Australia Dancing - Obarzanek, Gideon (1966

Obarzanek, Gideon (1966 - )

Lynkushka, Angela: Portrait of Gideon Obarzanek, 1994

Born in Melbourne, choreographer and director Gideon Obarzanek spent his early childhood in Israel on an agricultural kibbutz. After moving back to Melbourne Obarzanek began his dance training there taking jazz ballet classes before being accepted into the Australian Ballet School. He choreographed his first piece, The Heat, for an Australian Ballet School choreographic workshop in 1987. The Heat was subsequently performed by the Dancers Company of the Australian Ballet.

Obarzanek graduated from the Australian Ballet School at the end of 1987 and was offered a contract with the Queensland Ballet. While performing with the company Obarzanek continued to pursue his choreographic interests. He created Drift Office for a Queensland Ballet choreographic workshop in 1988 and then Mr Crowther and the Wallflower for an Australasian Drama Studies Association conference in 1989. Mr Crowther was subsequently filmed and won the Queensland Young Filmmakers Award for 1989.

Obarzanek left the Queensland Ballet to join Sydney Dance Company where he made Sleep no more for the season The Shakespeare Dances in 1991. He then left Sydney Dance to pursue a career as a performer and choreographer with various dance companies and independent projects within Australia and abroad. These have included commissions from the Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Opera Australia and the Netherlands Dance Theatre.

In 1995, in collaboration with Garry Stewart, Obarzanek founded Chunky Move. The company's inaugural season was at the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts in 1995 when it presented Obarzanek's Fast Idol and Stewart's Spectre in the Covert Memory. At first Sydney-based, Chunky Move relocated to Melbourne in 1997 as Victoria's official modern dance company. While it mostly features the work of Obarzanek, who remains artistic director, it also commissions Australian and international choreographers to give workshops.

Some of Obarzanek's early work took popular culture as an inspiration. More recently, his aesthetic has broadened and become more diverse, from stage productions to installations, site-specific works and film. Obarzanek's works have been performed in many festivals and theatres around the world including in France, Switzerland, Russia, U.K., Belgium, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Hungary and the United States. In New York, he has been presented at BAM Next Wave Festival, Dance Theatre Workshop and the Joyce Theatre.

Most recently, Obarzanek in collaboration with Lucy Guerin and Michael Kantor received a New York Bessie award for outstanding choreography and creation for Chunky Move's production of Tense Dave. Obarzanek has also received two Melbourne Green Room Awards for best concept and choreography for I Want to Dance Better at Parties and in 1999 a Mo award for best choreography for Bonehead. In 1996 he received the Prime Minister's Young Creative Fellowship, and in 1997 the inaugural Australian Dance Award for outstanding achievement in choreography. His 2006 work Glow which incorporates the most sophisticated interactive technology for body, sound and light was selected for the 2007 Melbourne International Arts Festival.

Bibliography:

Edited extracts from Obarzanek's oral history interview for the National Library, and a list of his choreography to 1996, are published in 'Gideon Obarzanek: Daring Dance' in Michelle Potter, A Passion for Dance (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1997), pp. 79-91.

Research Materials

Ephemera | Moving picture | Oral history | Picture | All

Other resources

Find more about Obarzanek, Gideon in:

Internet - Google
Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
Pictures - Picture Australia
Collection - OzLife