Hora – the Movie is a cinematic reimagining of Ohad Naharin‘s acclaimed choreography Hora, performed by the Batsheva Dance Company. Released in 2022, it is Naharin’s second dance film following YAG – the Movie. Rather than simply documenting the stage production, Naharin transforms the choreography through the language of cinema, creating a new work in which the camera, editing, and movement become equal parts of the choreographic composition.
The film opens a dark, enigmatic world in which dancers emerge from a black space and gradually construct a constantly changing landscape of bodies. Their movements form what Naharin describes as a kind of human dance calligraphy – a visual code that is continually written, erased, and rewritten. The absence of conventional scenery places the dancers and their physical presence at the centre of the work, allowing the smallest gesture and shift of weight to become visually significant.
One of the defining features of Hora – the Movie is the active role of the camera. Roee Shalti’s cinematography does not simply record the dancers from an audience perspective. The camera moves through space, approaches bodies, changes perspective, isolates individual performers, and creates unexpected relationships between movement and image. Naharin’s cinematic approach adds a new choreographic dimension to the original stage work, transforming spatial relationships that would be experienced from a theatre seat into an intimate encounter with the dancers.
Editing becomes choreography in its own right. Acceleration, deceleration, transitions, and abrupt cuts alter the perception of time and movement. Gestures can appear to expand or contract, while the rhythm of the editing creates new connections between individual bodies and larger ensemble formations. Through these techniques, Naharin explores how dance can be experienced when the audience is no longer bound to a fixed viewpoint.
Music is fundamental to the film’s atmosphere. The soundtrack brings together works by Isao Tomita, Modest Mussorgsky, Claude Debussy, Charles Ives, Yehonatan Oppenheim, Ryoji Ikeda, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Joaquín Rodrigo, Edvard Grieg, and Jean Sibelius. Tomita’s electronic reinterpretations of classical music are particularly striking, placing familiar musical material within an unfamiliar sonic environment and giving the dancers’ physicality an almost surreal dimension.
The film features dancers from the Batsheva Dance Company‘s 2021–2022 season, including Chen Agron, Billy Barry, Matan Cohen, Yael Ben Ezer, Ben Green, Sean Howe, Chiaki Horita, Londiwe Khoza, Chun Woong Kim, Shir Levi, Ohad Mazor, Yoni Simon, Hani Sirkis, Amalia Smith, and Igor Ptashenchuk. Costume design is by Eri Nakamura, while Maxim Waratt contributed soundtrack editing and sound design. Shalti and Naharin share the editing, further emphasizing the close relationship between choreography and filmmaking.
Filmed in the Varda Studio at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, Hora – the Movie offers a concentrated encounter with Naharin’s choreographic universe. It demonstrates how dance can be transformed by the camera – not by simply capturing movement, but by creating entirely new ways of seeing, experiencing, and understanding it.
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