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Yoshifumi Inao assumed artistic direction of the company in September 2003 after nearly two years as Associate Artistic Director under Ohad Naharin, artistic director from 1990. From Kyoto and the Rudra Bejart School in Lausanne, Inao is one of eight foreign-born, trained or experienced dancers in Batsheva.

What a remarkable, exhilarating lot they all are! From balcony distance, with perhaps one exception, the dancers are small and slender, the men wiry in physique, all capable of looking like angular pieces or wire springs able to stretch, collapse and double back without provocation. This is precisely what Naharin's choreography and musical choices required,the ensemble performing in a space decorated with their bodies and lighting which made the stage a mysterious cavern at times and at others wild and bare. Their costumes are equally spare; emphasizing dark suits and white shirts for both men and women, sometimes black dresses for the women, peculiar dun-colored tunics for both genders, corset like tutus minus skirts for the women and white semi-like hakamas for the men.

Naharin's nine pieces under the title Deco Dance date from 1985, 1989, 1992,1993,1997,1998, 1999 and 2001. With the program note "Not in order of appearance, subject to change," the titles are equally catchy: Black Milk; Passomezzo; Queens of Golub; Mabul; Anaphasa; Sabotage Baby; Zachacha; Moshe and Naharin's Virus, the music ranging from traditional tunes for danse du ventre; L. von Beethoven; pop songs; mambo rhythms to electronic bleeps and burps; savage drumming and vocals both limp and expert. Naharin cheerfully explains it is not a new work but a reconstruction. "I like to take pieces or sections of existing works and rework, reorganize and create the possibility of looking at them from a new angle..something new about my work and compositions. In Deco Dance... it was like I was telling only either the beginning, middle or ending of many stories, but when I organized it, the result became as coherent as the original if not more."

Naharin's view is not totally universal in its impact - a few sections are marvelous, others arresting, and several both over repetitive or over long. Where the choreography glows is in the ensemble where the feeling of the Hassidim-like exaltation is attached to improbable themes.

The opening number displayed the company in white shirts and gloves, with black tights ranged at the proscenium. The wild and provocative intonations of the danse du ventre hit our ears as one dancer broke into convulsive movement, arms, legs, torsos echoing the percussive sounds in angular responses. There was a pause, another down the line broke into another individual compulsive response of the rhythms; a third followed suit before a rhythmic phrase when the entire line turned to stage left, raised their arms, rocking torsos, fists pounding the air in a swift one-two-three response. Back to the line up, another three do their individual bit, followed by the unison attack in space. The pattern was repeated enough times so some dancers in the ensemble gave us different body patterns. The length, the intensity and the spareness of the costumes easily signaled to the audience it had seen not only a remarkable demonstration of ensemble, but a view diverging from usual forms of modern fare.

A pas de deux followed; one of the handsome young women deals with a crouching man, perhaps her child. Unusual lifts occurred; the man crawls between outspread legs to bear the woman aloft, legs dangling on either side of his head. The prolonged demonstration of dependence and servility ultimately saps the woman's independence; at curtain she is once more borne aloft on the man's shoulders. What it says about the baggage a man can carry in his head about his mother could scarcely be better illustrated; lighting heightened the drama, etching moves and positions with eerie clarity.

One piece provided us with five men in white hakama-like trousers, who bring a steel pail on stage, sit down stage in a line and proceed to dip their hands into the pail, lift them to their face to mark faces and bare torsos with dual lines of black. Doing so, the pail is past to the next man and a look is exchanged. Inao, who sat initially alone downstage right, was the last man to mark himself. The quintet start a rigorous ensemble movement, running, jumping heedless of pointed feet or soft landings in nearly vertical jumps, a cult-like activity. There is a catch; one man tries to extricate himself upstage right, another experiences the shakes mid-stage left; Inao lies prone and is propped, almost punched by another. The impact, beyond individuality, the pressure of conformity, is strong. Inao breaks away, goes downstage to the pail, dips his hands in and washes himself of the black streaks. (The engineering inside the pail aroused my curiosity.) But he rejoins the group, though he once again lies on the floor.

Just before the Intermission, the company, black suits, black hats, goes into the audience and brings some of its members back on stage. They are invited to boogie with the dancers; although it is obvious they are foils for the ensemble's gyrations, the effect provided laughter and good humor before one dancer, shaved head with long pigtail announced Intermission.

That same figure was on stage again as the audience filtered back, making gestures which expanded and contracted, flawlessly. A gorgeous series of ballet positions with the leg presented a la quatrieme devant, arm framing the shoulders and head with great style, gradually deteriorated into messy like finger bits before expanding into extended jerks, swirls close around the head and positions one never thought possible even on a well-trained body. Brilliant, it was too extended either for comfort or interest.

The major post Intermission work had a voice speaking in careful, but beautiful musical English about connections between elegance and fatigue, fantasy and madness. The dancers sat in a semi-circle of chairs making thrusts with their legs, ritual like motions across the chest; then, like dominoes, collapsing chest upright from the their chairs. The figure in the front chair downstage left fell face downward. Everyone regained their seats. The collective movement each time added a new gesture and was repeated before the domino phrase with the same figure falling forward. The hats were tossed out; the final figure retained his; shoes were thrown into the center; the final figure kept his; coats were removed and thrown into the center; the final figure remained semi-shrouded. Off came the shirts; still the figure remained full clothed. The figures finally collapsed, spread eagle on the floor in front of their chairs. The clothed figure stood up, folded his chair and walked off stage.

I forgot to mention in the first half there was a night club figure, boa feathered scarf, exaggerated pink toe shoes on stilts, stalking across the stage before provided the mouthing of a male voice and that of a high soprano.

Clearly, Batsheva enjoys a sophisticated audience in Israel. Obviously it is aware the jumbled nature of social life and cultural expression today is reflected in its eclectic style, edging its commentary along that fine line between disorganization and chaos. The results are both mesmerizing and frightening.