Artistic Director and Choreographer of the BatSheva Dance Company, Ohad Naharin, has done it again. Beginning early April, his latest work, “The Hole”, will be presented twice daily in a most unusual setting at the Varda Hall at Tel Aviv’s Suzanne Dellal Dance Center.
One of the greatest surprises in “the Hole” (besides the title) is that the roles of the dancers alternate at each performance: the women take the male roles and the men take the female roles. That is not to say that you see women in tights and men in tutus, nor will men be pirouetting or women lifting the hefty men. You need to think out of the box to understand the gender-change concept, or else – see the performance, preferably twice.
Modern ballet is not for everyone. If for you ballet only means performances of works such as Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” or Gergiev’s “Nutcracker Suite”, “The Hole” you might not appreciate this unusual work. Except the unexpected in choreography, costumes, lighting and sound. And at the risk of being repetitive – in the staging and the setting.
The BatSheva Dance Company was founded as a repertory company in 1964 by the late Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild. The company has been critically acclaimed and popularly embraced as one of the most exciting contemporary dance companies worldwide. Ohad Naharin began his career as a dancer himself when he was ‘discovered’ by the legendary Martha Graham and brought to New York where he was able to hone his skills. His dance and musical expression have earned him numerous accolades and honors, including the Israel Prize for dance in 2005.
If you don’t see a performance of “The Hole” in Tel Aviv, it is unlikely (at least at this time) that you will ever be able to see it anywhere else. This thinking-out-of-the-box production needs a special space with special stage and special backdrops. Only when you actually see how the stage and background design have been created can you understand what I mean.
Naharin, who has been the Ballet Company’s Artistic Director since 1990, never fails to surprise us.
