plays an essen-
tial part in the creative process, the Gaga toolbox may equip dancers to be
effective collaborating partners.106 The potential benefits of Gaga training in
such cooperative artistic settings stretch beyond the development of skills
and improvisational facility. Discussing the need to prepare dancers to be-
come “coauthors” in “post-control” choreography, Kloppenberg draws on an
interview with dancer Karl Rogers, who notes that dancers must bring not
only their technical capability, but also their unique selves to such a creative
process.107 And while jettisoning the goal of forging technicians in a partic-
ular style, Gaga may more directly foster dancers’ individuality. As Noa Zuk
noted, “You don’t have exercises to hide behind. It’s about you. You have
to bring yourself to it.”108
∗
Gaga intensive workshops include an improvisation component in which participants
can play with the new tools they are developing. As well, dancers apply tools from Gaga
training in their performance of brief sections of improvisation within Naharin’s repertory,
such as the eight-to-twelve count improvised solos in “Arab Line,” originally from Naharin’s
Virus (2001) and often seen in versions of Decadance, an ever-changing framework for
excerpts of Naharin’s repertory.
386 Dance Chronicle
The self-awareness and maturity that Gaga demands can prove

formidable to those accustomed to conventional technique classes. But if
dancers can meet this challenge, the research guides them to distill and en-
hance their own special qualities. They become conscious of, yet not limited
by, their idiosyncrasies; tap into their personal “groove”; and strengthen the
connections between their imagination, passion, and movement. Reflecting
on the yearlong Gaga teacher-training program, Leia Weil’s observations of
her fellow graduates illustrate this point. “When I’m looking at Natalia, [I’m]
really seeing more Natalia. [It’s] so beautiful and wonderful! When I’m look-
ing at Clea, I’m seeing even more Clea than I ever got to see before,” she
remarked. “I’ve been so moved by seeing the amazing people around me
come into themselves in a big, big way.”109
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH
Continuing a shift that began in the mid-twentieth century, the twenty-first-

century dance climate requires dancers to move beyond mastery of a single
technique and further calls upon them to be more than mere technicians.
While conventional technique classes remain integral to dance training, pro-
viding fundamental movement skills and artistic growth at the outset and
throughout a professional career, dancers need supplemental classes to ex-
tend their range beyond the scope of technique and to meet the complex
demands of today’s choreography. Forgoing the traditional form of technique
class and its usual emphasis on a precise style or styles, Gaga instead focuses
on developing a toolbox applicable in diverse situations, genres, and chore-
ographic and/or improvisational approaches. This orientation enables Gaga
to function effectively in the eclectic training model that is increasingly the
norm, and it addresses many dancers’ desire to deconstruct movement habits
and enhance their awareness of sensation, all the while keeping luscious,
sophisticated dancing and the “passion to move” as integral components of
class. Gaga offers a vigorous workout that readies the body for the day ahead,
and the movement language’s rigorous research enriches dancers’ physical
and artistic facilities alike, thus equipping them for the diverse demands of
a long-term career.
Gaga’s multifaceted approach makes it an inviting training option for
advanced dancers, and as Ohad Naharin’s movement language continues
to evolve and spread around the world, the magnitude and breadth of
its impact should be studied further. Building on Yossi Naharin’s master’s
thesis about the therapeutic benefits of Gaga, studies could combine
qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the physical, mental, and
emotional effects of classes on dancers and nondancers alike.110 In addition
to continuing assessment of the overlaps and contrasts between Gaga and
various somatic movement practices, studies could more closely consider
Gaga’s teaching methodology or dancers’ application of Gaga’s toolbox
within other contexts. Yet another avenue of inquiry might explore Gaga’s
influence on the creation and performance of Naharin’s repertory as well
as repertories of other choreographers steeped in this movement language.
There remains much to investigate about Gaga’s structure and content, and
such systems as Laban Movement Analysis might be employed to provide
greater understanding of Gaga’s movement research.
The full extent of the significance of Gaga in and beyond the realm
of dance training has yet to be grasped. Nonetheless, dancers can readily
explore Ohad Naharin’s movement language and reap its benefits through
their own experiential inquiry.
Appendix Gaga terms coined by Ohad Naharin as of February 2015
Term Definition
Ashi Investigating movement in external parts of the foot with the help of knees,
pelvis, and ankles
Biba Pulling away from the sits bones
Bibi Nothing is permanent
Boya Spaghetti in boiling water
Dolfi Available—especially available to move
Fufu Unit of pelvis and legs
Gina Lightness as a virtue
Heda Head with spine
Kada Bones floating inside flesh
Kagami The mirror of Gaga—look at the teacher and get the essence of what he/she is
doing (quality, dynamics, etc.)
Kaka An awareness of the sense of touch in your entire skin on a molecular level
Kanta Measuring the weight of body parts
Kuku Grabbing bones with flesh
Lava Explosive power
Lena The engine between the navel and groin
Luna Moving the moons
Magma Feeding the texture from hands and feet into the rest of the body
Mako Giving in, surrendering, letting go (without collapsing)
Mama System that engages activity in the grid of the body, including left leg to left hand,
left hand to right leg, right leg to right hand, right hand to left leg, head and
chest, diagonals, and parallels
Mika Pulling bones out of soft flesh
Moons Pillows of the hands and feet
Naka Thirty percent
Oba Traveling stuff inside the body
Papa Far away engines
Pika The place between the groin and rectum
Pola The license to fake
Shoking Moving hands from forearms and feet from shins
Taka Pulling bones inside thick flesh
Tama System that explores options for directions of curves
Tashi Gluing the feet to the floor and investigating ankle movement
Yona Ball movement in the joints
Yoyo Sucking your pika and lower abdomen toward each other

C Deborah Friedes Galili.
388 Dance Chronicle
NOTES
1. Melanie Bales and Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, ed., preface to The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in
Dance Training (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008), ix.
2. Ibid., x; Melanie Bales, “Introduction: Deconstruction and Bricolage,” in The Body Eclectic:
Evolving Practices in Dance Training, ed. Melanie Bales and Rebecca Nettl-Fiol (Urbana and Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 2008), 1.
3. Yossi Naharin, “‘Gaga,’ Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language and Its Therapeutic Effect,” trans.
Martha Ramon (master’s thesis, Lesley University, Netanya, 2006); Einav Katan, “Body of Knowledge:
Embodied Philosophy in Gaga, Ohad Naharin’s Movement Research” (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University,
2013).
4. “Going Gaga,” Dance Spirit, March 19, 2009, http://www.dancespirit.com/how-to/modern/
going_gaga/ (accessed June 12, 2010); Jordan Levin, “Choreographer Ohad Naharin Is All about
Passion,” Miami Herald, November 29, 2009, http://article.wn.com/view/2009/11/29/Choreographer_
Ohad_Naharin_is_all_about_passion/ (accessed June 12, 2010); Mary Staub, “Israel’s Batsheva
Dance Company,” Encore Magazine, February 25, 2009, http://encoremag.com/new-york/articles/396/
israels-batsheva-dance-company (accessed June 12, 2010); Paula Citron, “Ohad Naharin: Curving Bodies
and Curve Balls Aplenty” (review of Sadeh21, by Ohad Naharin, MacMillan Theatre, Toronto), Globe
and Mail (Toronto), June 15, 2012, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/
ohad-naharin-curving-bodies-and-curve-balls-aplenty/article4267527/ (accessed January 20, 2013); Evan
Namerow, “Batsheva Dance Company, HORA | OHAD NAHARIN with Evan Namerow,” Brooklyn
Rail, March 2, 2012, http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/03/dance/batsheva-dance-company-hora (ac-
cessed January 20, 2013).
5. Wendy Perron, “A Conversation with Ohad,” Dance Magazine, (October 2006), http://
dancemagazine.com/issues/October-2006/A-Conversation-with-Ohad (accessed June 12, 2010); Kristin
Lewis, “The Pleasure of Motion—Ohad Naharin,” Movmnt Magazine, July 10, 2007, http://www.
movmnt.com/ohad-naharin_00196.html (accessed August 5, 2009); Jason Koutsoukis, “Going Gaga over
Grand Vision,” The Age (Melbourne), October 6, 2008, http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/
arts/going-gaga-over-grand-vision/2008/10/05/1223145165489.html (accessed June 12, 2010); Deborah
Jowitt, “Ohad Naharin Brings the Gaga to BAM in MAX” (review of MAX, by Ohad Naharin, BAM
Howard Gilman Opera House, New York), Village Voice, March 11, 2009, http://www.villagevoice.
com/2009-03-11/dance/ohad-naharin-brings-the-gaga-to-bam-in-max/ (accessed June 12, 2010); Bar-
bara Figge Fox, “Batsheva’s Gaga Takes the Dance World by Storm,” U.S. 1 (Princeton), January
28, 2009, http://www.princetoninfo.com/index.php?option = com_us1more&Itemid = 6&key = 01-
28-2009%20Batsheva (accessed June 12, 2010); Staub, “Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company”; Sara Wolf,
review of Hora, by Ohad Naharin, Royce Hall, Los Angeles, Culture Monster, March 2, 2009, http:
//latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/03/review-bathseva.html (accessed June 12, 2010); Ora
Brafman, “Dance Review: Sadeh21” (review of Sadeh21, by Ohad Naharin, Jerusalem Theater, Jerusalem),
Jerusalem Post, May 26, 2011, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-193425530.html (accessed October 15,
2013); “Eric Herschthal, “The Choreography that Binds,” Jewish Week (New York), December 6, 2011,
http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/dance/choreography_binds (accessed January 20, 2013); Zachary
Whittenburg, “Ohad Naharin in Conversation with Zachary Whittenburg,” Movement Research: Criti-
cal Correspondence, May 26, 2012, http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p
= 5174 (accessed January 20, 2013).
6. Ohad Naharin, interview with the author, July 30, 2009, Tel Aviv; Ohad Naharin, closing
discussion of the Gaga intensive summer course 2009, July 31, 2009, Tel Aviv; Ohad Naharin, closing
discussion of the Gaga intensive winter course January 2013, January 7, 2013, Tel Aviv; Ohad Naharin,
communication with the author, January 19, 2015, Tel Aviv.
7. Sofia Naharin, interview with the author, December 24, 2013, Tel Aviv; Ohad Naharin, inter-
view with the author, June 8, 2014, Tel Aviv.
8. Sofia Naharin, interview; Ohad Naharin, interview, June 8, 2014.
9. Mr. Gaga: A New Film by Tomer Heymann, Sneak Preview Clip: “scene 5 1024×576,”
YouTube video, 2:14, posted by music123451000, December 5, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
= ZjCPysf79XU (accessed January 13, 2014).
10. Ohad Naharin, interview, June 8, 2014.
11. Sofia Naharin, interview; “‘Mr. Gaga’—Ohad Naharin and Batsheva Dance Company docu-
mentary by Tomer Heymann,” YouTube video, 3:22, January 8, 2014, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
= pNSZDVaj9Dg#t = 11 (accessed January 13, 2014).
12. “Ohad Naharin—Martha Graham—Batsheva Dance Company—Tomer Heymann—Mr.
Gaga—Sneak Preview 11,” YouTube video, 1:42, posted by Mr. Gaga: Ohad Naharin documentary
by Tomer Heymann, December 29, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = QDgKSxps14U (accessed
March 5, 2014).
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Anna Lozynski, “Three | Batsheva Dance Company” (review of Three, by Ohad Naharin, the
Arts Centre, State Theatre, Melbourne), Australian Stage, October 11, 2008, http://www.australianstage.
com.au/reviews/miaf/three–batsheva-dance-company-1948.html (accessed June 12, 2010); Kris Eitland,
review of MAX, by Ohad Naharin, Mandeville, San Diego, Sandiego.com, February 28, 2009, http://www.
sandiego.com (accessed June 12, 2010).
17. Gia Kourlas, “Movement that Rides on a Pulse of Its Own” (review of Three, by Ohad
Naharin, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, New York), New York Times, November 15, 2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/arts/dance/15bats.html (accessed June 12, 2010); Nobuko Tanaka,
“Go Gaga over Israeli Troupe Batsheva,” Japan Times, April 9, 2010, http://search.japantimes.co.jp/
cgi-bin/fq20100409a1.html (accessed June 12, 2010); Ora Brafman, “Batsheva Dance Company—Sadeh21”
(review of Sadeh21, by Ohad Naharin, Jerusalem Theater, Jerusalem), Dancetalk/rikudibur, May 26, 2011,
http://www.dancetalk.co.il/?p = 692 (accessed October 15, 2013).
18. Jowitt, “Ohad Naharin Brings the Gaga to BAM in MAX”; Levin, “Choreographer Ohad Naharin
Is All about Passion”; Staub, “Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company.”
19. Ohad Naharin, interview, July 30, 2009.
20. Ibid.; Ohad Naharin, closing discussion, July 31, 2009; Ohad Naharin, closing discussion of
the Gaga intensive summer course 2012, August 3, 2012, Tel Aviv.
22. Ohad Naharin, closing discussion, August 3, 2012.
23. Bales, “Introduction: Deconstruction and Bricolage,” 1.
25. Smadar Hirsh, “Mamootot b’arafel” (Mamootot in the Fog), Time Out Tel Aviv, March 27–April 3,
2003, 12; Yossi Naharin, “‘Gaga,’ Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language,” 35; Merav Yudilevitch, “Hamakom
sh’lifnei ha’milim” (The Place that Is before the Words), Ynet, September 2, 2003, http://www.ynet.co.il/
articles/0,7340,L-2744355,00.html (accessed February 8, 2015).
27. Ibid.
28. Yaniv Avraham, interview with the author, November 25, 2013, Tel Aviv; Yaara Moses, in-
terview with the author, December 27, 2013, Tel Aviv; Doron Raz Avraham, interview with the author,
January 4, 2014, Tel Aviv; Shi Pratt, Skype interview with the author, January 28, 2014.
30. Avraham, interview; Raz Avraham, interview; Moses, interview; Guy Shomroni, interview with
the author, November 20, 2013, Tel Aviv; Bosmat Nossan, interview with the author, November 27, 2013,
Tel Aviv; Stefan Ferry, interview with the author, January 30, 2014, Tel Aviv; Stefan Ferry, interview with
the author, February 11, 2014, Jaffa.
31. Shomroni, interview; Avraham, interview.
32. Avraham, interview.
33. Ferry, interview, January 30, 2014; Noa Zuk, interview with the author, November 21, 2013,
Tel Aviv; Raz Avraham, interview; Moses, interview; Pratt, Skype interview; Nossan, interview.
34. Avraham, interview; Nossan, interview; Raz Avraham, interview; Moses, interview; Pratt, Skype
interview.
35. Ohad Naharin, toolbox class in the Gaga teacher-training program, April 18, 2012, Tel Aviv.
36. Avraham, interview; Raz Avraham, interview; Moses, interview.
37. Sofia Naharin, Hazmana lemachol: tahalichei yetzira batnua (Invitation to Dance: Processes
of Creation in Movement) (Israel: Hotza’at sfarim ‘ach’ ba’am, 2000), 177–78.
390 Dance Chronicle
38. Einav Rosenblit, “Ta’anug b’tnuah” (Pleasure in Movement), Machol Achshav, no. 7 (January
2002): 48–49; Merav Yudilevitch, “Naharin nitzeach et ha’shita” (Naharin Won the System), Ynet, October
14, 2001, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/1,7340,L-1198128,00.html (accessed October 15, 2013).
40. Ferry, interview, February 11, 2014.
41. Ibid.
42. Marion Horosko, ed., Martha Graham: The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training
1926–1991 (Chicago: a capella, 1991); Sondra Horton Fraleigh, Dancing into Darkness: Butoh, Zen,
and Japan (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999); Anna Halprin, Dance as a Healing Art:
Returning to Health with Movement & Imagery (Mendocino, CA: LifeRhythm Books, 2000); Lynnette
Young Overby and Jan Dunn, “The History and Research of Dance Imagery: Implications for Teachers,”
The IADMS Bulletin for Teachers, vol. 3, no. 2 (2011): 9–11; Eric Franklin, Dance Imagery for Technique
and Performance, 2nd ed. (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2013), xv; Christine Hanrahan and John H.
Salmela, “Dance Images—Do They Really Work or Are We Just Imagining Things?,” Journal of Physical
Education, Recreation & Dance, vol. 61, no. 2 (February 1990): 18.
43. Horosko, Martha Graham, 39, 51, 113.
44. Peggy Schwartz, “Action Research: Dance Improvisation as Dance Technique,” Journal of
Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, vol. 71, no. 5 (May/June 2000): 44; Halprin, Dance as a Healing
Art, 20.
45. Moses, interview.
46. Lulu E. Sweigard, Human Movement Potential: Its Ideokinetic Facilitation (New York: Dodd,
Mead & Company, 1974); Overby and Dunn, “The History and Research of Dance Imagery”; André
Bernard, “An Introduction to Ideokinesis,” Contact Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 2 (1997): 5–6; Martha Eddy, “A
Brief History of Somatic Practices and Dance: Historical Development of the Field of Somatic Education
and Its Relationship to Dance,” Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, vol. 1, no. 1 (2009): 8, 13, 18;
Harlene Goldschmidt, “Dancing with Your Head On: Mental Imagery Techniques for Dancers,” Journal
of Dance Education, vol. 2, no. 1 (2002): 15–22; Eric Franklin, Dynamic Alignment through Imagery, 2nd
ed. (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2012).
47. Sweigard, Human Movement Potential, 6, 205, 207, 210, 222, 276.
48. Sweigard, Human Movement Potential; Glenna Batson, “Resource Paper: Somatic Studies
and Dance,” International Association for Dance Medicine & Science, 2009, http://www.iadms.org/?248
(accessed May 5, 2015); Hanrahan and Salmela, “Dance Images,” 18–21.
49. Yaniv Avraham, toolbox class in the Gaga teacher-training program, June 21, 2012, Tel Aviv.
51. Ibid.; Ferry, interview, January 30, 2014.
52. Avraham, interview; Raz Avraham, interview; Moses, interview.
53. Raz Avraham, interview.
54. Nossan, interview.
55. Ohad Naharin, toolbox class, April 18, 2012.
56. Shomroni, interview.
57. Avraham, interview; Ferry, interview, February 11, 2014; Raz Avraham, interview; Pratt, Skype
interview.
58. Pratt, Skype interview.
60. Einav Rosenblit, Guf anoshi midai: Zen Buddhism b’omanut ha’machol ha’achshavi (Too
Human Body: Zen-Buddhism in the Art of Contemporary Dance) (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2014), 94–95.
61. Ohad Naharin, interview, June 8, 2014; Shomroni, interview; Nossan, interview; Raz Avraham,
interview; Pratt, interview; Zuk, interview.
62. Susan Leigh Foster, “Dancing Bodies,” in Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance,
ed. Jane C. Desmond (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 238.
63. Ibid., 239.
64. “The Jewish Theatre Presents Ohad Naharin’s GAGA,” YouTube video, 10:32, posted by
JudiskaTeatern, November 1, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v = yPcxl4mXUIs (accessed January
20, 2012).
65. Aimee Ts’ao, “Post-Modern Classics, 12-18: Ohad Naharin: Unlocking Gaga,” The Dance In-
sider, November 10, 2006, http://www.danceinsider.com/ (accessed June 12, 2010).
66. Wendell Beavers, “Re-locating Technique,” in The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance
Training, ed. Melanie Bales and Rebecca Nettl-Fiol (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
2008), 127.
67. Ibid., 129.
69. Bales and Nettl-Fiol, eds., The Body Eclectic, 2–3.
70. Shomroni, interview; Zuk, interview; Ferry, interview, February 11, 2014; Raz Avraham, inter-
view; Avraham, interview; Nossan, interview; Moses, interview; Pratt, Skype interview.
71. Moses, interview; Nossan, interview; Raz Avraham, interview; Pratt, Skype interview; Stefan
Ferry, e-mail correspondence, April 26, 2014.
72. Ohad Naharin, toolbox class in the Gaga teacher-training program, December 22, 2011, Tel
Aviv; Ohad Naharin, opening discussion of the Gaga intensive summer course 2012, July 22, 2012, Tel
Aviv; Ohad Naharin, closing discussion, January 7, 2013; Ts’ao, “Post-Modern Classics.”
73. Melanie Bales, “A Dancing Dialectic,” in The Body Eclectic, ed. Bales and Nettl-Fiol, 16.
74. Ohad Naharin, “About Gaga,” Gaga People, http://gagapeople.com/english/about-gaga/ (ac-
cessed January 20, 2013).
76. Ohad Naharin, closing discussion, August 3, 2012.
77. Brafman, “Batsheva Dance Company—Sadeh21”; Tal Levin, “Deca Dance: Dance Perfor-
mance that Will Make You Laugh” (review of Deca Dance, by Ohad Naharin), Achbar Ha’ir, March
3, 2011, http://www.mouse.co.il/CM.articles_item,412,209,59069,.aspx (accessed October 8, 2013); Liat
Zand, review of Kyr/Zina, by Ohad Naharin, Achbar Ha’ir, March 14, 2010, http://www.mouse.co.il/CM.
articles_item,412,209,46896,.aspx (accessed October 8, 2013); Tal Levin, “Matzeget: hatzatza la’avodah
ha’machol ha’hadasha shel Ohad Naharin” (Slideshow: A Glimpse into the New Dance Work of Ohad
Naharin), Achbar Ha’ir, April 17, 2011, http://www.mouse.co.il/CM.articles_item,412,209,60101,.aspx (ac-
cessed October 9, 2013).
78. Tal Levin, “Bat Sheva in the Desert: Forget Everything You Know” (review of Panorama,
by Ohad Naharin, Timna Park), Achbar Ha’ir, September 23, 2011, http://www.mouse.co.il/CM.
articles_item,412,209,63549,.aspx (accessed October 8, 2011); Ruth Eshel, “Ohad Naharin’s ‘Hora’: En-
ergy in Compression” (review of Hora, by Ohad Naharin, Suzanne Dellal Centre), Achbar Ha’ir, June 14,
2009, http://www.mouse.co.il/CM.articles_item,1022,209,37011,.aspx (accessed October 9, 2013); Merav
Yudilevitch, “Festival Phaza Morgana” (review of Festival Phaza Morgana, including Panorama by Ohad
Naharin, Timna Park), Ynet, September 24, 2011, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4126773,00.html
(accessed October 9, 2013).
79. Shomroni, interview; Nossan, interview; Moses, interview; Avraham, interview; Raz Avraham,
interview.
80. Avraham, interview; Raz Avraham, interview.
81. Shomroni, interview.
82. Ibid.
83. Katan, “Body of Knowledge,” 261, 256.
84. “Gaga Work Instructions” (handout used in open Gaga classes in Tel Aviv at the Suzanne
Dellal Centre), 2013.
85. Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, “First It Was Dancing: Reflections on Teaching and Alexander Technique,”
in The Body Eclectic, ed. Bales and Nettl-Fiol, 114.
86. Nossan, interview.
87. Bales, “A Dancing Dialectic,” 15.
89. Yossi Naharin, “‘Gaga,’ Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language,” 39–44, 52–57.
90. Ohad Naharin, “About Gaga.”
91. Sweigard, Human Movement Potential, 7; Martha Eddy, “The Practical Application of Body-
Mind Centering R
(BMC) in Dance Pedagogy,” Journal of Dance Education, vol. 6, no. 1 (2006): 86;
Batson, “Resource Paper.”
92. Sweigard, Human Movement Potential, 276; Batson, “Resource Paper.”
93. Sweigard, Human Movement Potential, 275; Batson, “Resource Paper”; Moshe Feldenkrais,
“Image, Movement, and Actor: Restoration of Potentiality,” trans. Kelly Morris, The Tulane Drama Review,
vol. 10, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 121.
392 Dance Chronicle
94. Shomroni, interview; Avraham, interview; Nossan, interview; Moses, interview; Raz Avraham,
interview; Pratt, Skype interview.
95. Pratt, Skype interview.
96. Donna H. Krasnow et al., “Imagery and Conditioning Practices for Dancers,” Dance Research
Journal, vol. 29, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 43.
97. “The Jewish Theatre Presents Ohad Naharin’s GAGA.”
98. Ohad Naharin, “About Gaga.”
99. Shomroni, interview; Zuk, interview; Avraham, interview; Ferry, interview, February 11, 2014;
Pratt, Skype interview; Raz Avraham, interview.
100. Shomroni, interview; Avraham, interview; Moses, interview; Raz Avraham, interview; Pratt,
interview.
103. Kent De Spain, “The Cutting Edge of Awareness: Reports from the Inside of Improvisation,” in
Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader, ed. Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere (Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003), 27.
104. Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere, Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader, 22,
54, 163–65, 261.
105. Paul Matteson, cited in Annie Kloppenberg, “Improvisation in Process: ‘Post-Control’ Chore-
ography,” Dance Chronicle, vol. 33, no. 2 (2010): 196.
106. Kloppenberg, “Improvisation in Process,” 189.
107. Ibid., 194.
108. Zuk, interview.
109. Leia Weil, taped recording played at the graduation of the Gaga teacher-training program,
August 28, 2012, Tel Aviv.
110. Yossi Naharin, “‘Gaga,’ Ohad Naharin’s Movement Language.”

Gaga Moving Beyond Technique With Ohad Naharin in The Twenty First Century

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ISSN: 0147-2526 (Print) 1532-4257 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ldnc20

Gaga: Moving beyond Technique with Ohad

Deborah Friedes Galili

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Gaga: Moving beyond Technique with Ohad

DEBORAH FRIEDES GALILI

Gaga, the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin in con-

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE EMERGENCE OF GAGA

An overview of Naharin’s background and his gradual development of Gaga

I really was tired of calling it my “movement language.” I wanted to disas-

Naharin implemented a modified training schedule at the start of Batsheva’s

ARTICULATING A MOVEMENT LANGUAGE THROUGH

As they have developed, most Gaga classes involve movement exploration

FIGURE 2 The graduates of the 2011–2012 teacher-training program. Photograph by Ascaf.

Several dancers remembered briefer experiments in the mid-to-late

to absorb new terms—both fanciful and descriptive—and to shed old ones,

butoh).47 Whereas Ideokinesis and other approaches explicitly engage “the

In my eyes, you’re supposed to teach a class where the identification

While Naharin’s language guides the research conducted by teachers, it

specific progressions in the order or development of exercises, the syntax

BEYOND THE LABEL OF TECHNIQUE

A comparison of Gaga with the systematic, underlying projects of any number

Right now I think of Gaga as the higher education of dance. You do

Positioned as higher education for those already trained as dancers,

Technique used to mean we had to refer to certain vocabularies of move-

GAGA AS BRICOLAGE AND DECONSTRUCTION

In The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training, coeditors Melanie

Gaga’s tools also facilitate a process of deconstruction, the second trend

We are aware of where we hold unnecessary tension, we let go only

These excerpts resonate with descriptions of various somatic practices, but,

GAGA AS WORKOUT: MAINTAINING THE BODY

The deconstructive side of Gaga may help dancers to work in a healthful

minimal movement or vigorous exercise-based programs.96 Without sacrific-

GAGA AND IMPROVISATION: CULTIVATING THE ARTIST

Beyond conditioning, which could be achieved through other means,

In this conception, Gaga/dancers training aims to prepare body and mind,

An analysis of the nexus between Gaga and improvisation sheds light on

The self-awareness and maturity that Gaga demands can prove

CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH

Continuing a shift that began in the mid-twentieth century, the twenty-first-

Appendix Gaga terms coined by Ohad Naharin as of February 2015

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