Company 2’s 2019 Season, Presented at our annual “Trip The Light” and The “Festival of Jewish Arts and MUsic”
CIRCLE DANCE
About
In 2015 Gideon Obarzanek choreographed Circle Dance in collaboration with the graduate dance students of the Victorian College of the Arts. In 2019 this work was commissioned to be remounted by the Festival of Jewish Arts and Music, so original cast members Jasmine Ahwah and Kyall Shanks remounted the work on Yellow Wheel’s company 2.
Long before Gideon Obarzanek founded contemporary dance company Chunky Move, he was learning traditional Israeli folk dance on kibbutz. The core choreography in Circle Dance began its life there, and has been extrapolated out from a memory of a movement that Obarzanek has found himself returning to and drawing inspiration from in recent years.
Circle Dance is an incredibly physical piece, in which the dancers succumb to an unrelenting physical drive, the folk roots of which are occasionally revealed to only the most observant eye.
Circle Dance (2019) was presented in our annual choreographic season of Trip The Light, and at the Festival of Jewish Arts and Music in the Melbourne Recital Centre.
Thank you to Gideon Obarzanek for trusting us with this piece, and to the Festival of Jewish Arts and Music for commissioning the work to be remounted.
Photos by Gregory Lorenzutti
Credits
Choreography
(2015) Gideon Obarzanek and VCA Graduate Dancers
(2019) Gideon Obarzanek, Jasmine Ahwah, Kyall Shanks and the Yellow Wheel Company 2 Dancers.
Remount Rehearsal Directors
Jasmine Ahwah & Kyall Shanks
Cast
Meg Bassett, Emily Eather, Wendy Feng, Yvonne Huang, Suzu Ichikawa, Christiana King, Jade Leung, Stephanie Moutray-Read, Juliet Saito, Gemma Sattler, Kim Te, Bree-ann Thomas.
Music
Jordan Obarzanek