Choreographer Hansen critiques misogyny in "Mr. Gaga" film

Anneke Hansen
(photo: Baille Younkman)

Yesterday, I received a letter dance artist Anneke Hansen sent to film producer Barak Heymann about Tomer Heymann's documentary, Mr. Gaga. After seeing the film, which deals with the life and work of acclaimed Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, Hansen spoke with the producer to voice her concerns as outlined here.

*****

Dear Mr. Heymann,

I am writing, as promised, to reiterate my dismay at the misogynistic filmmaking displayed in Mr. Gaga.

As I mentioned, I was appalled by the section of the film that covers Ohad Naharin's early years in NYC. The film shows archival footage of the women whose bodies helped realize and establish his aesthetic. It uses the voices of these women. For several minutes they occupy the screen without ever being credited by name. In contrast, a male dancer, Daniel Tishman, I believe, is identified by a caption. This is a great and offensive mistake.

The disrespect is deepened by the fact that, at the same point in the film, Mari Kajiwara is introduced as "the most beautiful woman" Ohad has ever seen. We watch Ms. Kajiwara dance for many minutes, learning of her unique artistry, her acclaimed work with Alvin Ailey, and - rather smugly - of Ohad's conquest, without ever learning her name. Again, this is shameful. It is only after several minutes that Ms. Kajiwara's first name is introduced, leaving the audience to wonder, for quite some time, what her full name might be.

This treatment of Ms. Kajiwara, and other women who danced with Mr. Naharin, is shameful. Your film treats them as lesser beings, as objects for Ohad Naharin's male brilliance, rather than the great artists who allow for the work's existence. The misogyny of your filmmaking accidentally highlights an old and ugly tradition in the field by replication: women have often been the clay from which men mold their names.

As a choreographer, I'm usually grateful to see a film about dance - especially when it receives some critical acclaim and support. In this case, however, I was left with a foul taste in my mouth.

I sincerely hope you will re-edit the film to name these women and give them respectful recognition for their work and contributions to Mr. Naharin's success. I intend to share this letter with the NYC dance press and community. I look forward to your response.

Best regards,
Anneke Hansen 

*****

Anneke Hansen is a choreographer, performer, and teacher based in new york city who primarily presents dance works through her company, Anneke Hansen Dance. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence college, her work has been presented in NYC by the Chocolate Factory Theater and as part of the La Mama moves! Festival, Draftworks at Danspace Project, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dance Conversations @ The Flea, and at University Settlement. Hansen has been international guest artist-in-residence at Dance House in Dublin, Ireland, Universidad de las Americas in Puebla, Mexico, and her company has enjoyed creative residencies at Rockbridge Arts Exchange in Virginia, and Vermont Academy in Saxtons River, VT. The company's work has been featured at the Big Range Dance Festival in Houston, TX, among other venues, and her site-specific work has been performed in NYC parks and abroad in Washington D.C. and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her most recent project, a collaboration with Lori Yuill, was selected as Best of Fringe at the Houston Fringe Festival, 2016. Anneke Hansen Dance has received funding from LMCC’s Manhattan Community Arts Fund, NYFA’s BUILD grant, and the Puffin Foundation. As a performer, Hansen has had the pleasure of dancing for New York choreographers Sara Rudner and Susan Rethorst, and for Australian choreographer Russell Dumas, among others. A student of anatomy, she served as assistant to master anatomist and neuromuscular educator Irene Dowd. In addition to teaching dance in both the US and abroad, Hansen maintains a practice as a private movement instructor in NYC, specializing in rehabilitative movement and performance training, and has taught anatomy at several area colleges. www.annekehansendance.com

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February US opening for film on Gaga's Naharin

Choreographer Ohad Naharin
(photo: Gadi Dagon)

Mr. Gaga, Tomer Heymann's 2015 documentary film, delves into the life and maverick work of Ohad Naharin, artistic director of Tel Aviv's Batsheva Dance Company. It will open in US theaters in February of next year.

Clips from an early film of young Naharin flipping and tumbling in the grass around his childhood home suggest the roots of his genius creation, Gaga dance. Son of a dancer, the youngster took obvious pleasure in physicality without fear or rules. The mature artist would come to offer students and dancers a pathway to the freedom he had always sought.

We see the contemporary Naharin in the studio urging dancers to "find a way to let go...just let it happen. The more you let go everywhere in your body at once, the softness of your flesh will protect you." Later, Heymann introduces archival footage of a callow-looking Naharin, serving in an army entertainment unit during the Yom Kippur War. We consider how being surrounded by danger and death might have influenced the intense, liberating aesthetic of Naharin's future work.

He began dance training late, at 22, he tells us as we glimpse clips of a sturdy young guy with confident presence and a sense of what was right or, more to the point, not right for him. Martha Graham was not. Maurice Béjart decidedly was not. At Juilliard, he got by, smartly imitating the technique he observed in ballet class. You clearly see his efforts did not go deep.

An injury led him to explore new strategies to heal his body and allow it more authentic expression. And it was something more, a connection to "feminine forces," as he describes them in the film, "delicacy and aggressiveness at once." Dance teacher Gina Buntz later speaks of Naharin's "Mediterranean spine...very womanly," and Heymann shows the dancer indeed working that glorious spine.

In one teaching moment, Naharin instructs a young man to dance "like you're going to save somebody's life and, if you don't, it's gone." In another scene, we watch a gorgeous, vigorous male duet as Naharin tells us, "Dance is the opposite of macho. Movement, in its purest source, is about gender." Regrettably, we do not hear more about this idea or really learn what makes Gaga work from the inside out. The movement often looks grotesque and mind-blowing. Heymann's sampling of it--lots of it--can make your heart race.

Filmmaker Tomer Heymann
(photo: Mari Laukkanen)

The filmmaker weaves in the story of Naharin's passionate life and partnership with his first wife, Mari Kajiwara, a beloved Alvin Ailey star who quit that company and followed him to Israel. He emphasizes that Kajiwara's grasp of Naharin's often elusive ideas and demanding methods was crucial to their effective transmission to dancers. Sadly, Kajiwara succumbed to cancer in Tel Aviv on Christmas 2001. The choreographer is now remarried and a father.

Celebrated worldwide, Naharin has not escaped controversy in his homeland. Ultra-religious parties took issue with the notion that his dancers, invited to perform in a gala celebration of Israel's 50th anniversary, would tear off their clothes to dance to a Passover Seder song in undershirts and shorts. Under pressure, the choreographer agreed to more modest costuming and then immediately resigned. When his dancers backed him up, refusing to perform at all, Naharin quickly resumed directorship of his company.

In a stunning moment in the film, he chides his nation as "a country infected by racism, hooliganism, widespread ignorance, abuse of power and fanaticism." He continues, "This influences the government we elect. This government has put at risk not only my work, but the actual survival of us all in this country, which I love so much.”

That's tough love, as his dancers would surely recognize it. As Heymann reveals, the choreographer thinks nothing of barking disapproval from the wings--and that's after reportedly sending performers onstage with this tender blessing:

Don't fuck with me. My life depends upon you.

Mr. Gaga (100 min./English/Hebrew) opens in US theaters on February 1, 2017. For further information on international theatrical release and festival screenings, click here.

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