Gideon Obarzanek

Gideon Obarzanek (* 1966 in Melbourne ) is an Australian ballet dancer and choreographer .

Obarzanek spent his childhood in an Israeli kibbutz . After returning to Australia with his family, he attended a jazz ballet class and was then accepted into the Australian Ballet School . There, at the end of his training in 1987, he wrote The Heat , which was performed by the Dancers Company of the Australian Ballet that same year .

He then received a contract with the Queensland Ballet , of which he was a member until 1991. This is where Drift Office was created for the ballet's choreography workshop (1988) and Mr. Crowther and the Wallflower for the conference of the Australasian Drama Studies Conference 1989. The film adaptation of Mr. Crowther received the Queensland Young Filmmakers Award in the same year .

As a member of the Sydney Dance Company , he created the choreography Sleep No More in 1991 . He then left the company and worked as a freelance choreographer for the Australian Ballet , the Sydney Dance Company , Opera Australia and the Nederlands Dans Theater, among others . In 1995 he founded the company Chunky Move in Sydney , which presented itself at the 1995 Melbourne International Festival of Arts with his piece Fast Idol . Obarzanek led the group, which relocated to Melbourne in 1997, as Managing Director and Artistic Director until 2012. He has performed with Chunky Move at numerous festivals in Australia, including the Edinburgh International Festival , the BAM Next Wave Festival in New York, the Venice Biennale, the Southbank Festival in London and the Territoria Festival Moscow . In his works with the troupe he also included elements of theater and film, installations and events. In Glow (2006) he used interactive technology to create complex connections between the dancers' movements, light and sound effects.

In 1997 Obarzanek received the Australian Dance Award and in 1999 the Mo Award for best choreography for Bonehead (1999). For the choreography and concept of the piece I Want to Dance Better at Parties he was awarded the Melbourne Green Room Award in 2004, and for Tense Dave (2003), a collaboration with Lucy Guerin and Michael Kantor , he received a Bessie Award in New York in 2005 . In 2008 he received two Helpman Awards (for Glow and Mortal Engine ), and in 2017 two more for Attractor (best choreography and best dance production).

In 2010 he was back on stage as a dancer after a long time with the solo piece Faker . In 2013 he was resident artist of the Sydney Theater Company . Here he wrote and directed his first play I Want to Dance Better at Parties , which he later filmed in a documentary version with Mathew Bate . This film won the Dendy Award at the 2014 Sydney Film Festival . In 2014 he choreographed Interplay for the Sydney Dance Company . The play L'chaim was created in collaboration with the actor and dramaturge David Woods .

Web links

• National Library of Australia - Gideon Obarzanek
• Sydney Dance Company - Gideon Obarzanek
• National Portrait Gallery - Gideon Obarzanek