Idan Sharabi & Dancers Showcase: Presented by The PlaygroundNYC and Co-Producing Partners, Alanna Morris-Van Tassel and Troy Ogilvie
Sept 12 @ The Theater at Gibney Dance Center 7 pm
B I G L O V E
On Sept 10 I traveled to New York City to meet up with my good friends, Idan and Troy (Juilliard Alum) to rehearse and put together a magical, intimate showcase of Idan’s choreography, including a sharing by young dancers who had taken the IS&D Workshop at The Playground that week. These are my reflections on re-mounting 2015 McKnight SOLO commission, “Solo un poco.” and bringing it to a New York audience in September 2018.
Idan’s movement vocabulary has lived in my body, mind and soul since working together two years ago. He is an innovative, exciting and challenging entity. His movement language is unique in that he first focuses on conditioning the body through a breathing technique he has developed. In Idan’s world we move spherically--which can become a metaphysical translation. The dancer learns to “spine,” whereby, via the breath and the imagination, the spine curves, clavicular joints soften and lower back releases, while maintaining an open jaw, mouth and base of skull. Movement is often scored through a vocabulary of actions. Assertive and highly musical, the dancer reaches the “edges” of their body as their weight pulls towards gravity. Sharabi’s work offers an intense, creative process that challenges and develops dancers wholly. His work becomes unexpected and absurd, surprising and sublime. Dancers who work with him are ultimately challenged to "dare more," and to approach life with limitless imagination, possibilities, and abandon.
Troy Oglivie is the Darling of New York City! Fierce. Brave. Highly imaginative. Her quality is so unique. She can summon great resources of emotion that grab you and shake your soul. All the with a supple spine and joints. Her dancing possesses a seemingly unlimited storehouse of dynamic quality; and as a performer, there is none better. Troy will completely transform. I liken her to the Meryl Streep of contemporary dance. Intellectually she is formidable and a savvy business-woman.
The three days I spent in NYC with Troy and Idan were life-affirming, challenging, and sublime. Idan’s solo for Troy, Joni/Troy’s feet, is so masterfully composed and performed it brings you to tears.
What a treat it was us to work together at this time in our lives! We are all pushing (through our dance practice) in the examination of “nowness,” which can be treated as a type of mindful vigor, discovered through deep commitment and ultimately yielding an infinite response to living, breathing, and dancing.
…
The body as home
The body as memory
Body memory
Ancestral memory
Exposing
We are always creating
Governed by a behavior
The goal is to not hide. To share, to expose, to feel alive.
Spine-ing is judo. It’s ready-ness
Collaboration
A room of people who are investing and digging—who pull something up from their souls and give it to the audience. This translates to a type of conversation.
Humanity / human-ness
Obsessing
Bravery is to “Bring the kamaja!” (inside joke)
A daily practice of breathing and movement research
Passion
What Idan shared with me lives on. Not just in my mind and heart, but in my body
[through practice].
I will let his work open up new doors and layers so that [his method] is not just something to remember and return to but to live in.
Thank you Idan. I love you.
Thank you Troy. I love you.
Special Thanks to all the Participants of the IS&D Workshop!
Loni Landon!
Greggory Dolbashian!
Maxwell!
And all those who attended the Showcase for your kind words and show of support!
…
“Solo un poco.”
Choreography by Idan Sharabi
Performance by Alanna Morris-Van Tassel (2018)
Co-presented by The PlaygroundNYC, Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, and Troy Ogilvie
Gibney Dance Center, New York
Originally commissioned by the McKnight Dance Fellowship (2015)
