Ohad Naharin

Ohad Naharin is a choreographer, the creator of the Gaga movement language, and former Artistic Director of Batsheva Dance Company.
Born in 1952 in Mizra, Israel, he joined Batsheva Dance Company in 1974 despite having little training. During his first year, guest choreographer Martha Graham invited him to join her own company in New York, where Naharin later made his choreographic debut at the Kazuko Hirabayshi studio in 1980. For the next decade he presented works in New York and abroad, including pieces for Batsheva Dance Company, the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, and Nederlands Dans Theater. Naharin worked closely with his first wife, Mari Kajiwara, until she died from cancer in 2001.
In 1990, Naharin was appointed Artistic Director of Batsheva Dance Company, and in the same year, he established the company’s junior division, Batsheva – the Young Ensemble. He has since created over thirty works for both companies and set pieces on many others like the Paris Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theatre, the Royal Danish Ballet, and les Grand Ballets Canadiens de Montréal. He has also collaborated with musicians, including The Tractor’s Revenge, Avi Balleli and Dan Makov, Ivri Lider, and Grischa Lichtenberger. Under the pseudonym Maxim Waratt, he composed, edited, and mixed many of his own soundtracks. Naharin’s work has been featured in several films, including Tomer Heymann’s “Out of Focus”(2007) and the Heymann Brothers’ “Mr. Gaga”(2015).
In addition to his stagework, Naharin also developed Gaga, the innovative movement research and daily training of Batsheva’s dancers that has spread internationally among both dancers and non-dancers.
After almost thirty years of leading Batsheva, Naharin stepped down as Artistic Director in 2018, though he continues to serve as House Choreographer. Batsheva will also continue to be the home of Ohad’s research, development, and teaching of Gaga. A citizen of both Israel and the United States, Naharin currently lives in Israel with his wife, dancer and costume designer Eri Nakamura, and their two children, Noga and Asa.