Technically, it was a weekend of various dance workshops all day, performances in the evenings, and dance parties at night. But in reality, Bodyfest was an inspiring community that helped me connect with myself in ways entirely new to me and a space to re-engage with humanity.
With my minimal dance background and an open-mind, I trekked out to Mitzpe Ramon for my first “dance festival.” I stumbled into a contact improv class, a class teaching a north Indian dance called Kathak, a Gaga workshop (Ohad Naharin’s movement language, guiding improv by senses and imagination), family-friendly hip hop, Butoh (a highly absurdist form of modern Japanese dance theater), dance therapy, meditative Sufi whirling, and improvisation composition.
I arrived as the first round of workshops began, running from tent set-up into a random studio. I glanced around blankly for the teacher’s 15-minute Hebrew introduction, then all of a sudden, everyone started rolling on the floor on top of each other. Everyone seemed so seriously absorbed in their crawling and slithering, and the teacher was so ingrained and focused stepping among the sea of bodies, that my timid non-Israeli demeanor couldn’t disrupt the scene. So I blindly dove into the puddle of strangers wriggling on the floor, trying my best to imitate everything bizarre happening around, beneath, and over me.
© Yair Golov
A couple of the classes followed the traditional dance class format, with a teacher up front guiding the class through certain techniques and combinations (like Kathak and hip hop); however, the rest of the teachers created a more experimental space that just flowed, instructing us to let our own bodies take reign, providing us this incredibly unique freedom to explore ourselves through movement. With varied forms of abstract or subtle guidance to channel as we moved, we got to experiment with completely new unconventional methods of expressing ourselves.
Gaga, created by Batsheva’s Ohad Naharin to reconnect the average person with their inner beast without being self-conscious, was like an hour-long stream of unconventional movement. He instructed us to let his words (from earthy nouns to body parts) ignite our most instinctual responses, constantly, without ever pausing to let our analytical mind catch up.
© Yair Golov
In one section of the Sufi class, the instructor had us wander around the room pushing one another. First we were to exert resistance to the pushes for a while, then overreact, flying across the room, and finally just allow it to happen while continuing our own movement. The exercise made my relationship with the world feel simplified, with me peacefully in control. Then at the end of the class we learned an ancient Sufi meditative practice, pulling ourselves into a strange trance spinning endlessly in circles. I think I reached the deepest meditative state I’ve ever achieved; my generally restless mind felt clear as I spun non-stop for what must have been at least 20 minutes.
In my last class, the improvisation composition, the teacher told us to move around the room, taking journeys through different spots, exploring our inner stories. Without the time or environment to consciously choose my story, I found body could communicate directly, feeling and expressing ideas with less interference from my critical mind than I had ever imagined experiencing.
© Yair Golov
The festival was my first real experience with this concept, expressing myself through movement. It was like tapping into this raw form of self, inaccessible through other forms of expression, unconstrained by the limits of vocabulary. I came out feeling not only more in touch with my body and soul, but also like a had a fresh grasp of who I am, what I enjoy, and what takes me outside of my comfort zone.
But more than connecting with my uncharted self, the festival simultaneously made me feel more connected with community. While I didn’t speak the main language, I felt a certain lovely communal bond. We all opened up around each other, usually without exchanging a single word, and shared a completely unusual and beautiful experience together.
Interview with Bodyfest director, Kohra
© Yair Golov
How did the festival get started?
I used to be a dancer myself and danced with a company that decided to relocate to Mitzpe Ramon in 1999. At the time there was absolutely nothing here, but we said “what the fuck” and created a dance and meditation center with all sorts of events. After two years there, I left to travel, danced at the Osho International (meditation/ mindfulness center in India), began organizing the Osho festival, (a convention of psychotherapy, awareness and self-growth), and started organizing more and more events. By 2017, I was organizing six-seven festivals a year.
Coincidentally at the same time that my old dance company in Mitzpe Ramon left last year, I quit the working with the woman with whom I formed Bodyways, (another Israeli dance festival). I called the guys who took over the place, calling it Me’ever, and ended up creating Bodyfest. So in a way it’s a new thing, and in another, it has history in the dance company that I danced with here many years ago and in the other dance festival I used to do.
What is this venue, Me’ever, now?
There’s community of about ten people and some volunteers who live here and host different workshops, retreats, and festivals on the weekends. It’s also a guest house/hostel for low-budget travelers visiting the crater, and a dance school, where dance students study four times a week. Mitzpe Ramon is a small town lost in the desert, but it’s becoming an alternative hub, with a bar, many cute and fun businesses, artists, and so on.
© Yair Golov
Is there a specific mission or idea you want people to come away with?
Dance is for anybody. The idea is to get a community of people to be together and dance, talk about the language of the body with each other, and just be in a shared open space. The experience as a whole is meant to inspire people, building an uplifting energy through unique methods of communication in a three-day alternative reality.
© Yair Golov
And it’s also meant to expose people to great Israeli dance teachers. Participants can experience a little bit of what goes on year-round across the country, inviting you to discover all Israel’s larger dance community has to offer.
What are the other festivals you organize?
During Purim we had Imagine, a three-day celebration in Desert Ashram, with some dance and meditation workshops but mostly live music concerts and DJs. Coming up we have the Sufi Festival, with lots of ancient and world music, Sufi workshops with poetry and dance, also in Desert Ashram. In June there’s the Israel Yoga festival, the biggest yoga convention in Israel, with 90 teachers in Givat Haviva. Next in July is the first festival I started 11 years ago, Osho Festival. It’s full of workshops dealing with therapy, breathing techniques, dance, nutrition, and everything having to do with self-awareness and growth, along with live music of course, also in Givat Haviva. Then I do a circus festival near Rosh Hashana with my partners in the circus world, for families and people wanting to experiment with juggling, acrobatics, or clowning. And now there’s this festival, Bodyfest, happening every Passover and Sukkot. Every festival is similar in the way that it’s part convention; there’s workshops and performances, great for people who want to try something new.
Anything else about the festival world you’d be interested in sharing?
Israel is really a country of festivals. It’s not what you hear in the news of course and you wouldn’t know if you’re anywhere else, but Israel actually has one of the busiest alternative festival scenes. And I think these festivals are apart of a movement.
People want to come back into community. They’re tired of living separately and just working endlessly. We crave a space to meet new people, celebrate art, and learn from others, a space for togetherness.
© Yair Golov
Israel’s impressive hubs of yoga, meditation, circus, dance, and so on, show how bubbly and open our culture really is. At these festivals, we don’t simply observe something and retreat back to our lives. We participate, engage with others, join in a communal experience, try on new things, see how it affects us, and go home with something transformed.