The kinetic sculpture that serves as the centerpiece of Aussie dance company Chunky Move’s piece “Connected” was conceived by California sculptor Reuben Margolin, but it’s created each night by the dancers themselves. By letting the company not only animate but construct the wavelike structure, artistic director/choreographer Gideon Obarzanek hoped to breathe some life into the object.
“I was really hoping that watching the sculpture interpreted through the movement of a person’s body would come to symbolize something more psychological than purely physical,” Obarzanek says. “It’s quite beautiful because even though the sculpture is made out of string and paper and steel and plastic, once in motion it transcends that and appears as something far more organic and almost alive.”
Following Chunky Move’s current North American tour, Obarzanek will be leaving the company that he founded nearly 16 years ago. Following the performance, he’ll engage the audience in a brief conversation.
“Frankly, I’ve just had enough of running a company,” he says about calling it quits. “I found it challenging in the beginning, but the grind of running a contemporary performance group and being responsible for a whole bunch of people is something that I never really got used to.”
