Venezuela

With Venezuela, the Staatsballett Hannover presents one of Ohad Naharin's most radical and at the same time most poetic works. Created in 2017, the work unfolds in two 40-minute sections in which the same choreography is danced twice. The steps remain the same, but the cast, the music, the light and the energetic tension are different. The first part is accompanied by Gregorian chants, in the second part the same movements meet a collage-like soundscape of rap, metal, hip-hop, rock, drone and Bollywood sounds. As is typical of Naharin's movement language, extreme physical states change abruptly: flowing softness turns into explosive frenzy, intimate duets are juxtaposed with collectively charged group scenes. Elements of Argentinian tango are transformed into a raw form. Naharin uses repetition as a means of experimentation, showing how meaning shifts through changes in context - how dance does not define meaning, but puts it up for discussion.
Born in 1952 in the Israeli kibbutz Mizra, Naharin accepted an invitation from modern dance icon Martha Graham to New York in the mid-1970s and later danced in Maurice Béjart's Ballet du XXe Siècle. He created the majority of his extensive oeuvre for the Tel Aviv-based Batsheva Dance Company, which he directed from 1990 to 2018. With his technique, known as "Gaga", he developed his own training method based on the knowledge of the dynamic, constantly changing power of movement.