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David Zambrano is the kind of choreographer who inspires his audiences to trade their day jobs for a life of dancing. His acclaimed workshops and performances have been presented around the world. Along the way, he has collected an international group of performers from Mozambique, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, the U.S., and Venezuela. Soul Project, his newest work, draws out the diverse cultures imprinted on their bodies.
On May 17 and 18, Miami Light Project will be hosting Zambrano at the Light Box. It’s a perfect space for Soul Project, which dissolves the line between artist and audience. As Miami Light’s Rebekah Lengel put it, “You can have an interactive piece, but with someone like David, people kind of explode into it — it becomes an all-consuming experience.”
We recently caught up with Zambrano to find out more.
New Times: Can you give us an overview of Soul Project?
David Zambrano : Soul Project is
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made of solos. The audience and the performers share the same space and
the performers do solo after solo to soul music. Mostly United States
soul singers, but there are also some Latin singers and there is also an
Italian singer. The performers present their imaginations through their
bodies as the voice of the soul singers.
You seem to have a strong connection to music.
I
always loved music, and I grew up in a country where music is part of
life. Venezuela is a dance culture. We dance all the time in any kind of
celebration. Parties, reunions, etc. In the street, in the taxi,
everywhere. So my relationship with music has always been there in all
of my pieces.
Why the international cast?
I like very
much to see how the information that I transmit to a dancer is digested
by people from Mozambique, and then also from Slovakia, Slovenia, some
people from South Korea. Sometimes when I am in the studio, I think of
what could be the United Nations in the future. And I see all these
dancers from different countries including myself to go under, over, and
around each other, really passing through each other. I feel like, wow,
this is one of the best things I could do in my life as a person, to
help this world to get more interconnected and be more respectful of
each other.
You live in Amsterdam now, right?
I live
between Amsterdam and Brussels. We have two houses now. One is
subsidized by the government, and it’s in Amsterdam. And the other one
we just bought. It’s in Brussels.
Brussels is a great city. What’s the dance scene like there?
Well,
it reminds me of New York City, especially the East Village in the
’80s. The dance community is growing more and more, and you always run
into different layers of contemporary dance. You have the people that
just started, that are just arriving in the city looking for jobs. You
have the people that are doing small projects. You have people that work
for the big companies, you have the big ballet and the opera. And all
of them relate to each other so that’s very nice.
What kind of commonalities do you see in dancers around the world?
One
thing that is really in common is the body. Some people from Japan, for
example, will teach us a way of expressing through the body that we
don’t know, but that we have. Because we never experienced it before.
Because of our rules, our structures or programs that we learn from our
parents and then from the society that we grow up with. So yes, in
common, we have the body. May 17 to 19 at 8 p.m.; the Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, 404 N.W. 26 St., Miami. Tickets cost $25, $15 for students and seniors at the door. –Catherine Hollingsworth, artburstmiami.com
David Zambrano, Soul Project,
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