Abstract

This response critically examines an Instagram video of part of @leila.posts’ lecture at UC Berkeley about Zionism, modern dance, Martha Graham, and Ohad Naharin. I demonstrate that the speaker presents incorrect information as facts and does not provide substantive evidence for her claims, despite the framing and reception of her lecture as rigorous academic research. Moreover, I show that the speaker conflates individuals and organizations with each other, suggesting a lack of familiarity with her subjects, and I raise the concern of conflation between artists’ and institutions’ positions with those of the Israeli government, which suggests an ideological agenda. I argue that this polemical approach is similar to that in the current discourse about the Israel-Hamas war and that it is dangerously sensationalist. I call for responsible evidence-based scholarship and for nuance and depth at a time that demands them.     

Introduction

I feel compelled to respond to the video of @leila.posts – “Zionism in US Modern Dance: Martha Graham – Ohad Naharin,” circulated on Instagram by @thedanceunion on November 7, 2023. The incorrect information and lack of evidence presented by the speaker for her claims demands a clear response, both because this video is received by at least some commentators as a praiseworthy example of rigorous dance scholarship and because the content stands to further inflame tensions in the discourse during the Israel-Hamas war. 

I cannot respond to her entire lecture, which according to @thedanceunion’s post was delivered at UC Berkeley. Just two clips appear on Instagram at this time, and I will relate only to the above-named video. The ~4-minute video is edited, so I will primarily focus on what is present in these snippets rather than on speculation about what is not heard. I will also not address all the video, but rather focus on some points that stood out to me upon my initial viewing of it.    

In writing this, I wish to be fully transparent about my bias. Besides being a certified teacher of Gaga, Ohad Naharin’s movement language, for over a decade, I have worked as a part of the Gaga organization for 14 years. So not only am I not neutral, I am invested in and related to the subject at hand.

I recognize that @leila.posts is also not an unbiased interlocutor of her subject. She is somewhat transparent about that as well, albeit with less specificity about her identity and background shared explicitly in the available video or accompanying text (in fact, her full name and academic status are not presented alongside this material; I will continue to refer to her as @leila.posts throughout). Her screeds and my responses should be heard or read with our distinctive standpoints in mind.  

False “Facts,” Unsupported Claims, and Other Concerns

As a researcher and educator with a specialty in Israeli contemporary dance, I want to begin by questioning some of the claims made by @leila.posts – especially, though not exclusively, those which are presented as basic facts. I raise the below points because they indicate a lack of clarity and thoroughness of research, which then situates @leila.posts’ further claims on shaky ground. The historical record, when distorted whether through guileless ignorance or willful purpose or some combination thereof, ought to be corrected. Stating something does not make it true. Building academic claims on faulty information renders the claims hollow, even if there are ideas that bear further examination.  

1. How did the “new state” of Israel have a “say so” in Martha Graham’s choreographic content, and what potential “censorship” might Israel have had of Graham?¹ If @leila.posts is referring to the Graham company’s tours to Israel and the programming during these engagements, she should provide concrete proof of such influence. 
   
   If she is referring to Graham’s work with Batsheva Dance Company, where the choreographer served as artistic advisor in its early years, @leila.posts offers no evidence to support the claim of state intervention in this context either. There are, however, a couple of arguments against such a claim. First, during the time that Graham worked with Batsheva, the company was privately funded by Bethsabee de Rothschild. The troupe did not receive state funding until after Rothschild pulled her money from the venture, instead supporting Bat-Dor Dance Company, which she founded in the late 1960s. The state simply did not have control over Batsheva’s repertory via funding mechanisms. 
   
   Second, a survey of the Graham repertory performed by Batsheva reveals a sampling of previously choreographed works that do not hew to a narrow ideological agenda. Graham’s Greek cycle featured prominently, with restagings of Errand into the Maze and Cave of the Heart as well as The Learning Process, composed of solos and duets from Clytemnestra. Batsheva also performed the more abstract Diversion of Angels and “Saraband” from Dark Meadow as well as Herodiade, which draws on a biblical tale via Mallarme’s poem, and Embattled Garden, set in the Garden of Eden. The only original work she choreographed for Batsheva was Dream, in 1974, which took its inspiration from the biblical story of Jacob. 
   
   If @leila.posts or other scholars have further information about if or how state actors exerted some influence on the Graham repertory performed by either her company or Batsheva, I would be happy to examine this evidence.
   
   
2. Graham did not “co-found the Batsheva school.” There was no Batsheva school during that era. Indeed, when Rothschild swung her support to Bat-Dor in the mid-1970s, the agreements stipulated that Batsheva could not open a school – a measure taken to ensure the success of the Bat-Dor school, which had been founded with Jeannette Ordman at its helm in the late 1960s.  

3. @leila.posts refers to Gaga as “Gaga technique,” a term that is never used by Ohad Naharin himself (he prefers “movement language”). While questioning the categorization of Gaga is a legitimate scholarly pursuit, simply calling it “Gaga technique” without citing Naharin’s terminology or providing a reason for this choice of label suggests a lack of familiarity with the subject matter.

4. @leila.posts cites Naharin as “referring to his technique as a playground that allows dancers to construct their own reality.” I would be curious to know the source of this and see Naharin’s precise quote in context, since I have been present in numerous press conferences and question-and-answer sessions in which Naharin has used the playground metaphor for his choreographic process, describing each work as having a series of codes with which he and the dancers can play in the studio. Despite over a decade of work with him in this field, I cannot recall him using the playground metaphor – and certainly not the idea that it (in @leila.posts’s telling) “allows dancers to construct their own reality” – for Gaga itself.  

5. Naharin himself is not funded by “Brand Israel” or the state. Individual artists affiliated with companies in Israel do not receive state funds. Rather, non-profit structures, including Batsheva Dance Company, receive state funds.² Unlike in the U.S., in Israel the model of arts funding is heavily based on public money drawn from citizens’ taxes, with no robust tradition of private donors or sponsorships, so Batsheva’s acceptance of state funds does not represent an exception or a choice but rather a necessity for the institution to operate. Meanwhile, the Gaga organization, which is responsible for sharing Gaga via classes and workshops, was established as a private company and thus has been ineligible for public funding from its inception. 

6. @leila.posts claims that Batsheva has hired “zero Arab dancers,” which is factually incorrect. There have been at least two dancers of Arab descent (albeit not from Israel) in the Batsheva Ensemble in the past decade, and in the current season, the junior company includes a Druze dancer from Israel. It bears mentioning that the pool of potential professional-level contemporary dancers hailing from the Arab sector in Israel is relatively small for several reasons, including demographics and religious restrictions within the observant Muslim population.³ Batsheva has, incidentally, frequently employed Jewish Israeli dancers whose families hail from North African and Arab countries – Mizrahi Jews, or Jews of Arab descent. The company, which has an international roster that is only about half Israeli, hires dancers based on their artistry and without regard to their nationality, race, ethnicity, or religion; this has been stated by Ohad Naharin frequently, including in a personal conversation with me on November 11, 2023.        

7. In conjunction with point #5, there’s an overall conflation of Naharin, Gaga, and Batsheva, exposing a lack of understanding about the relationships among these entities. @leila.posts notes that “his website is offered in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.” Naharin does not have a website; it seems the reference is to Batsheva’s website instead, for it does feature these three languages, albeit more in its graphics than in its full text. And while @leila.posts correctly notes that Israel has removed Arabic as an official language, the company’s inclusion of Arabic in its logo and online presence can be read as a highly visible pushback against the national policy, an insistence on the importance of inclusion even in a charged climate. 

If we can’t agree on a responsible pursuit of evidence when making our arguments, don’t allow room for depth and nuance, and can’t problematize something without hardlining that something as a problem, then we are not engaging in scholarship but are simply conducting a self-righteous exercise in polemics. There is room for critique in dance scholarship. Indeed, it is critical to the field. Yet there is a line between critique and a pointed political takedown of individual artists or companies (or even the entire field of dance in a specific country), and I believe that line has been crossed. Here there is an abandonment of facts and a twisting of information to make such a takedown.

Conflation and Sensationalism

I want to return to the issue of conflation. It’s problematic, both specifically with regard to this scholarship and more broadly in the context in which this lecture has been propagated, that of the global response to the war between Israel and Hamas.  

Beyond @leila.posts’ conflation of Naharin and the various organizations with which he works, there is the repeated conflation of an artist and a dance company with their government’s policies and actions. There is no indication from the 4 minutes posted that @leila.posts is aware of Naharin’s frequent public statements against the occupation and in support of Palestinian self-determination and a two-state solution; of the political interpretations of his choreography which reveal the alignment of his artwork with his verbal statements; or of the mass Gaga classes taught by Naharin and held in conjunction with Batsheva, which have served as fundraisers for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (a non-profit which actively operates in the arena of civil rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel and opposes the occupation, both through legal outlets and the education of Israeli society). All of the above and more underscore the significant distance between each of these individuals and organizations and their government on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue.  

I fear that this type of approach is indicative of how much of the world operates right now as it observes the current war in the Middle East. The ignorance of facts; the lack of nuance, depth, and complexity, which can include uncomfortable and inconvenient contradictions; the pervasive conflation between people and their governments or leaders or armed forces – we see these in the popular discourse. The internet and the media at large have become a sea of short sound bites and infographics and words that become divorced from their definitions, often lobbed with and for violent impact. In this environment, it is the most sensational claims that garner attention, though were we to unpack them, we would have to face difficult truths that the world is not black and white.   

At the end of the day, this is relatively small potatoes when we’re talking about dance rather than the actual war. Naharin will continue to develop Gaga and choreograph. Batsheva Dance Company will continue to perform. I will note from my perspective that these kinds of polemics do take their toll on those against whom they are launched, both emotionally and potentially with other concrete ramifications. Though not inflicting physical violence, this clip does inflict harm. 

We should be wary of this sensational approach, whether in dance scholarship or in news or social media posts about the truly weighty, highly flammable situation in Israel/Palestine. Rather than provide clarity and raise questions – a project that may sound contradictory but is more intellectually honest – this approach wields ideology to spread hate instead of increasing understanding. It sows divisions and sharpens sides instead of broadening empathy. And it reduces human beings to narrowly focused, agenda-driven actors rather than recognize humanity in all its complexity.  

1. @leila.posts opens this clip as follows: “The U.S. State Department and the Rothschild family eerily funded this partnership, giving the new state a say so in her [Graham’s] choreographic content. However, this is not to say that Israeli censorship of Graham was an issue, when in fact she paralleled Zionism’s logic quite well, given her universal rhetoric, romantic individualism, and frontier-facing choreography. She would even go on to co-found the Batsheva school in occupied Palestine.” 
   Without hearing the preceding text, it is not fully evident whether she is referencing the Graham company’s tours to Israel or is already in the midst of a discussion of Graham and Batsheva Dance Company. It is also challenging to discern the through-line of the video’s opening sentence, with the mention of the U.S. State Department immediately followed by a claim that Israel (rather than the U.S.) had “a say so” on Graham’s “choreographic content.” However, the suggestion that Israel (and, by extension, Jews) exerted undue influence through the halls of power and finance tracks uncomfortably closely with anti-Semitic tropes.  
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2. Independent choreographers are able to receive public funds via their affiliation with the Choreographers’ Association or other non-profit organizations; these bodies are able to disperse state funds to individuals. ↩︎
3. Regarding religious restrictions and their impact on dance training and professional representation, a similar issue can be observed in Israel’s Jewish sector; Orthodox Jews also do not appear in the roster of Batsheva or other mixed-gender companies.
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