EMBODIED PHILOSOPHY

IN DANCE

Einav Katan

GAGA AND OHAD NAHARIN’S MOVEMENT RESEARCH

Performance Philosophy

Series Editors

Laura   Cull Ó Maoilearca Department of Dance, Film and Theatre

University of Surrey Guildford ,  United Kingdom

Alice   Lagaay Zeppelin University

Friedrichshafen ,  Germany

Freddie   Rokem Faculty of the Arts Tel Aviv University

Tel Aviv ,  Israel

Will   Daddario Independent Scholar

Asheville ,  North Carolina , USA

Performance Philosophy is an emerging interdisciplinary fi eld of thought, creative practice and scholarship. The newly founded Performance Philosophy book series comprises monographs and essay collections addressing the relationship between performance and philosophy within a broad range of philosophical traditions and performance practices, including drama, theatre, performance arts, dance, art and music. It also includes studies of the performative aspects of life and, indeed, philosophy itself. As such, the series addresses the philosophy of performance as well as performance-as-philosophy and philosophy-as- performance.

Series Advisory Board: Emmanuel Alloa, Assistant Professor in Philosophy, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland; Lydia Goehr, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA; James R. Hamilton, Professor of Philosophy, Kansas State University, USA; Bojana Kunst, Professor of Choreography and Performance, Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Germany; Nikolaus Müller-Schöll, Professor of Theatre Studies, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Martin Puchner, Professor of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature, Harvard University, USA; Alan Read, Professor of Theatre, King’s College London, UK http://www.performancephilosophy.org/books/

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14558

Picture: Gadi Dagon 2015, from: Last Work, Ohad Naharin , Batsheva Dance Company , 2015

Einav   Katan

Embodied Philosophy in Dance

Gaga and Ohad Naharin’s Movement Research

Performance Philosophy ISBN 978-1-137-60185-8 ISBN 978-1-137-60186-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-60186-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950477

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifi ed as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration: © Gadi Dagon

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London

Einav   Katan Humboldt University of Berlin Germany

To John Michael Krois

ix

Embodied Philosophy in Dance: Gaga and Ohad Naharin’s Movement Research is a hermeneutical account of the comprehensive processes within dance. Accordingly, dance is related as a means of both expression and physical research. As an aesthetic medium, dance enables articulation of ideas according to perceptual processes of confi guring its own subject matters. Inquiring the perceptual processes in dance is based on the prem-ise that linguistics is only one medium among other media for creating understanding, knowledge and thoughts. Alongside linguistics dance is also a medium for communicative expression. Thus, dancing embodies processes of reasoning. The point of departure for the examination is, fi rst and foremost, that there is neither idea nor form without matter. Fittingly, one of the main arguments is that the human body is already a medium for meaning. The body is involved in communicative processes since the phys-ical habitus is cultural and individual at the same time. Correspondingly, the body takes part in acts of sense making.

The investigation here is primarily phenomenological and it starts from the body as the origin for understanding. For this reason Embodied Philosophy in Dance follows Gaga, the movement research developed by Ohad Naharin, the choreographer of Batsheva Dance Company . Hence, the physical habitus of dancers, their practical research and their move-ment patters are the subjects of this inquiry. Alongside his choreographies, Naharin’s movement research marks him as a groundbreaking creator that has been redefi ning the dancing body. Gaga is the main training method of Batsheva Dance Company , which helps the dancers develop and advance their movement’s precision and sensibility. The training is dynamic and

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

the research follows a variety of instructions. For this reason, Gaga cannot be easily outlined. Yet, there are clear tendencies in Gaga; accordingly it is possible to defi ne its emphases. The focal points of the training are its sensual inquiry, the direction of the dancers’ attitude toward the physical research, and the buildup of the practice upon layers of researches—thus, there is an integration of varied physical inquiries at the same time. These tendencies within the movement research directed the philosophical inquiry, its questioning and its structure. Since the philosophical approach is phenomenological—namely, the claim is that the body supplies the theory concerning it—all parts of the book start with a description of an experience. The questions the physical and the aesthetic experiences open are investigated in the following chapters.

I would like to acknowledge the people that infl uenced this inquiry and escorted me in bringing it to its current shape. First and foremost I would like to express my appreciation to Prof. Moshe Zuckermann, from The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University. Throughout my exchanges and discussions with Prof. Zuckermann, I could always fi nd new directions for research. I am also obliged to the active support of Naharin in this research. Naharin’s accessibility and profound generosity to share with me his knowledge, his work and his art have qualifi ed this work. From the very beginning of this research, Batsheva Dance Company granted me any necessary access to research Gaga and Naharin’s choreographies. Naomi B. Fortis, Dina Aldor and Yossi Naharin ensured my exchange with Batsheva Dance Company and Gaga People , and I am very appreciative of their help. I am also indebted to every one of the company’s members; all staffs and dancers in the seasons of 2003–2015. I want to acknowledge especially the work of Sharon Eyal. Alongside Naharin’s choreographies, her dance-works and her aesthetic approach are other resources that have been directing my refl ections. I am grateful to Luc Jacobs, the rehearsal director of the company, and to Dalit Itay, Noa Ron and Hadar Stav that provided all my technical needs. I am also appreciative to Gadi Dagon, the com-pany’s home photographer, for the permission to use his wonderful, mov-ing images in the book. I wish to acknowledge Kobi Alexander Nathan, who was the deputy director of content and communications at Batsheva Dance Company , and who passed away in April 2014. His practical help was essential for this research to come forward.

Bringing together practical insights from dancing into philosophi-cal discussion is an interdisciplinary challenge. This inquiry sought to

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi

incorporate a variety of discourses and within them to fi nd correspond-ing voices that could be consolidated into one comprehensive theory. For this reason, alongside the physical study of Gaga, the research was depen-dent upon my theoretical experiences within the research groups I was engaged with. Each experience was infl uential and has shaped further the arguments, the insights and the style of this book. During the time of studying on behalf of this inquiry, I spent one year as a visiting scholar at Boston University and an additional semester at The Juilliard School, NYC. Throughout the semester at Juilliard , I observed the teaching meth-ods in the dance division and had insightful conversations with students and faculty. I acknowledge this time as important for shaping a broader perspective on dancing and dance. I am very grateful to Lawrence Rhodes for allowing it and to Dawn Lille for fi rst insights and encouragement. I am also very appreciative to Deborah Jowitt from NYU Tisch Department of Dance for our exchanges during that time. From Jowitt I have learnt the remarkable impact of truthful description that concentrates, fi rst and foremost, the dance.

I am whole-heartedly grateful to Prof. John Michael Krois from Humboldt University of Berlin. Krois introduced me to the discourse of embodied cognition, and his inspiration on this project and its discourse is indispensable. In April 2010 I have joined as a research fellow at the Collegium of Advanced Studies in Picture Act and Embodiment that he has founded together with Prof. Horst Bredekamp. Few months later Krois had passed away unexpectedly. Krois’ philosophical legacy is noteworthy to future researches concerning the embodiment of thinking. Thereupon, this book is dedicated to him.

The Collegium of Advanced Studies in Picture Act and Embodiment (Kolleg-Forschergruppe Bildakt und Verkörperung ) continue to work under the guidance of Prof. Horst Bredekamp and Prof. Jürgen Trabnt. I wrote the book during my research fellowship with the group. Therefore, I would like to acknowledge the contribution of each of the groups’ member, for coming into discussion with this analysis; Alex Arteaga, Sabine Marienberg, Franz Engel, Ulrike Feist, Robert Felfe, Anja Pawel, Johanna Schiffl er, Mark-Oliver Casper, Katharina Lee Chichester, Hanna Fiegenbaum, Jörg Fingerhut, Sascha Freyberg, Nadine Lange, Yannis Hadjinicolaou, Marion Lauschke, Yasmin Meinicke, Moritz Queisner, Philipp Ruch, Jan Schröder, Stefan Trinks, Jörg Trempler, Patrizia Unger, Patrizia Pecl, Tullio Viola, Rebecca Spindler, Rebekka Hufendiek, Juliane Scharkowski, Markus Rath, Pablo Schneider, Amelie Ochs, Frederik

xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Wellmann and Prof. Jürgen Trabnt. Horst Bredekamp’s endowment to this work is especially remarkable. His theory of picture act interconnects the philosophy of embodiment with the perceptual authority of aesthetic images. This interconnection moved me to develop the comprehension of dance as an expressive perceptual process.

Throughout the years of developing the argumentations in this book, I discussed many of its ideas with colleagues and friends. Some insights and dialogues are remarkable since they helped me to better comprehend ideas that have found shape within this account. The infl uence of Prof. Gabriele Branstetter, from the Free University of Berlin, is profoundly signifi cant for understanding the expressive power of the sensing-moving body. The Israeli dance critique Gaby Aldor helped me to realize the impor-tance of physical intelligence, and a mutual research period with Deborah Friedes Galili led me to analyze the varied affects of Gaga’s instructions. Additionally, I wish to acknowledge the practical contributions of Gabriel Spitzer, Ariel Cohen, Uri Shafi r, Adi Weinberg and Merav Dagan that have been escorting me in realizing the impacts of attentiveness on virtu-osity. I am also thankful to Maria Büttner and Keren Shuster for reading fi rst drafts and commenting on them.

It is my chance now to open brackets. The unconditional support of my family is essential to me and to my work. I am grateful to my parents Adina and Itzhak Katan and to my siblings, Ido, Yaara and Roee. I feel blessed to have you as my core. I am also wholeheartedly appreciative of my loving partnership with Ali (Alexander) Schmid. Your stability and our mutual sense of balance inspire me to face all perceptual challenges with attentiveness, confi dence and trust.

xiii

Part I Embodied Philosophy in Dance: Introduction 1

1 Dance and Philosophy: Phrasing an Entrance 3

2 Dance as Embodied Philosophy 9

3 Habitus, Embodied Knowledge, and Physical Intelligence 23

4 Embodied Refl ections 31

Part II The Sensual Emphasis of Gaga 41

5 “Float!” 43

6 Enacting Perception 49

7 Extending Perception 57

CONTENTS

xiv CONTENTS

8 Dancing Metaphors 65

9 The Phenomenological Method of Gaga 77

Part III The Mental Emphasis of Gaga 85

10 “Connect Effort into Pleasure!” 87

11 The Challenge of a Perceptual Gap between Body and Mind 93

12 The Involvement of Psychology and Physicality 105

13 Comprehending Emotions and Directing a Mood 113

14 Intentionality and the Aesthetic Will 123

Part IV Gaga: Physical Practice of Intelligence 131

15 Multitasking Inquiries 133

16 Decision Making 139

17 The Intelligible Form 145

18 Rhythm: Synchronization of Body and Mind 153

19 The Physical Practice of Intelligence 161

CONTENTS xv

Part V The Moving Forms of Dancing Gaga 171

20 Bellus 173

21 The Dancing Body as a Means of Expression 179

22 Understanding Expressions 187

23 Moving Forms of Dance 199

Works Cited 213

Index 223

xvii

Fig. 1.1 From Ohad Naharin’s Mamootot, Batsheva Dance Company , 2008 (2003). Dancers: Andrea Martini, Bosmat Nossan. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2008 6

Fig. 5.1 From Session , improvisational dancework, according to Ohad Naharin’s repertory, Batsheva Dance Company , 2011. Dancers: Chen-Wei Lee and Shahar Binyamini. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon (2011) 44

Fig. 10.1 From Furo by Ohad Naharin and Tabaimo, Batsheva Dance Company . Dancers: Chen Wei Lee and Yaara Moses. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2008 89

Fig. 11.1 From Ohad Naharin and Batsheva Dance Company’s dancers, season 2011, Sadeh21 , Batsheva Dance Company , 2012. Dancers: Adi Zlatin, Ian Robinson. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2011 97

Fig. 14.1 From Ohad Nahrin’s Virus , Batsheva Dance Company . Except for Gili Navot, the dancer in the middle, the dancers activate a physical disposition of “being ready to move.” Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2005 124

Fig. 14.2 From Ohad Naharin’s Seder , Ensemble Batsheva, 2007. The dancer in the middle is Bobbi Jean Smith. Explosive power can affect all body parts organically following an order to “be ready to move!” In the picture, Smith controls her physical tension effortlessly and gracefully. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2007 127

Fig. 15.1 From Ohad Naharin’s Seder , Batsheva Ensemble, 2007. Dancer: Shahar Binyamini. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2007 134

LIST OF FIGURES

xviii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 17.1 From Ohad Naharin and the dancers of the Batsheva Dance Company , Sadeh21 , season 2011. Dancers: Shamel Pitts and Iyar Elezra. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2011 150

Fig. 23.1 From Ohad Naharin’s Three (Bellus) , Batsheva Dance Company , 2011 (2005). Dancers: Matan David, Iyar Elezra. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2011 201

Fig. 23.2 From Ohad Naharin’s Three (Bellus) , Batsheva Dance Company , 2011 (2005). Dancer: Erez Zohar. Picture courtesy of Gadi Dagon, 2011 209

PART I

Embodied Philosophy in Dance: Introduction

3© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016E. Katan, Embodied Philosophy in Dance, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-60186-5_1

CHAPTER 1

1 DANCE In the middle of the dance, one dancer steps into the center of the stage and gets undressed. A female dancer lies with her back on the fl oor beneath him, and observes her hands. She wears an outfi t resembling the one he wore a moment before: lusterless, pastel, and pale overalls with long sleeves. Her exposed body parts are dyed with grayish powder. His naked body is covered with the same pigment. Seven dancers are sitting among the audience and looking at the two dancers in the middle. Their outfi ts are similar, yet distinguished from one another by small nuances and tones. In the moment described, the woman stays still; but before the man joined her in the center, she had moved there alone. In her solo, she looked as if she were unsuccessfully trying to hold on to the last forces of movement and life. She slowly folded her body on the fl oor, pushing it, and collapsing again. When she was shoving her body away from the ground, she gained, for a short while, a fl oating state in her fl esh, but then again these momentary somatic lifts disappeared into breakdowns. In her movements, it seemed as if traces of living forces began to stir inside her. Then she stood up while the living vibrations she had acquired were still moving within her body. As she was slowly vibrating, her arms were fl ung into the air in repetitive, sharp explosions. While doing so, her fi ngers became thick and folded, as if she were trying, repeatedly, to reach something beyond her scope. Then her hands, limbs, and face became

Dance and Philosophy: Phrasing an Entrance

soft. She appeared to be calmly defeated. She then became thick again and started to shake from inside, then fi nally to fall, trembling, to the fl oor and onto her back. Alone in the space, moving as if unwonted physical impacts controlled her actions, she looked as if she were suffering and overpow-ered. Therefore, at the moment the man steps towards her, it seems as if he is coming to help.

He looks at her briefl y, and takes off his suit. On his entrance, the woman folded her body like a baby at his feet. By the time he has got-ten undressed, it seems as if perhaps he is going to cover her; however, instead of touching her, he starts to pose naked. The woman rolls on her back again. As the man begins to move, she rests and stares at her empty hands. In his exhibition, he seems to ignore her existence completely, just as he ignores his audience. His attention is directed towards himself. Thus, he seems indifferent to every single gaze in the room. At the same time, his movements and postures express sheer presentation. He shows off his muscles, and his thickly powdered body gives the impression that he is made out of stone. Due to his positions and movements, his pale, muscular body resembles a sculpture rather than a human being. His postures seem to copy an inanimate material, which imitates the celebra-tion of life. Subsequently, the artifi ciality of his positions protects him from the intimacy of the audience’s stares; he is not Steffan Ferry (the dancer’s name), but rather an aesthetic material that captures the aura of the perfect male. His nudity ceases to be his own. However, since he is focused on his own moves, it looks as if he is aware of his own appearance. Consequently, he acquires a dialectical quality: as a human, admiring spectator and as his object of glorifi cation. His dance turns into a narcissistic display. As if joyfully gaining awareness of his own objec-tifi cation in praise of the human body, he starts kissing his shoulders. When he kisses himself, the tension in his fl esh converts into softness. By means of this new smoothness in his physicality, he appears to regain his exclusive quality as an individual human being, one who possesses feel-ings and vulnerability. Suddenly, he changes his attitude and spits on his arms, strains his shoulder muscles again, and then returns to kissing his limbs. Alternately kissing and spitting on himself, he transforms between softening and tensing of his skeleton and fl esh. He sits down and almost lays himself next to the still female, but then he spits on himself again, and comes back to the ritual of posing, spitting, and kissing. He observes himself; his gaze follows his own bodily positions as he transfers his stiff arms from side to side like a mobile statue.

4 E. KATAN

After his performance, the female dancer rolls back towards him and stands up. He lifts her and carries her in his arms; her covered stomach touches his naked belly. They look at the audience and present themselves; her face is soft and tranquil, his face is stretched into a big smile from his mouth to his eyes, as if he is wearing a mask. She appears in front of us covered, yet exposed in her simplicity and vulnerability. He stands there unclothed, yet protected by his heroic gestures. 1

2 WORDS The description relates to a short sequence from Ohad Naharin’s Mamootot , a dance he created for the Batsheva Dance Company in 2003. The words describe two solos that take place successively. Translating the dance into words provides the dance with explicit verbal narration; the dancers’ actions gain metaphorical meaning, and tell a human story that goes beyond the actual movements. Watching the dance and translat-ing it into words is an interpretative act, like the effort of describing any phenomenon; in Heideggerian terms: “it puts the movement at hand” ( Zuhandenheit ). 2 That is to say, words provide movements with meaning by evoking their context. Consequently, the attempt to translate move-ment into linguistic sense is a hermeneutical act of understanding; it elabo-rates a tacit body of knowledge by contemplating its acts of sense making.

Following the hermeneutical tradition, making sense is an integrative act, which involves personal reformation and construction by the inter-preter. Thus, on the one hand, making implicit knowledge explicit adds meanings to a phenomenon. On the other hand, this claim does not mean that this world of added meanings transgresses the phenomenon. Rather, meaning that is added needs to derive from its tacit source 3 ; that is to say, the added meaning is already embodied in the phenomenon.

The hermeneutical defi nition of understanding stands in line with the essence of philosophy according to the Aristotelian tradition. Sophia , philo-sophical wisdom, is scientifi c knowledge ( Episteme ) combined with intuitive reason ( Nous ). 4 Episteme is the ability to argue about things and the compe-tence of demonstrating a conclusion through its analysis. Nous , on the other hand, is the capacity to grasp the fi rst principle; that is to say, to perceive the origin of things. 5 Thus, philosophical knowledge, accordingly, is explicit argu-mentation that fi nds its lines of analysis in a recognizable phenomenon as its source. It is following a line that is found by intuitive intelligence (the defi ni-tion of Nous ) rather than running with production without a source. The art

DANCE AND PHILOSOPHY: PHRASING AN ENTRANCE 5