This month at the Joyce, Batsheva—The Young Ensemble will perform NAHARIN’S VIRUS, choreographed by Ohad Naharin and inspired by Peter Handke’s play, Offending the Audience.
NAHARIN’S VIRUS, through July 22.
JOYCE THEATER, 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street), New York City.
Above: Ohad Naharin (right) rehearsing his dancers.
Below: Batsheva—The Young Ensemble, performing Naharin’s Virus.
Twyla Tharp had her Nine Sinatra Songs, and at the Wallis this week, Bodytraffic presents its take on the Great American Songbook with Matthew Neenan’s A MILLION VOICES, a new dance work set to five Peggy Lee performances, featuring standards by Arlen and Mercer, Irving Berlin, Leiber and Stoller, and, of course, Benny Goodman—the bandleader with whom Lee started working when she was 22.
Is that all there is? For this tenth anniversary engagement, Bodytraffic will open the show with BEYOND THE EDGE OF THE FRAME (choreographed by Sidra Bell) and an excerpt from FRAGILE DWELLINGS (Stijn Celis), and after the intermission audiences will see the company premiere of Ohad Naharin’s GEORGE & ZALMAN.
The evening will close with a return to jazz: O2JOY, by Richard Siegal, set to songs by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields, and performances by Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, and Clark Terry.
BODYTRAFFIC, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, May 31 through June 2, at 7:30 pm.
THE WALLIS, 9390 Santa Monica Boulevard North, Beverly Hills.
The company includes Tina Finkelman Berkett, Lorrin Brubaker, Joseph Davis, Haley Heckethorn, Natalie Leibert, Jessica Liu, Guzmán Rosado, and Jamal White.
Above: Choreographer Richard Siegal rehearsing O2Joy (in performance below).
Photograph below by Christopher Duggan.
The Los Angeles company premieres of Benjamin Millepied’s SARABANDE and Ohad Naharin’s YAG are among the highlights of L.A. Dance Project’s spring season at The Wallis.
Also on the bill: the three Graham pas de deux that make up MARTHA GRAHAM DUETS, and HELIX, choreographed by Justin Peck and set to music by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
For SARABANDE, Devan Jaquez (flute), and Fabiola Kim (violin) will accompany the dancers onstage.
Thursday through Saturday, April 5, 6, and 7, at 7:30 pm.
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
9390 Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills.
Above: L.A. Dance Project, Martha Graham Duets. Photograph by James Welling.
Below: Stephanie Amuro and Aaron Carr in Helix.
“I joined a company run by a straight man who loves women. Most dance companies are not like that. [Ohad Naharin] wanted strong, powerful women. He wanted thighs, ass, boobs, echoes of flesh moving. And he wants juice. He wants you to drip… ” — Bobbi Jene Smith, to Laura Dern, in the documentary BOBBI JENE
Iowan Bobbi Jene Smith left Juilliard at 21 to join the Batsheva Dance Company in Israel, and stayed for ten years as a dancer (and—in the beginning—lover of the artistic director Naharin, whose method, Gaga, is not only a great way to dance, but cured Bobbi’s eating disorder).
“There’s no time left.” — Bobbi Jene
At thirty, Bobbi was still bringing to the process the brilliant athleticism for which Batsheva is famous. But—working with young dancer/lover Or Meir Schraiber—she starts choreographing her own pieces and, soon enough, leaves Israel for a teaching position in the Bay Area that will give her the time and space to work.
In Elvira Lind’s documentary BOBBI JENE, the pleasure/pain nexus of dance underscores the story of a young woman unconstrained by shame, jumping at the chance to change her life before it’s too late.
BOBBI JENE, through October 12.
LAEMMLE ROYAL, 11523 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles.
laemmle.com/films/42876
Or Meir Schraiber and Bobbi Jene Smith.
