Gaga with Sarah Butler of Ate9
Gaga
Ate9 dANCEcOMPANY is a Gaga movement based company. June 13, 2016 Interview with dancer Sarah Butler. By: Kelsey Amara.
June, 2013
No, not Lady Gaga. Welcome to the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin during his time directing and teaching at the Batsheva Dance Company. Â Gaga emphasizes connection to the body and forbids the use of mirrors. Many Gaga classes consist of a teacher leading dancers through an improvisational practice that is based around a series of images as defined by the teacher. Sarah Butler of Los Angeles Ate9 dANCEcoOMPANY explains.Â
KA: We are here at LALA with Sarah Butler and we are going to discuss the methodology of  Ate9.
SB: Well essentially we practice five days a week. We have class 6 days a week. We practise Gaga, which is an Israeli movement language. It is all improvised. It is an hour long for your own movement research based on sensation and to be able to break habits, find new habits discover new things.
KA: Let’s talk about the collaboration within the company. Danielle [who was with Batsheva company before teaching workshops in the US] choreographs. Is that is all her own choreography? And out of those you work with musicians?
SB: Yes, so Danielle is the artistic director and choreographer. So I’ld say 99 % of what is performed is going to be all Danielle. She will improvise, we will watch and learn and she will ask what she did and we will show and she will edit from there. So she sort of spits out a lot of material and then edits after wards.Â
But then there is like the 1% of like every now and then she will ask us to create something. Because she (fingers crossed) hopefully trusts us to create something she knows would be interesting for her. And then there is the fact that yes it is all her material and it is coming from her fantasy, but it is also where her fantasy as a choreographer meets our fantasy as the dancer.
