Choreographer Ohad Naharin's 'Zō' Calls for Listening Beyond Understanding

The latest creation from renowned Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, titled "Zō" (the Japanese word for elephant), challenges audiences to listen beyond language barriers. Performed by the Nederlands Dans Theater, the piece, which runs for approximately 70 minutes, is a vibrant exploration of connection and emotion, culminating in a striking visual metaphor.

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Listen, even if you don't understand each other, to the sound and rhythm, but especially to the universal emotion.

Naharin, a former director of the acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company, is celebrated for developing the Gaga movement language. This technique empowers dancers with extreme flexibility, dynamism, and improvisational skills to translate inner sensations into movement. For the dancers of Nederlands Dans Theater, "Zō" presents a thrilling opportunity to embody Naharin's distinctive style, characterized by raw elegance and controlled power.

The performance opens with dancers engaging the audience, setting a tone of connection before launching into Naharin's signature energetic and precise choreography. Dancers accompany themselves with staccato singing, executing synchronized group movements that range from deep pliés to sharp, exclamation-point-like arm gestures. They move like animals, sometimes forming intricate clusters of connected bodies, other times dispersing into folk-like or martial formations.

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The dancers of Nederlands Dans Theater are performing Zō 'around' in the black box of Amare.

A central theme of "Zō" is the importance of listening, even when understanding is not possible. This is underscored by the use of multiple languages within the performance and an implicit call to perceive universal emotions through sound and rhythm. The piece builds with compelling urgency, notably through a dancer's rendition of a song about the helplessness of witnessing injustice. The rhythm is a constant driving force, with dancers entering and exiting, the music shifting from powerful to spatial, and moments of silence amplifying the auditory experience, urging the audience to truly listen and not look away.

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With his Gaga technique, he gave dancers the tools to deploy extreme flexibility, dynamism, and improvisation skills in translating inner sensations.

Towards the end, the performance introduces a literal "elephant in the room", a large inflatable elephant, set to ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme!" This visual element, juxtaposed with deceptively sweet and colorful imagery, adds another layer to Naharin's complex and engaging work, which consistently pushes the boundaries of contemporary dance.

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All with great urgency, especially the despair of Surimu Fukushi, who sings 'Wei Wei Wei,' a song about the helpless feeling of not being able to intervene in abuses, is inescapable.