One of the most revered international performance groups, the Batsheva Dance Company, is making its long-awaited Cal Performances debut February 22 and 23, 2025. Originally scheduled to perform in the Spring of 2024, in late 2023 Batsheva postponed their US engagements as a result of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. The conflict began on October 7, 2023 with terrorist attacks on southern Israel led by the Palestinian group Hamas in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 kidnapped. In the more than 500 days since the conflict began, the retaliatory attacks by Israel armed forces have resulted in the death of approximately 62,000 Palestinians and 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Chants of “Palestine will be Free” greet patrons arriving at Zellerbach Hall on the CAL Berkeley campus for the Sunday matinee. A line of steel police barricade fencing creates a barrier and safe zone between the venue and two-dozen protestors, who wave flags and carry banners. Dancers for Palestine are advocating for a boycott of Batsheva, whom they see as an Israeli PR tool. Discussions of why a boycott would or would not be appropriate are nuanced and complicated. An informative and well-written argument was published this month in the Bay Area’s Dancers’ Group publication.
The Bay Area premiere of MOMO, a new work by Batsheva’s esteemed choreographer Ohad Naharin, begins without fanfare as four men appear on the horizon. They are dimly lit and initially difficult to distinguish with the houselights still glaringly bright. A hush falls over the audience as we observe their linear formation, their matching profiles, upright with an aggressively bent elbow jutting to the side. Bare-chested and barefoot, in blue-grey cargo pants, they slowly stride the perimeter of the stage making sharp right-angled turns before coming to stillness downstage center. This quartet, who I will call “The Men,” mostly move in synch with each other throughout the 70-minute performance. They are masculinity embodied, physically capable, strong, and direct. Their faces are neutral. Any emotion they feel is fleeting, easily released with another push-up or a brief bellow.
Into their midst a fay man cat walks balanced on the balls of his hyperextended bare feet. Dressed in a nude leotard, he seems exposed; his movements are exaggerated and feminine. He is the first of eight dancers, we will call them “The Individuals,” who arrive one-by-one bringing their own unique off-kilter vibe and anxious vulnerabilities. A woman skitters on and poses as a femme fatale. Kneeling with legs and arms wide spread she faces us, dripping forward head to the floor in an act of submissive sacrifice before repeatedly jerking back to her splayed pose. A small man, naked but for a high-waisted white tutu, hovers in the deepest plié. Another enters careening drunkenly. A woman bunny-hops across the stage. Naharin’s choreography is fascinating to watch, as it plays with asymmetrical balances, gravity-defying suspensions, and uncomfortable contortions.
In contrast to the quirky individuation of the eclectic band of misfits, The Men’s movements are sharper and more acrobatic. They process in a slow-motion high-kneed line-dance, with arms draped over each other’s shoulders, as well as more traditional boyhood fare like handstands. Their militaristic allegiance to group conformity takes a humorous turn as they assume an ass-kissing pose, aligned in an unwavering bear-plank with heads rammed into the butt of the man in front of them.
The Individuals observe The Men from the shadows, occasionally attempting to interact with them, through taunts and sexual advances. Their efforts cause only the briefest of disruptions to The Men’s agenda.
In the background, a dimly lit patchy grey infinity seems to exist in which The Men now float, climbing skyward through the darkness to assume Buddha-like seated poses 15-feet in the air. Over time one discovers a stage-width climbing wall at the rear, offering a new vantage and a break from the confines of earthbound existence. By lighting only the ascending dancers and keeping the wall’s foothold shelves in shadow, Lighting Designer Avi Yona Bueno does a marvelous job of maintaining the mystery.
Halfway through MOMO, Naharin offers a reflection on ballet, emphasizing its rigor and insistence on conformity, but also how it unites all practitioners. This section performed to the distinctive piano rhythms of Philip Glass’s Metamorphosis Two, begins with a tour de force solo by Londiwe Khoza. Alone, center stage at a ballet barre she explores the unusual possibilities of the apparatus. Whether balancing along the barre on her belly or suspended underneath it like a super hero midflight (a pose created by crooking an ankle and her opposite elbow over the bar) she seems to defy gravity.
A rebuttal to her machination arrives as the entire company enters, each with their own barre on which all, The Individuals and The Men alike, perform a series of dauntingly demanding barre work.
One of the most poignant moments for me occurs, as The Men, who have been standing commandingly with their arms crossed, suddenly launch into a complicated series of twists and jumps while continuing to hold their arms crossed. They look like they are struggling to escape from invisible straight-jackets, offering a glimpse of the restrictive reality to which their gender-role adherence has them confined.
Later, a periodic booming intrudes. With each percussion, The Individuals startle and writhe into a new warped pose or frantic staccato skitter. Over time the cadence increases, leaving no rest between pulses, the provoking pounding is almost constant. Is this a metaphor for explosions both real and/or interior?
As the end nears, The Individuals develop a habit of raising their hands in unison. Are they answering a role call? Being counted? Hoping to be noticed? Whatever the impetus, this yielding to conformity and expectations is concerning. In the end The Men march on, seemingly unaware that The Individuals have made a creative escape.
One of the many pleasures of abstract art is its ability to mean different things to different people, stimulating thought and conversation and the sharing of perspectives. At face value MOMO is, as described in press materials, two pieces melded as one, the first exploring “the myths of raw masculinity” and the other “a search for individual and distinct DNA.” However, the longer I have reflected on it, and a friend’s comment about the militaristic aspect of The Men as an occupying force, the more I have come to wonder whether MOMO, which premiered in Israel in December 2022, is a commentary on the disparate groups living in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
We exit into a throng of vehement protestors, forcing us to contemplate the power of art to provoke passionate response.
Review by Jen Norris, published February 26, 2025.
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Saturday, February 22, 2025, 8pm
Sunday, February 23, 2025, 3pm
Zellerbach Hall Batsheva Dance Company
MOMO
Choreography Ohad Naharin
Lighting Design Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi)
Sound Design and Editing Maxim Waratt
Costume Design Eri Nakamura
Set and Props Design Gadi Tzachor
Co-Creators Batsheva Dance Company
Dancers Season 2022–23 and Ariel Cohen
Performed by 11 Batsheva Dance Company Dancers
Company Dancers Season 2024-25 Yarden Bareket, Adi Blumenreich, Emil Brukman, Nathan Chipps, Holden Cole, Guy Davidson, Iyar Elezra, Sean Howe, Londiwe Khoza, Adrienne Lipson, Bo Matthews, Eri Nakamura, Sofiia Pikalova, Danai Porat, Igor Ptashenchuk, Yoni (Yonatan) Simon, Annika Verplancke, Gili Yaniv Amodai, Yarden Zana
Produced by Batsheva Dance Company
Co-producers Orsolina28 Art Foundation, Moncalvo Presenting Co-producers Torinodanza Festival / Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale / Festival Aperto – Fondazione | Teatri, Reggio Emilia / Fondazione del Teatro Grande di Brescia
Music
“Helicopters Hang Over Downtown,” “Built You a Mountain,” “Riding Bicycles Through the Muddy Streets,” “The Electricity Goes out and We Move to a Hotel,” “Then It Receded,” “Wind Whistles Through the Dark City,” “Darkness Falls,” “CNN Predicts a Monster Storm,” “Dawn of the World,” “Another Long Evening,” “All The Extinct Animals,” and “The Dark Side” performed by Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet, courtesy of Nonesuch Records. By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing.
“Metamorphosis Two” by Philip Glass © 1988 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc.; used by permission Philip Glass is managed and published by Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc. Adrienne White, director Richard Guerin, head of repertoire and promotion
“Madre Acapella” by Arca Maxim Waratt