Press Reviews

David Zambrano’s BALLROOM at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, is filled with luscious and intricate movement that infuses the sanctuary with whimsy. Venezuelan Zambrano and his international cast of one woman and three men-Astrud Angarita (Venezuela), Akos Hargitai (Hungary), Thomas Hauert (Switzerland) and Mat Voorter (Holland)- swivel, fly, perch, wrap and soar in an evening of virtuosic, athletic dancing replete with wonderfully quirky timing and highly crafted frenetic fun.

Zambrano spins his dance from the premise that partnering– ballroom, salsa, samba, or contact–is an interaction or energy exchange rather than a set of formalities. Cheek-to-cheek takes on new meaning as two dancers waltz bum-to-bum. In BALLROOM, Zambrano explores and explodes the idea of social-dance partnering with same gender partners, five-person “partners” and even a column and a rectangle of light as dance partners. In fact, throughout the piece Carol Mullins’ lighting design is a stunning precense.

Zambrano’s music choices range from Ellington, Basie and Thelonius Monk to Tito Puente and X-Legged Sally. The costumes designed by Voorter are witty and colorful: blue jeans enlivened by a frilly skirt, fur-trimmed bell-bottoms and a T-shirt with red buttons sewn on for nipples and a belly-button.

In Zambrano and Voorter’s duet, they dip and drop to their knees but don’t make eye contact. This mating dance is characterized by curvy human maneuvering and unexpected rhythms. Zambrano challenges our reliance on the down beat. The two fly across the space. They meet eyes. Their tender duet evolves into weightsharing and contact improvisation. Together, they redefine ballroom partnering for the male couple.

In the romantic duet that follows, the dancers create a springy, calm world inside a rectangle of light. Another dancer walks in and faces his partner, the white column. He pants. His focus on this shaft-like column conveys to us the gender of his mate. Later, Zambrano appears to pun on square dancing when partners loop and swirl inside a square of red light. A risky, sinewy five-person flying pretzel dance occurs, and then, four men dive, spin and leap through center stage in a series of exuberant diagonal crossings. After Zambrano blows softly on the face and eye sockets of Voorter, the piece cools to a sensual silence between Zambrano and Angarita.

Zambrano intermingles set and improvised movement so skillfully it is difficult to detect when the performers slip from one to the other. The group dances with vitality and immediacy. Zambrano uses his speedball body and gleeful outcries–like excess body energy coming out verbally–to express elfin delight. By the end of the evening, the dancing has become a music of its own.

David Zambrano es un bailarín venezolano con una amplísima trayectoria internacional. Es fundamentalmente conocido por sus dotes de bailarín improvisador y por haber desarrollado los principios de la técnica Flying Low, “que enfoca la relación del bailarín con el peso, la tierra y su superficie, sin olvidar la quietud y el instituto que involucra su escena”.

Zambrano se ha presentado y ha enseñado sus postulados en más de 40 países de Europa, Asia, Norteamérica y América latina. En la década de los años ’80 egresó como licenciado en Artes de la Universidad de Illinois. Fue fundador y director artístico del Festival de Danza Posmoderna, realizado en Venezuela entre 1989 y 1993, que resultó fundamental en el auge alcanzado por la danza experimental en ese país.

La compañía Bolinga, desde hace algún tiempo radicada en Amsterdam, es, al decir de Zambrano, “un espacio dinámico de intercambio cultural que busca la conjunción de artistas de múltiples tendencias y especialidades que compartan sus premisas”.

La improvisación para David Zambrano es un arte y la coreografía una vía para desarrollarla aún más.

NEW YORK — Movement Research at the Judson Church played host to a substantial spread of works on Monday. The series, which is free, draws a large, lively audience that comes ready for fun. It wasn’t disappointed.

Maybe it’s because I know about Jennifer Monson’s Bird Brain project that I view her “Improvisation” with David Zambrano as akin to animal behaviour. The two share a territory: the open space of the church. In it they run, collide, play, ignore, fly, groom and spat. Like monkeys whose attention shifts are lightning fast, they could be drawn anywhere at any time and seemingly natural events deflect their trajectories unpredictably. Headed that way? Oops — fly zings by, catch it!

Simone Forti, an elder in Monson’s lineage, spent lots of time watching animals at the Bronx Zoo and bringing their captured motion to life in performance. Monson expands the brief. She and Zambrano in their habitat revel in their dancer/animal range of possibilities. Watching’s like a pleasurable afternoon at the zoo. And not. Sure a hand becomes a claw and yes some animals move just for the sake of it, but these two propel themselves attracted by nothing so much as wanting to see how different parts of the body will kick in to a longer stream of moves. It’s a field of surprise, just as this moment’s a new one — this itch, this urge, this wish to contact is just for now.

Monson’s hands turn her, exploring the space within range, feet stepping on all surfaces — toe pads and squishy heels. She breaks at an elbow, does an easy crashing slide into floor, grounded. She’s become so fine tuned, she plays anywhere on the range of tension. Nothing is here because it’s flashy. Her movement sentences just tumble out. Zambrano fires off rapid streams of easily springy movement, often starting from a feet grounded incline. We hear him think too — snippets of talk and offhand comment; “They have to fix the floor,” he says, sliding a playing card, and as it gets caught on the floor’s unevenness adds “See?”

Zambrano and Monson have the easy familiarity of friends whose bodies are comfortable together but not sexually charged. Flying fingers say “Here I am!” A look says “Coming at you!” They make satisfying space pictures, arm calligraphy and tappy rhythms. The music is by Doug Henderson using all manner of soundmakers — tossing coins, rubbing cards, swishing hands in water — and Guy Yarden, who provides electronic hum, vibrations, and throbs. We have a windy tunnel, a whale, a secret corridor, all evocations of another kind of real world, perfect to play in.

Speaking of play, it seemed hard for the four to find a clear end, just as kids having to drag themselves in on a summer night straggle back. We forgive them — it’s so much fun out there.

Lisa Kraus will perform at Movement Research at the Judson Church on March 29. Her ongoing web log is Writing My Dancing Life.

La compañía dirigida por el venezolano David Zambrano se presentó en el XII Festival Internacional de Danza Maracaibo 2003. Una propuesta estética posmoderna que gira alrededor de la magia y el ilusionismo.

La laguna de Sinamaica, exótica belleza natural situada al Occidente de Venezuela, en el estado Zulia, zona petrolera por excelencia, fue el atractivo escenario seleccionado como una de las subsedes del XII Festival Internacional de Danza Maracaibo 2003. Hasta allí llegaron el bailarín venezolano David Zambrano y su compañía Bolinga, asentada en Amsterdam, para curiosidad y regocijo de los pobladores de sus referenciales palafitos y sus alrededores.

De un pequeño bote desembarcaron cuatro eficaces bailarines improvisadores, pertenecientes al conjunto holandés. De inmediato hicieron suyo el lugar escogido, un parador turístico acuático en cuyo piso de madera ocurrió la acción escénica frente a un sorprendido público mayoritariamente infantil. La obra “Mandraking”, de Zambrano, propuesta de danza posmoderna que gira alrededor del mundo de la magia y el ilusionismo.

Sobre las sinuosas aguas de Sinamaica, la recreación de Mandrake, el famoso personaje de la cultura de masas, adquirió un impensado espíritu. Zambrano presentó fragmentos de la pieza que días antes había sido interpretada en su versión integral en el Centro de Bellas Artes de Maracaibo, así como en el Teatro Alirio Díaz de la ciudad de Carora, en el estado Lara. El sentido lúdico y misterioso del arte de la prestidigitación unido al suspenso ya convertido en arquetipo de las películas de antaño, orientan la obra, que en esta versión representada sobre las aguas, reforzó sus características de suerte de seriado para niños.

La particular banda musical que acompaña la obra incluye desde Jean Sibelius, hasta Liza Minelli y Henry Mancini. De esta forma contribuye a enfatizar el ambiente de teatro, de cabaret, de espacio íntimo decadente para la representación que remite a épocas pasadas.

El singular histrionismo de los bailarines Chrysa Parkinson, improvisadora residente en Nueva York y ganadora de un premio Bessie, Alexandre Thery, bailarín francés fundador en 1998 de In situ Company, el intérprete danés Matt Voorter y el propio Zambrano, van hilando a través de sus cuerpos una historia de sueños e imposibles convertidos en realidad; de imaginación desbordada y sutil e inteligente sentido del humor. Su sólida experiencia dentro de los procesos de la improvisación creativa en la danza queda en evidencia al sortear con sorprendente pericia las imprevisibles situaciones presentadas en un ámbito escénico no convencional y totalmente desconocido para ellos.

Solos que potencian las características individuales de sus intérpretes, duetos de contacto de notables valores plásticos y situaciones colectivas casi siempre hilarantes, en unos cuerpos dúctiles y profundamente consustanciados con los postulados de la llamada nueva danza, hacen del hecho de apreciarlos una estimulante experiencia.

La informalidad del ambiente logró convertir en un intérprete más a los trabajadores del local y también a los asistentes allí reunidos. Al lado de ellos, los bailarines reptaban por la barra y las barandas del sitio con increíble pericia y desenfado, se desplazaban libremente por él, provocando y enfrentando retos.

La carismática personalidad escénica de David Zambrano, prestigioso bailarín y entusiasta promotor por el mundo de la improvisación en la danza como espacio vital y creador de la técnica volando bajo, guió las acciones a través de una expresión corporal y gestual que sólo a él pertenece.

Al final, el público, todavía admirado, abordó sus botes para volver al agua. Durante poco menos de una hora, en la laguna de Sinamaica y de manera inusitada, la danza posmoderna formó parte de la cotidianidad de sus moradores.

If there were prizes for wiliness in dancing, David Zambrano would win them all. He looks deft enough to slip through cracks, dive into keyholes, invade your heart. He’s loose and resilient without any loss of precision. No wonder the Venezuelan-born dancer-choreographer is always traveling—to teach here, perform there. Anja Hitzenberger’s film, an integral part of Zambrano’s Barcelona in 48 Hours, leads him (and his dancing partner, Mat Voorter) through airports and into studios and homes—packing and unpacking, having a haircut, dancing in the street.

Hitzenberger often plunges still images into an orgy of motion and speed via cuts, as if snapshots were whirling in Zambrano’s mind, while, both on the film and played live, Edward Ratcliff’s Latin-tinged jazz soundtrack for five musicians spices the trip. Talking of his life, dancing alone or with Voorter, Zambrano the traveling man speaks from a grounded soul. Monson & Zambrano Find Their Natural Habitat

Vijftien dansers betreden een sober verlicht speelvlak, kriskras door elkaar, houden halt en wachten af. Uit de luidsprekkers schalt opzwepende hardbop van Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. De dansers kijken elkaar aan, tot het moment daar is en ze door elkaar beginnen wandelen, een stukje lopen, weer stilstaan, opnieuw vertrekken, rond elkaar cirkelen, onverwachts samenklitten en weer uitwaaieren. Als een zwerm, een dynamische organisatievorm die voortdurend balanceert op de rand van de chaos.

In Twelve Flies Went Out at Noon verzamelt de vermaarde Venezolaans-Nederlandse improvisator David Zambrano een groep van vijftien dansers rondom zich, opgepikt uit de talrijke onderwijsprojecten waar hij wereldwijd bij betrokken is. Hier zien wij niet de clowneske improvisator aan het werk, wel de pedagoog, die organisatievormen en beslissingsprincipes onderzoekt aan de hand van eenvoudig basismateriaal: variaties op staan, wandelen en lopen. Zo bewegen de dansers zich onder, rondom en door elkaar, ontwijken virtuele objekten, transformeren voortdurend de groep en de ruimte, schrijven warrige figuren op de grond.

Vanuit enkele basisopdrachten wordt vlot een uur volgedanst, terwijl Art Blakey enthousiast de vellen bewerkt en Thelonious Monk hotsend en botsend over de pianotoetsen gaat. Het oogt allemaal simpel, terwijl de organisatieprincipes behoorlijk complex zijn. Dat de dansers daarbij een grote autonomie hebben, voortdurend beslissingen moeten nemen en zich de spelregels toe-eigenen, werkt bijzonder aanstekelijk. Twelve Flies is dansplezier ten voeten uit.

Dit soort werk lijkt eerder in het Amerika van de jaren zeventig thuis te horen, toen emancipatie van de danser een groot thema was en volop improvisatietechnieken werden ontwikkeld. Duidelijk is in ieder geval dat vandaag nog veel dansers en choreografen op die principes terugvallen. Interessant ook om in Twelve Flies een danser als Thomas Hauert aan het werk te zien bij zijn leermeester: hier zie je enkel de mosterd, niks geen gedoe met scenografie en dramaturgie. Na een uur blijkt ten volle hoe rijk en doeltreffend deze sobere dans is, die draait op enkel choregrafische principes en veel interactie. Wellicht ligt de betekenis van Twelve Flies vooral hier: in een tijd waarin we plat worden geslagen met vernuftige concepten en complexe vormen van theatriliteit maakt het stuk verschil.

A Man Dances and Everything is There: Skill, Smarts, Spirit

Sometimes it’s best to start with a song and add a few steps. David Zambrano has done that and more in “Soul Project,” an enthralling evening of visceral solos set to soul music.
The work, first performed on Thursday night at Danspace Project, served to introduce Platforms 2010, an artist-organized series conceived by the space’s executive director, Judy Hussie-Taylor, in an attempt to widen the scope of dance presentation. Mr. Zambrano is part of “i get lost,” organized by Ralph Lemon, which focuses on transformation, transcendence, transgression and trance.

“Soul Project” is a welcome return for Mr. Zambrano, a treasured improviser and teacher who lived in New York in the 1980s and early ’90s and is now based in Amsterdam. Infusing the evening with his usual joviality, Mr. Zambrano appeared in an African-print suit with tails and explained the evening’s structure as audience members gathered around. Viewers were encouraged to get close to the cast as it performed, he said, “solo after solo after solo.”

Edivaldo Ernesto in “Soul Project,” a production by David Zambrano for “i get lost,” organized by Ralph Lemon for Platforms 2010, a series at Danspace Project. Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times.

He was interrupted by a shriek; Edivaldo Ernesto, a slender, elastic dancer from
Mozambique, began moving in a solo almost violent in its ferocity. He slammed his feet on the floor, twisted his arms like unruly branches and interrupted the silence with the occasional anguished wail, “It’s my heart!” (This reference became clear later, when he danced a solo to Bola De Nieve’s “Be Careful, It’s My Heart.”) Just as quickly as it began, it was over.
“This is an example,” Mr. Zambrano said, with a twinkle in his eye, “of the solos.”
Nina Fajdiga, a soloist for “Soul Project,” set to music from Aretha Franklin, Stevie Nicks, Patti LaBelle, Baby Huey and Bola De Nieve, among others. Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times.

As dancers performed under spotlights, wearing flamboyant costumes by Mat Voorter in collaboration with Pepa Martinez, the intention was clear: to match the voice of the singer with a body language so deep and spontaneous that the performer seemed to be drawing energy from the floor. In his program notes Mr. Zambrano writes that the process is about “Being continuously alive. On, like a candle.”

Nina Fajdiga, in a polka-dot dress adorned with pompoms, dropped into a split (a nod to James Brown?) to Aretha Franklin’s “Misty.” Milan Herich, stripped to the waist, hopped from one foot to the other — grinning crazily as he reached a dangerous speed — accompanied by “At Last,” sung by Stevie Nicks.

In “I Don’t Like Goodbyes/Over the Rainbow” by Patti LaBelle, Peter Jasko, dressed
in a blue bodysuit with gold-sequined trim (and matching eyelashes), repeatedly collapsed and rose with the resiliency of a rubber ball. And the mesmerizing Horacio Macuacua, dancing to “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Baby Huey, moved with a grounded forcefulness as he fixed his gaze on an invisible point above the crowd.

Throughout, Mr. Zambrano was a calmer presence. With his uncanny sense of weight and instinctive pounce, he seemed to savor the music. The audience, following the dancers with unusual dexterity, remained still and receptive during the performances: the goal, on our end, was to do anything to prevent the flames from burning out.