Gaga for GAGA dance

GAGA in motion at Cedar Lake Dance

Gaga for GAGA dance

By Lisa Santandrea

There are just five of us on the first day of class: two men, three women. One arrived by the suggestion of a trusted yoga instructor, others were enticed by a mysterious e-mail announcement: GAGA classes at Cedar Lake Dance in Chelsea, taught by dancers of Israel’s famed Batsheva Dance Company. We sit on the floor of the stage, facing Shani Garfinkel, our GAGA instructor. “We won’t stop until it’s over,” she informs us, then quickly reassures, “but nothing should hurt.”

She jumps to her feet: “Okay!” We rise, appropriating the expectant poses of those schooled in following the leader. Of course, we’ll follow, but what? Will the demands of GAGA be aerobic in nature? Will it require yogi-like stretches and precision, or a Joseph Pilates-inspired focus on the core? Music by the downtempo UK band, Zero7, fills the room.

GAGA begins in the hands. Following Garfinkel’s lead, we stretch our fingers, separate them, move them in circles, arch and bend. Then the wrists are added to the cycle of circles, which eventually takes over our shoulders, ankles, our torsos and toes. Directions are definitively non-precise, often combined with images designed to evoke feeling, such as “You’re in a cold shower. Let the water run over you.” Each student develops his or her own groove, arms overhead, bodies gyrating. We have become a room of acid-tripping dancers in a ’60s B-movie. “Imagine looking at yourself from above,” Garfinkel instructs at one point. “Notice how silly you look. Take pleasure in it,” she adds, guiding us toward complete abandon. It is an eye-opening instruction: Whatever we’re doing, we’re doing it right. The sudden realization that we’ve become an undulating mass driven by our body’s desire to move is a shocker. It also seems to be the point of GAGA — that, and the pleasure of it all.

GAGA is the creation of Ohad Naharin, artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company. The name itself, GAGA, means nothing. “We used to call it the ‘language of Ohad Naharin,’” Garfinkel explains, “and that just was shortened to GAGA.” The company was formed in 1964 by Martha Graham and Batsheva de Rothschild. A protégé of Graham’s, Naharin became artistic director in 1990. His company’s performances have been heralded as vibrant masterpieces of mystery and sensuality.

In June, dancers from the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet will perform Naharin’s “Decadance,” a program of reconstructed excerpts from ten works created between 1985 and 2006.

For Batsheva dancers, GAGA is essential daily practice. Garfinkel describes it as “training yourself to release movement potential.” “It’s not a physical challenge,” she explains. Instead, “it’s a combination of the passion to move, the effort and the pleasure.” It began 20 years ago when Naharin was providing choreography for Batsheva dancers. After a serious back injury, he explained by e-mail, “I needed two things: to get my body to move a little bit and also to be able to give other people the keys to the way to move in my work.” In the process, “I developed an awareness that had to do with finding where in my body I'm not hurting and where in my body I have unused muscles, unused movement.” Eventually, through continued communication of such movement to his dancers, “it became a language and a method.” For professional dancers, Naharin considers GAGA “higher education.” He says, “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. If someone wants to be a ballerina, then GAGA can help her to be a ballerina.”

Providing GAGA instruction to non-dancers happened “almost as a joke,” says Naharin. About ten years ago, he began providing twice-a-week instruction to five non-dancers who worked for Batsheva. “Very quickly, I learned a lot about movement, movement habits… but in a new light because none of them had the ambition to be on stage. They just wanted to feel better, and to move better and to get stronger. So then GAGA became something that had nothing to do with the performing arts, just with the maintenance of your body — healing your body, finding pleasure and joy in movement. That became a very serious thing in my life — working with non-dancers. Today [in Israel] we have a venue with hundreds of non-dancers who come to take GAGA classes.” The classes at Cedar Lake, which began earlier this month, are the first he’s offered in the U.S.

There is no “script” for a GAGA session. Although Garfinkel aims to create a few movements in which effort is maximized, the impetus is on creating an experience in which one can let go. For that reason, there are no mirrors in the room. When asked if this is intentional, she nods emphatically. “It doesn’t matter what it looks like from the outside.”

GAGA classes are scheduled through April 27 at Cedar Lake, 547 W 26th Street, www.cedarlakedance.com. Separate sessions are held for dance professionals and non-dancers. Ohad Naharin will teach classes on March 29, 30, and 31. Tickets are available at www.smarttix.com.