Goldblatt University

It was terrific to see Batsheva perform Deca Dance 2008 as part of the Edinburgh International Festival this August at the Edinburgh Playhouse. Deca Dance is a performance that the audience will not soon forget. The performers are breathtaking in their maneuvering of beautiful contemporary dance which takes all the casual, provocative attitude of post-modern dance performance while wrapping it into some of the most skillful dancing you are likely to see. They bring a unique and provocative Israeli perspective in both their physical movements and the intellectual themes at play. This is Dance with a capital D that even the most illiterate yokels will love. The only problem with the show is that it’s 10 years old.

Deca Dance is a “Best Of” compilation of Artistic Director Ohad Naharin’s most famous dances choreographed for Batsheva over the years. I first saw Deca Dance at the Kennedy Center 5 years ago, when all the dances were already quite old. I need to emphasize this: I saw this show twice. That’s how good it is. I would happily pay money to see it again. It is that good. But I also want to see them do something new.

Of course, it’s the safest financial strategy for them to tour their best hits, but eventually we will want to see new work from them.

You can see one of the pieces from Deca Dance in the video above. There is a tasty dynamic of toying with audience expectations (dancers standing still for extended periods) and rewarding the audience with bravura displays of rich, emotional, athletic dance. They often work with game structures (repetition with slight alterations, mathematical build-ups) which gives dancers opportunities to break out phenomenal solos.