The Batsheva Dance Company’s FURO (2006) marked Tabaimo’s first foray into collaboration with dance. The commission came from the company’s artistic director who fell hopelessly in love with the artist’s Japanese Bathhouse. What was it that drew the world-renowned choreographer to Tabaimo’s work?
by Ohad Naharin (Choreographer)
When I saw Tabaimo’s work for the first time in New York some four years ago, I didn’t care to understand what I saw, didn’t care to look for any point of reference. I knew I was in love!
This happens to me very rarely. With Tabaimo’s work it happened instantly. Now reflecting back on this strong reaction, I can best explain it as recognizing that Tabaimo’s work is a combination of the highest skills with the greatest passion – a combination essential to all good art. When it comes with abandon like in Tabaimo’s work, it is overwhelming.
I love the drama she creates, the multilayer tasks she give us, the delicacy, small gesture with great beauty. I learn from her ability to create understatements and moments of exaggeration. I like her sense of humor. She doesn’t tell jokes, she tickles… and you can see that she is laughing at herself. I love her composition and her sense of timing. Her use of repetition is a journey in human values.
Meeting her and working with her only raised my appreciation of her and her work. So open minded, so generous, encouraging and supportive, she is the collaborator to dream of. In bringing dancers/people into Tabaimo’s work I have not tried to ‘fit in’. I have not tried to ‘fit in’ with the choice of movement, I have not tried to Ifit in’ with the choice of music or with the choice of costumes. I dont know if it was a clash or a fusion, yet something new came out of it, an experience I could not have imagined existing.
We were in the same space, at the same time, meeting in our common storage room where we keep our dreams and most personal gestures. Gestures that go beyond national, ethnic, cultural connotations. Where I tried to connect to Tabaimo is where sensations, repetition, texture, attention to small details, totality, sexuality, madness, abuse of power, stupidity, composition, and the tension between those elements meet and have no geographic identity or borders.
Dance installation FURO (2006)
Choreography: Ohad Naharin
Sound: Ohad Fishof
Stage design and video: Tabaimo
Ohad Naharin
Born 1952 in Israel. Naharin started dancing at age 22 with the Batsheva Dance Company. He relocated to New York in 1975, where he joined the Martha Graham Company, and studied at the Juilliard School of Music. He made his choreographic debut in 1980 in the Kazuko Hirabayashi Studio in New York. In 1990, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Batsheva Dance Company, where he produced numerous works including Anaphaza (Anaphase) and Deca Dance. Awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1998, New York Dance and Performance Awards (aka the Bessies) in 2002 and 2004, and the Israel Prize for dance in 2005. Naharin developed a dance technique called Gaga, which has become popular also with Israeli youth.