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Tel Aviv’s Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre is a crucial catalyst in the Israeli performing-arts world. A complex of theater and dance spaces, halls, and classrooms, it is an anchor point in the colorful Neve Tzedek neighborhood, and a pioneer in the area’s recent renovation. Its campus was originally constructed in the late 1800s as a school, in the very earliest days of Tel Aviv’s history, and its airy courtyards and calm cafés today offer a pleasant break from the busy shopping area just outside its walls. The Centre is home to the Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company, the Orna Porat youth theater, and—perhaps its most celebrated component—the Batsheva Dance Company, under the direction of choreographer Ohad Naharin.

“A complex of theater and dance spaces, halls, classrooms, an anchor point in the colorful Neve Tzedek neighborhood.”

Superstars from all over the world have performed at the Dellal Centre—from French ballet troupes and Spanish flamenco masters to Mikhail Baryshnikov, who wowed audiences with an all-Russian production titled In Paris in 2011. As Baryshnikov notes: “You walk around Suzanne Dellal and there are hundreds of dancers and choreographers . . . from Germany, and England, and France and the United States. . . . what’s great is that there’s support, and this enthusiasm.”

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The Suzanne Della Centre: Performance in Tel Aviv’s Hipster Hub

Gaga dancers with Ohad Naharin. Photo by Gadi Dagon, courtesy Batsheva Dance Company

Gaga is not a dance technique but a way of life, according to choreographer Ohad Naharin. His mission, he says, “even more than giving [Gaga] to dancers, is to give it to people. You don’t have to have an ambition to be onstage. You don’t have to have dance training. It’s about finding a connection between effort and pleasure, and places of atrophy, groove, the ability to laugh at oneself, the scope of sensations. Isolation. Recognizing flesh, bones. Movement patterns. Enjoying it!”

“Gaga is about finding a connection between effort and pleasure, and places of atrophy, groove, the ability to laugh at oneself.”

— Ohad Naharin

Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre offers Gaga classes for nonprofessionals—studios filled with men and women of all shapes, sizes, and ages. Before the session starts, some of them limber up impressively, stretching or balancing yogically; others move more gingerly, simply attuning themselves. There are no mirrors on the walls. (“Not allowed,” Naharin explains. “Actually, dancers without mirrors learn much more about the form, and they become much more efficient about the movement than people who work with mirrors.”) One of the Gaga mandates is “Listen to the body”: be aware of sensations and abilities and limitations. “Go to places where the pleasure in movement is awakened.”

Teachers lead sessions with calm energy. Participants follow the gentle instructions: Float around in your skin . . . then remove the skin to feel the bones . . . then put the flesh back on until you are very “juicy” . . . fill yourselves with more and more juice until you are completely swollen with it . . . now squeeze yourselves out until you are rags on bones. Use the “traveling silliness” in your bodies to dance, just a little. It might feel something like real grace.

“It is a lot about yielding,” Naharin explains. “A lot about the idea of the advantage of letting go, which can actually make you more available and more sensual, more dangerous, more animal . . . more ready to snap.”

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