“Do not let anyone take the passion away from you”
Jeremy Alberge is a wonderful dancer, currently in Vertigo Dance Company since 2017. He was also a dancer in Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company and joined projects with Roy Assaf.
-You are from France, and you are working now in Israel, joining several projects also. Why Israel? What fascinates you about Israelian dance?
“I come from the electro-dance community and, when I joined the contemporary dance, I felt I needed this connection to music, the groove, the body, and intuition. When you dance, in fact, you don’t need to explain what you are doing, you just need to connect your body with the passion that you have. I found this feeling a lot in Israelian dancers.”
-How does the Israelian dance influence your dance move?
“I have been working here for 5 years in Inbal Pinto, Roy Assaf, Vertigo Dance Company. And meanwhile, I also have taken a lot of Gaga classes and different styles. The way I move is definitely different than before I came to Israel. This gave me the confidence to discover new elements connected with my personality together. Here I realized that in dance I have to connect with the inside of myself. This is what I like about Israelian dancers. You can really feel and understand each of them: this makes them really interesting on stage because each of them has its own way of moving showing themselves with honesty.”
-How important is researching your body as a dancer?
“Researching is my main interest: listen to my body, and let my body guide me in my daily research. And it is important to keep a close relationship between the brain, heart, and soul, instead, I feel that I am missing something from the dance. But the first intuition is happening in the body, especially for dancers. While a doctor, for example, always refers to his knowledge, locked in the head, I think that the dancers’ knowledge is registered in the body. And the time I most enjoy my dance is when my head doesn’t have the time to tell my body what to do, so my body decides first and the action happens before the head.”
-How important is it to perform? What do you like about the performative aspect of dance?
“I like to see the clear and powerful presence, without any thoughts: when you are just here, showing with honesty who you are. It can be one step or it can be a crazy movement, but you are without any distracted thought. When it is really happening, those moments can be super powerful on stage.”
-How important is honesty?
“I think that the place of honesty is really important, and also the place of researching, not doing the same things all the time and being open-minded, understanding, and collaborating with the colleagues. Technical skills can be useful, but only as long as they serve the interpretation. As long as they come from a place of using the technique to express something bigger. But just to show how beautiful you can be for me is not really interesting. What is important for me is taking the risk: the moment in which you let it go and allow yourself to be: this is when something interesting happens.”
-You joined Vertigo Dance Company, a really physical work. How does the company work? And what makes the company that special?
“The company is working in an eco-village. The company is very connected to nature, and you can get inspired by it and bring it inside the dance or the movement you research. The company works with the use of weight, how you can shift, listen to it. They try to be human before trying to be creators. It gave me a lot and I like the elements they use: a lot of floorwork, a lot of contact improvisation, and partnering. I like the essence of this place because it is really humble: there is something humble, clean with this place.”
-You are also working with Roy Assaf and Inbal Pinto and you are really active in the Israelian dance world. What do you like about these two different works?
“I like the imagination of Inbal Pinto: he has very very rich creativity. He has a lot of animation in his head all the time, many ideas, colors.
About Roy Assaf, I like his way of moving, his personal connection to music and musicality. His fantasy, and his ability to create magic.”
-Your electro-dance background influences your dance still today?
“It is present in my body because it is a lot about explosive moves, explosive power, lines from the arms, and mobility in the upper body. The connection to dance in this community doesn’t come to a place of learning academically: it was about connecting directly to the groove, the passion, the music, the intuition, the improvisation. I was fascinated by electro because I wanted freedom, improvising for hours: I was free to do what my body told me to do.”
-What fascinates you about choreography? Why did you want to choreograph?
“I have just started and I’m still really young. I thought it was a place for me to express myself even deeper. But, I think that in order to be a good choreographer, you have to find your own voice, and this is a process: I think I need to be patient to accept that this process will need some time because you should be certain about what you would say, and how you would use movement in order to say it. In order to translate a higher idea you have in your mind, you need experience and patience. I haven’t found it yet, and probably I won’t. But the process is actually what interests me.”
-How important is it to be humble?
“To be humble as an artist is so important because we bring something to the world and we share it with an audience. Art can be indeed a high form of expression, and it is surely essential in our modern society, but I’d like to believe that we are all important in our own way. First as a citizen, as humans. Now I think also that even if you started dancing one year ago, you can be an amazing dancer anyway, even better than me if you connect yourself with your passion, honesty, and soul. I really believe this.”
-You are also a teacher. What would you try to transmit to your student?
“I have so many inspirations, but I didn’t create a method like gaga for instance. I like to keep on researching and being generous with the people. But it keeps on changing, it depends also on who is in front of me. I like to always take inspiration from different places, and then bring them into my class and share them at the right time while teaching.”
-What catches your attention in another dancer?
“I would say three things: the eyes, the personality, and authenticity. Even if there is fear, you can see from the eyes if someone is present, and is here. I love people that scan everything on stage, showing their presence: you can receive a lot of information from the eyes. Authenticity: I don’t like to see a lot of fake fireworks in movement, but the most important thing is to be clean, clean at a soul level: real and honest. And I love when someone can bring a side of his personality on stage and maybe he doesn’t show it outside, but on stage, he is able to be so honest that this hidden side can come out.”
-Describe yourself as a dancer in three words.
“Energy, generosity, and originality, but I don’t know if I’m objective.”
-Can you give some advice to young dancers?
“It is a hard job because you have to be all the time with yourself, you need to connect the body, soul, mind. But do not let anyone take away the passion from you. Don’t let anyone take it and put it away from the heart. If you don’t know what to do, so, then just do.”
Thank you so much for this great opportunity and for your passion! We are honored!
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