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PREVIOUSLY PLAYED

MR. GAGA

12:30   2:40   4:50   7:10*   9:20

Final Day - Thursday, February 16

DIRECTED BY TOMER HEYMANN
PRODUCED BY BARAK HEYMANN

Ohad Naharin, the brilliant and charismatic choreographer, dancer and, since 1990, Director of Tel Aviv’s Batsheva Dance Company, is an ideal subject for Israeli documentary filmmakers, the Heymann Brothers. They’ve devoted eight years to piecing together rehearsal footage, archival materials from Naharin’s years as a dancer with the Martha Graham and Maurice Béjart companies, and candid moments from his restless, peripatetic creative life. Internationally acclaimed for his dramatic, hard-driving, ritualistic, sometimes dangerous-seeming dances that are filled with erotica and suspense, Naharin has been “hailed as one of the most influential luminaries of contemporary dance… the ineffable quality of (whose) choreography is inextricable from another of his creations, a language he calls Gaga. Gaga is a set of invented words and phrases designed to provoke movements – by turns ugly, exquisite and silly – which together constitute an anti-technique, a way to escape the tried-and-tested style of modern and contemporary dance and break into a new range.”-Anna Della Subin, The New York Times.  

Presented with generous support from the Joan S. Constantiner Fund for Jewish and Holocaust Films.

ISRAEL / SWEDEN / GERMANY/ THE NETHERLANDS    2015   100 MINS   IN ENGLISH AND HEBREW WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES    ABRAMORAMA

Reviews

“Highly recommended. Mr. Naharin… creates slippery, enigmatic dances that flicker between strident assertions of bold physicality and buttery fluidity.”
– Gia Kourlas, The New York Times

“Ohad Naharin is the 64-year-old dean of new Israeli dance. Charismatic, magnetic, imperious, and intense… MR. GAGA (is) a smash hit in Israel, where people return to see it several times…(the film) masterfully portrays one of the most vital dance artists of the past half-century… On the whole, MR. GAGA is extraordinarily thorough and compelling. Even better, it helps those unfamiliar with the company – or perhaps with dance itself – to get a handle on the essence and practices of creative process and performance.”
– Elizabeth Zimmer, Village Voice

“As dramatic as any feature film. It includes rare home movies of [Ohad] Naharin and his late wife performing, as well as beautifully observed moments of Naharin working with dancers and clips of his most famous pieces.”
– Hannah Brown, Jerusalem Post

“Compelling...with a complex, compelling lead character and plenty of striking performance footage.”
– Dennis Harvey, Variety

“Shows you much of Naharin’s groundbreaking work, but it also goes deep trying to penetrate his psyche. The dance sequences...are presented beautifully on screen. If you know nothing of dance, or don’t have the slightest interest in it, you will still be mystified… Tomer Heymann perfectly melds the performances into the story.”
– Jonathan Poritsky, HEEB

Film Forum