MR GAGA
Israel, 2015 100 minutes, Colour.
Ohad Naharin, Tzofia Naharin.
Directed by Tomar Heymann.
Usually one looks at the critics’ comments on the advertising with a momentary consideration and a passing over of the superlatives. With the poster for Mr Gaga, there was a comment which made sense to this reviewer, worth quoting, “If you know nothing of dance, or don’t have the slightest interest in it, you will still be mystified by what is on-screen. The Batsheva dancers moving in ways you might not even imagine the body could move.” These were the thoughts, the feelings, during this intriguing film.
Dance aficionados will be familiar with the name of choreographer Ohad Naharin. Audiences who find this film fascinating will be alert to his name after this.
He is an Israeli choreographer, whose dance interpretations for his Batsheva company have the title of Gaga. His belief is that the body is extremely malleable, subject to gravity and subtly utilising it while defying it. He believes in movement, of all the limbs, of torso and head, limbs at various angles, “Listen to the body before you tell it what to do.” And, as we see during the film, dance can heal.
While this film was eight years in the making, following the choreographer around the world, seeing him in action, especially in more recent years in Israel, there is a great deal of archival footage, quite a number of his compositions included here, with names and dates, ranging from the 1980s to the present.
The film also shows Ohad auditioning over the decades. He is very demanding, putting physical and emotional pressures on those auditioning, trying to discern whether they have some inner strength and creativity which he wants to unlock. This is seen frequently as he directs the men and women to go into their inner strength, not think out their movements, but to feel them – especially in their ability to let go, collapse and fall.
During the film we learn something about Ohad himself, especially from home movies, his life as a child on the kibbutz, his family, his motivation for dancing – as well is a story about an autistic brother and a grandmother who helped communicate with him buoyed by dance (and the creativity of this story). There are glimpses of him in his military service, singing and dancing for the troops, many shellshocked, even as bombs were going off in the distance.
He was brought to New York City by choreographer, Martha Graham, but left her company to go to train in Juilliard as well as enrolling in an American dance company, training with both. His career developed in the United States. He was invited back to Israel. There is a very interesting interlude about his Jubilee Bells program to celebrate the 50 years of the state of Israel and a complaint from a woman of the religious right that the costumes were unbecoming, a dispute that even went into the Knesset, leading to protests against censorship and the company deciding that they would not perform.
It is only later in the film that we discover more personal aspects of Ohad’s life, of his partnership, in life as well as in dance with Mari Kajiwara, to whom the film is dedicated. There is pathos in her final illness from cancer and her death? Then, Ohad found new partner, Tzofia, and the couple had a daughter, who at times wanders amongst the company, bringing out the more personable side of Ohad.
Filming was completed in 2015 with Ohad choreographing “Last Dance”, not that it was necessarily his last piece of work but he reflects, somewhat pessimistically, on the state and the status of Israel, decrying its narrowmindedness, its harsh attitudes and the perennial dangers of living there.
Quite an exhilarating documentary, even those who are not familiar with professional dance.
