Overview
Hora – The Movie is Ohad Naharin’s second film. Just like in YAG – The Movie in 2020, Naharin again transports choreography created for the stage through the camera’s lens, adapting it to create a new piece.
Filming a performance allows for an even more intimate, tender and disturbing glimpse into a parallel universe. In this dark world, the dancers emerge from a black space to the timeless music of Isao Tomita, their bodies delineating human-dance calligraphy like a code written and erased.
Naharin’s cinematic lab adds a new choreographic layer to the stage work – the camera’s movement through space. Actions in the editing room, like acceleration or deceleration transitions and cuts, are given a central place and lead to the discovery and revelation of new creative expressions.
Hora – The Movie is another opportunity to delve into the fascinating evolution of Naharin’s work in search of new ways to create and experience dance.
Dedicated To Sofia Naharin
This Digidance livestream is an initiative of DanceHouse (Vancouver), Danse Danse (Montreal), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto) and the National Arts Centre (Ottawa).
About Batsheva Dance Company
The Batsheva Dance Company, widely recognized as one of the foremost contemporary dance companies, was founded in 1964 as a repertoire company by Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild. It is one of the world’s leading and most respected dance troupes thanks to the bold choreographic voice of the house choreographer Ohad Naharin and the uncompromising performance quality of the company’s dancers.
About Ohad Naharin
A citizen of Israel and the United States, Ohad Naharin is the house choreographer and former artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company. He has created over 30 stage works for the company. He is the proprietary founder of the innovative movement language, GAGA, which is the daily training of Batsheva’s dancers and has spread globally among dancers and non-dancers.
Naharin has been awarded many distinctions, namely honorary doctorates at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Hebrew University, an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Juilliard School in New York, the Israel Ministry of Culture Award for Lifetime Achievement, an Honorary Fellowship by Tel-Aviv University, an Honorary Doctorate by the Ben Gurion University of the Negev and many more.
He continues to infuse his work with a unique musicality, and his musical collaborations and work in films have reached critical and audience acclaim.
Additional Credits
Batsheva Dance Company thanks its American friends for their generous support in the production of this film: The Chleck Family Foundation; The Zita and Mark Bernstein Family Foundation; The Jerome L. Stern Family Foundation; Nurit and Rick Amdur; American Friends of Batsheva New Works Fund.
Director: Ohad Naharin
Cinematographer: Roee Shalti
Editors: Roee Shalti and Ohad Naharin
Costume design: Eri Nakamura
Text about the movie: Shira Vitaly
Music: Isao Tomita, Modest Moussorgsky, Claude Debussy, Charles Ives, Yehonatan Oppenheim, Ikeda Ryoji, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Joaquin Rodrigo, Edvard Grieg, Jean Sibelius
An Online World Premiere March 11-13, 2022
Co-produced by Factory 54