"Protect your passion by taking care of yourself"
Olivia Ancona is an amazing dancer who worked and collaborated with Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s company L-E-V, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s project company Eastman, Royal Swedish Ballet, Batsheva Dance Company, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Wim Vandekeybus, and Winter Guests of Alan Øyen Lucien.
She danced, acted, and coached for the film Suspiria. She is teaching Gaga across the U.S. and Europe.
-You have an amazing dance career so far, working in Batsheva Dance Company, Sharon Eyal’s L-E-V, Alan Lucien Øyen’s Winter Guests and many other choreographers such as Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Wim Vandekeybus, Bryan Arias...and you are also a guest dancer in Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and Goteborg Danksompani. What is the key to all these incredible successes?
"That’s sweet. I feel overwhelmed when my biography is compiled or I need to update my resume. I think it is easier for me to read someone else’s condensed experiences than recognize my own successes. There are a lot of stories in between the markers! Although with time I feel a little differently, for most of my life and definitely throughout my career, I tried to create opportunities for doors to open and with little thought, walked through them. Not to say that it was easy but I craved different challenges and if I’m really honest I was looking for a home. A style, choreographer, community to define me by, and never finding one particular voice kept me in motion. I’m thankful for that."
-You worked a lot in Israel. Why did you decide to go there? What fascinates you about israelian dance?
"I saw Batsheva when I was 14. I had moved many times throughout my childhood and therefore had an eclectic training. I believe I was in my bunhead phase (never feeling I fit the ballet mold) when I fell in love with these dancers and this company. The diversity of movers and bodies made them seem superhuman. Very skilled and very human. I used this image as my light at the end of a tunnel, propelling me through high school and eventually Juilliard. I was lucky to work with Ohad Naharin in college and although I was a regrettably impatient student, I made it until my third year before I jumped ship with an impromptu offer to join the Batsheva Ensemble. It was very empowering to have a goal as a young person, to weed through the difficulties of growing up and project my passion in a particular and therefore motivating direction. Narrow but helpful!"
-You worked with really different and various choreographers. How were you able to adapt yourself to every different quality required. And where did you find the curiosity and motivation to challenge yourself every time?
"I realize how this sounds but I think we are all dancing all the time. As we maneuver throughout our busy lives and even in this more stagnant period in our homes, we are in motion. A reach, shift of weight, twitch, expression, physical release all lend to my idea of ‘dancing’. For me, the various training I’ve had from ballet to African or gaga (and a lot in between) are developing our coordination, offering vocabulary, and feeding us with physical information so we can filter it through our own minds and bodies. With time looking at movement as functional, story-telling, or a means to express a feeling helps me to think of people’s work less as a style and more of a perspective that I can try on or add to the physical understanding of my own body. Sometimes people want to mold you and sometimes they want you to bring what you’ve got. It’s a practice I’m still chewing on, how to recognize the intention within a piece or process, and ultimately looking for ways to get the most out of it, for yourself. I am happiest when I am working, feeling safe, challenged, and creative. I enter almost every process with the desire to experience these feelings and in those fortunate moments it happens, I remember my ‘why’."
-What influenced and changed you the most during your dance career, by working with so many choreographers?
"That’s a big one. The moments of heartbreak, rejection, and not being where ‘I thought I should be’ were defining experiences both as a person and a dancer. Ironically realizing a lot of what I don’t want to do or become, has probably shaped me more or just as much as all the positives and open doors. Failure is a fickle word but I’m thankful for my fails.
I also draw a lot of inspiration from all kinds of dancers I have met. Images of some people still swirl in my mind’s eye. I never wanted to be like anyone else or any one person, I just fantasized about taking all the beautiful characteristics of my peers and see what it might feel like to embody them. "
-How were you able to develop your artistry in dance?
"Every fork in the road, project, or challenge has helped me to discover and unfold my interests in dance. At the root, I just really like to move to the music. But that is definitely not enough of a passion to keep me engaged, as I change and grow. What started as a necessity for freelancing become a very rich parallel with dance, teaching. I am forced to articulate myself and specify even more what I would like to research or offer. I feel similarly to staging. And in the more recent productions, I have participated in, getting to use my actual voice, stories, an alternative to moving, or while I’m dancing is a new and exciting element. The more I can express myself probably the healthier partner, friend, sister, daughter, citizen I will be ;) Wearing different hats and jumping between these roles, feels like a large part of what makes up the kind of performer I am and my willingness and drive to stay in this field."
-What is important in order to be a good dancer?
"I used to think there was ‘A way’ to be a good dancer. And I’ve been wrong many times over. Dance often feels very subjective. Even ballet but especially the contemporary dance world, albeit may be slow, is in a constant shift. Therefore what makes up a good dancer in one setting will be another circumstance potential pitfall. Frustrating but I hope that can provide some comfort. With flexible expectations, there is room for all willing to find it!
Personally, when I am at the front of the room while staging or teaching, I get inspired by the way someone works, how they bring their personality (their experiences) to the task at hand. I get excited to see people discover new sides of themselves and that takes effort, vulnerability, talent, and all the rest."
-How did Gaga change your way of working?
"I have been taking and teaching Gaga for over a decade, so the practice is very ingrained in my body. I would like to separate from it, even more, to be able to evaluate my habits and be more, choosey. However, I am incredibly thankful for a language that at the time I was working with it daily gave room for a lot of the attributes that make up a dance for me. It helped me to sense and listen without always needing to tell my body what to do. Yeah, perhaps the biggest gift was helping me to get in a state of flow not just by allowing movement to travel easily through my body but also listen for a multitude of motivations. Giving me a ‘toolbox’ of how to engage different qualities and at the same time let them go just as fast."
-What is the importance of improvising and researching with your own body?
"My body is changing all the time, we all wake up slightly differently even if we are unaware and most of the time I feel lucky that I get to listen to these shifts professionally. Researching and improvisation are a means to stay connected to what’s happening below our thoughts. It is a huge goal to know myself and my physicality the best that I can, so I can feel the most, dance the most, explore the most. That is far from how I think every moment but it’s definitely always lurking as a motivator. "
-How can you define "technique"? What is its importance instead?-
"I have to admit I stumble to define ‘technique’ because of all the connotations we put on that word. Alternatively, I think of ‘technique’ as someone’s craft. How skilled, shaped, and rich is their ability to express themselves in the way they would like to. With ballet that is a recognizable language and perhaps easier to measure someone’s technique but I believe many styles of dance have or should have more craft, questioning, and intention behind their choices."
-Why is dance important in our modern society? What can we do in order to not let it die?
"I have been questioning that for myself for a while and at the same time very aware of how much being able to dance almost every day has given me. In a world, where we are increasingly behind our screens and less in our bodies bringing ourselves back into the present moment by moving feels more important than ever. Dance can be so many different things to different people. It can be a saving grace to an adolescent, it’s community-oriented and social for some, it’s the practice of discipline and perseverance for others, and a window into an alternate world, or in the best of times a vehicle for feeling things we didn’t even know we needed to experience, audience and dancer alike. I think with all that is happening across the globe there is a desperate call for change. Sometimes I feel like the dance world I’ve inhabited is stuck, hard-pressed to rise to the challenges of new generations. Change can be sad even when we want it ourselves. With lots of unknowns for everyone, admitting where we’ve been, where we are at, and being brave enough to try it differently, I believe will keep many worlds including the dance field alive."
-How are you able to always find new inspirations and being constantly passionate?
"I’ve always had a bit of fire burning under my ass. I come from an all freelance family from the US, ‘hustling’ and pushing ourselves seem to run in our blood. However, you’ve caught me at a time when I am asking myself that exact question, what is my motivation? If I find a new source, more balanced and all-encompassing, I believe it will be less in the hands of others and more my own. Time for a new engine to move from!"
-What passionates you the most about dance?
"I’ve been moving and embarrassingly enough in not too dissimilar ways since I was three. Despite all of my experiences my personal vocabulary still resonates with some baby videos…
I keep delving into this craft because dance and dancers are flexible. What is expected of us becomes more demanding but also more vast, more room for us to explore as actors, sometimes musicians (not for me!), as well as challenging our movement styles and physical capabilities. Dance can be anything and I simply can’t stop moving or it hurts."
-Is there something you would like to change/challenge in the dance world?
"Much. I mostly love the time in the studio dancing and being creative, sweating, and moving to music but the infrastructure of the dance world is a highly frustrating one! I am exhausted from the constant need to defend my rights as a dancer and freelancer. I want dancers' voices to be uplifted and less hidden under the hierarchy that seems to permeate from old mentalities and classical institutions. On the flipside of dance being quite an open field, I would like the expectations of dancers to simply do, produce, or behave in particular ways to change. I believe this starts by cultivating a genuinely respectful atmosphere, more researched and diverse hires for creators and dancers, and more room for communication, feedback, and consequences. The world is changing and we are seeing people react, let’s hope and hold each other accountable for the field we want to exist in."
-Can you give some advice to young dancers?
"There are many ways to find your path, so find yours. It will look different than someone else’s so comparing (of course I am not immune to this either) is a waste of time. You never know what it’s really like to be someone else or to be in that particular company. It might be a lot shinier on the outside than in reality so sniff out what feels right to you and not what sounds right. Protect your passion by taking care of yourself and being okay to cultivate boundaries, it will keep you dancing longer. At least, this is what I tell myself."
Thank you so much Olivia for this opportunity! It was a real honor for us!
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