Naharin's Early Training and Lineage

"Connect to pleasure."- Ohad Naharin

Ohad Naharin began his training when he was 22 years old at the newly found Batsheva Dance Company, under the direction of Martha Graham and Batsheva de Rothschild. He soon became the troupe’s newest member and was then asked by Martha Graham to join her company in New York around 1975.  Nahrin was very influenced by Graham, but often sought out something different in his training. When asked in a 2006 interview about  his days working with Graham, Naharin says," You know, I have a lot of respect and love and admiration for what she did, but it's not her movement vocabulary or aesthetic that inspires me. I'm more attracted to minimalist dance, and Martha, she was completely different. She also separated women from men in dance, she had these roles, and there was a lot of presence of ego. But she was really a genius, amazing. Her influence on me is limited - I mean, it was only for one year of my life - but what I learnt from her was her spirit and her love of dance." 

It was because of these minimal disagreements with the Graham technique that Naharin also studied with other dancers and choreographers who were in New York at the time. For example, Naharin sought out to work with those he was most influenced by, like Merce Cunningham, William Forsythe, and Pina Bausch. Naharin was especially influenced and inspired by David Gordon; Naharin took great interest in Gordon’s perception of space and its relation to the body, as well as Gordon’s ideas about multidimensional movement. In addition, Naharin took the time to study more technique at the Julliard School for about a year, and then left New York to dance overseas with such choreographers as Maurice Bejart and Israel’s Bat-Bor Dance Company. After dancing abroad, Naharin returned to New York to really develop his career as a choreographer.

 I truly believe that Ohad Naharin would not have been as successful as he is today without his training and lineage to the dancers mentioned above, as well as his ability to take all of their ideas and make them his own!