Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company will alternate between an all-female and all-male cast for PROJECT 5 at the Joyce (photo by Gadi Dagon)
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
September 21 – October 3, $10-$69
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.batsheva.co.il
The dazzling PROJECT 5, an hour-long four-piece show that features either an all-male or all-female cast depending on the night, marks the return of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company to the Joyce after more than a quarter-century and the first time longtime artistic director Ohad Naharin has presented work at the dance mecca. The two-week run began with the women on Sept. 21, with Iyar Elezera, Shani Garfinkel, Bosmat Nossan, Michal Sayfan, and Bobbi Smith taking the stage in “George & Zalman,” a 2006 work that combines text by Charles Bukowski and Arvo Pärt’s sparse tintinnabuli piano solo “Für Alina.” As a recording of Smith’s voice intones the lyrics — “Ignore / Ignore all / Ignore all possible concepts and possibilities” — which build in repetitive, cumulative phrases, the five dancers express their own movement phrases to accompany the words, only at certain times coming together in the same movement. Wearing black knee-length dresses, they each perform a solo at the end, temporarily breaking them away from the group dynamic. Naharin’s offbeat choice to use a Bukowski text, which as expected includes language not generally found in contemporary dance, threatens to be shocking but ends up being rather poetic. (It also led to the older couple next to us asking, “What is the difference between fucking and copulating?” while the woman behind us wondered aloud who Bukowski was.) “George & Zalman” is followed by the gorgeous pas de deux “Bolero,” with Elezra and Nossan building in intensity to Isao Tomita’s electronic version of the Maurice Ravel standard. Sayfan, Smith, and Garfinkel form a kind of avant-garde girl group in “Park,” a short excerpt from the longer 1999 work “Moshe.” The trio, behind microphones, sing in Hebrew, incorporating sharp, angular movements between verses. Following a five-minute video pause, all five women perform the breathtaking “Black Milk.” Now wearing off-white two-piece costumes with flowing skirts that recall Middle Eastern dress, the dancers wipe mud on their faces and bodies and form into pairs, depicting a more physical language of romance and violence, featuring holds, pushes, and embraces, the first time they have actually touched one another all night. PROJECT 5 is another superior display from one of the world’s most inventive and talented companies. (PROJECT 5 continues through Oct. 3, with the women performing Sept. 22-23, 25, and 26 and the men Sept. 24-25, 28-30, and Oct. 2-3.)