It was under tight security that we were allowed in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele for the German premiere of Momo by the Israeli dance company Batsheva. Originally premiered in 2022, Momo is an interesting mix of lightness and anguish, in which Ohad Naharin’s movement language, Gaga, is at its core. Cryptic yet enlightening, Momo is a journey into another world. There is no narrative to be found, but rather a series of atmospheric sequences evoked by the slow movements and the contrast of seemingly unrelated elements, creating a texture of inputs as ambiguous as reality itself.
Founded in 1964 by the American modern dance icon Martha Graham upon the wish of her patron, the Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, to promote modern dance in Israel, the company was led between 1990 and 2018 by Naharin, who is now its resident choreographer and the creator of its distinctive movement language. Diametrically opposite to ballet – though ballet is in evidence in Momo – Gaga is based on the dancers’ ability to navigate complex sensory imaginary worlds, built on the dancers’ visceral physicality. Similarly, the message, or rather the aesthetic experience, is conveyed in a different way.
It is impalpable and difficult to grasp through logic, let alone express in words. It is pure energy. Writing about it seems almost impossible, because it is an embodied experience. In doing so, I will only shed light on part of the work, taking away from its structure.
It takes a while for the chattering crowd to notice the four unassuming men walking silently across the stage as if on the moon. Dressed in grey cargo trousers and bare torsos, they looked like ordinary people strolling around on a hot summer's day. Then they moved towards the audience and began to interact with each other, but always in a line, one as the shadow of the one in front. They worked as a corps de ballet. They never split and were often in opposition (at odds?) with the other dancers. A woman entered, gliding across the stage, balancing in relevé, her tiny white dress a perfect contrast with her complexion. One by one, the other eccentric characters entered, all wearing different costumes: a tutu with corset and a bare torso, a powder pink velvet leotard with shoulder pads but no leggings, skin-coloured shorts and tops. The group moved undisturbed, while the others had their moment of spotlight.
In another sequence, the group crawled vertically onto the barely visible holds on the wall at the back. They became a half-lit bas-relief witnessing what is happening on stage. The same woman in the white micro dress was given a ballet barre. She began by performing an exaggerated sequence of exercises at high speed, which slowly degenerated until she was suspended from the barre. Her movements were elegant and effortless, even though they defy gravity as she floated in the air. The rest of the dancers on stage were also given barres and performed high-speed, ballet-inspired movements, but in a violent way. The dancers flung around and on the barre, different parts of their bodies. It's almost a parody of what ballet is. Somehow, the scene reminded me of Christian Spuck's Le Tableau Perdu (2007) for the Royal Swedish Ballet in terms of colour, lighting design and the reference to ballet.
What is particular about the work is that often multiple tracks seemed to be playing simultaneously – the soundscape is composed by Landfall, a 2018 collaboration between Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet, and music by Philip Glass, Arca, and Maxim Warat – with dancers relating their movement to one or another piece of music. This added complexity and depth to the tableaux. The movement material alternated between the soft movements as if in the absence of gravity, the group contrasted to the fast, jerking bodies of the other dancers. The bodies were elastic and supple. Sometimes melting, sometimes exploding in an unexpected aerial cartwheel. In the description we read that, “MOMO has two souls. One sends long roots to the depths of the earth – a soul that embodies archetypes and myths of hardened, raw masculinity, and the other is in a constant search for an individual and distinct DNA; alternately drifting away and towards it, making room for necessary tenderness and catharsis”.
The dancers and their excellent technique deserve special mention. Profoundly tactile in the execution, the dancers’ movements evoked in me kinesthetic empathy. Explosive movements were followed by tender, careful ones. My mirror neurons transported me into the tactile worlds of the dancers, skilled at transitioning between movement qualities, I bathed in a wealth of inputs (in particular tenderness and care). And so did the rest of the audience as they cheered.
