In December 2023, Ohad Naharin was interviewed for Haaretz newspaper by Gili Izikovich.
The English version, with the digital title “On Stage and Off, Ohad Naharin Conveys a Powerful Message Amid Gaza War,” was published on January 12, 2024.
A full version of the PDF is available at the following links: page 1 & page 2.
Below are selected quotes from the interview:
“I am against the actions being taken now [in the Gaza Strip]. People can claim they have empathy, but how is it possible to cut into the flesh and feel empathy at the same time? And if you have no empathy – heaven help you.”
“A horrific thing happened. On a scale we have never known. Hamas is the enemy of humanity. But what’s going on is part of a cycle of violence that didn’t begin on October 7. There is a cycle of suffering of Jews, Israelis, Palestinians. The Israel Defense Forces has a whole list of operations that it’s carried out in the past 40 years, in Gaza and in the West Bank.”
“[We could come up with] a political solution. It was possible to stop on October 10, a few days after the massacre, when Israel seemed to be no longer in immediate existential danger. To try to bring back the captives and the hostages – that takes precedence over everything.”
“The greatest threat to Hamas is a political solution, not war. War is Hamas’ fuel.”
“People talk about the Arabs, the Muslims, the Gazans as the ‘other side.’ What is the other side? There are people in Israel who are more on the ‘other side’ than many people who live in Gaza. The other side is not in Gaza, it is here among us. We must recognize that all human beings have much in common. Even if there is no agreement between them, there is no such thing as not being able to find love, a desire to give or genuine concern, in someone – unless he is truly a psychopath, one in a thousand. We need to believe that this potential can be discovered in everyone.”
“Dance – and not just ‘2019’ – is consolation within the horror … That doesn’t apply to every type of dance, but within the intentionality of what we’re doing, the soul that is imprisoned in its own self-image finds freedom through movement. There is beauty and a direct connection to the body, under the clothes. A connection to the essence of existence that doesn’t need any mediation. Anyone who sees and feels that body is able to communicate directly with the realms of imagination, thoughts, senses. There is no other art that can do it this way, with the aid of the body that was your prison and is now what releases you to freedom with its movement.”
Read more from Ohad Naharin here.
Photo by Ascaf.
