Dance Films
In-visible
Music: Silhoeuettes (by Mike Wall)
Number of Dancer(s): 2
Stemming from the AAPI hate crimes and initiating the development of Obremski/Works’s AAPI Support Fellowships, VISION and VOYAGER, In-Visible touches the common experience of AAPI individuals and feeling unheard, unrecognized, and unseen. Through this incredibly personal work, the full AAPI cast brings in experience, concepts, ideologies, trauma, and more to deepen this work.
“Many say that invisibility is a fabulous superpower, but how ‘super’ is it when it is oppressed onto you?” - Jesse Obremski
*This work was created with COVID-19 safety protocols implemented.
This work was produced and Supported through a selected residency by Arts on Site, JChen Projects, and Midheaven Network.
World premiere at Arts on Site and the AAPI: We Belong Here 2021 Festival (August 2021) and the film version premiered virtually (May 2022) with additional screenings at the ScreenDance Miami Festival (January 2023) and additional performances at AAPI Montclair Lantern Festival 2023 (May 2023) and The Jamaica Dance Festival 2023 (July 2023).
Photo courtesy by Samantha Morris
Photography courtesy of Retrograde Studios
Nocturne Pandemica
Music: Nocturne (by Felix Mendelssohn) with transcription for six celli by Frederick Zlotkin
Number of Dancer(s): 1
Within the COVID-19 era, Nocturne Pandemica emerges from artists’ desire to create and symbolize the adaptability we all have within us to still move forward. Initiated through a commission of musician and transcriber Frederick Zlotkin, the work connects six celli from the orchestra of The New York City Ballet to offer musical themes to connect to the movement solo. Within the video edit by videographers of Retrograde Studios and edits by a team for this work, we are immersed into a world where we remember the lost live audience and performances due to COVID-19.
*This work was created with COVID-19 safety protocols implemented
This work was commissioned by Frederick Zlotkin.
World premiere virtually (March 2021).
RECOVER
Music: Rest (by Simon Wester)
Number of Dancer(s): 1
RECOVER, is a work that is personal. It is a desire to "return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength" with the acknowledgement that this definition of "recover" may not be ever fully available to us. We are always changing, developing, and adjusting with whatever trauma, difficulties, joys, sorrows, revelations, frustrations, confusions, emotions come our way. We must recover and can recognize that "resilience is hopeful". It also recognizes that with each recovery, there is a birth - A birth of a new self, developed self, a more mindful self. I have found many connections where this work relates directly to my life in how I recover. So it is personal and I have found appreciation and thankfulness in that.
Additional credits:
Direction: Jesse Obremski
Videography and editing: Jesse Obremski Obremski/Works Creation filmed in August 2020
World premiere at the DUMBO Dance Festival virtually (June 2021).
Photograph courtesy of Brigham Young University
Vanish
Live Version Music: The Mighty Rio Grande (by This Will Destroy You)
Film Version Music: Vanish (by Jarom Hansen, a commissioned original composition)
Number of Dancer(s): Fourteen
This is Obremski’s second commission, following Opportunity, at Brigham Young University and their Contemporary Dance Theatre. Keely Song, BYU CDT’s Director, approached Obremski about this theme which will connect each work within the program together: Peter Pan. Obremski took this idea and looked into the play of shadow, the relevance this has within Peter Pan, and this quote from the tale: "Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able to do those things without thinking of them, and then nothing can be more graceful." 85. In connection to this quote and the raw energy of the BYU CDT dancers, the work connects us through the lens of someone trying to connect with Peter Pan through a common relation within their shadows.
The work also has the possibility to explore how we see others, how we are seen, and how we see ourselves. Through time, these inevitably change and with this, is a deeper sense of who we can be and how this can be a celebration. Does our past really “vanish:” away or does the memory stay with us forever, always influencing us. Everyone can be recognized even if not seen.
This work was commissioned by Brigham Young University.
World premiere at Brigham Young University’s Contemporary Dance Theater’s Concert (February 2020) and the film version will be screened at the DUMBO Dance Festival (June 2021). This work was additionally restaged for Brigham Young University Contemporary Dance Theater for their 2021-2022 season and toured to Paris and Belgium.
"The work (Jesse Obremski’s Vanish) will leave the audience humbled for having been on this journey.”
“The dance is about the space between, how close and far and what that does to us."
- Pat Debenham, Former Brigham Young University Dance Faculty
"a tribute to the vitality of human connection and a hope for the day when we can one day physically connect to each other again.”
- Keely Song Glenn, Brigham Young University Dance Faculty and Director of BYU Contemporary Dance Theatre
Opportunity
Music: Opportunity (by Jarom Hansen, a commissioned original composition)
Number of Dancer(s): Five
Opportunity stems from a deep relationship built between choreographer, Jesse Obremski, and Brigham Young University (BYU). With various visits to BYU before this work’s creative process, Jesse felt an immense sensitivity to community and family, which then inspired the work. The work goes through the journey of a knit family of four and an outsider that has a desire to join such a community. It dives into the conversation about sharing space for others and, in doing so, how that can be truly empowering for all; How beautiful it can be when fully giving yourself to another and how one’s choice(s), when given such an ‘Opportunity’, is an incredible responsibility. In collaboration with BYU composer Jarom Hansen, this ten-minute work has an original score as well as a dance film, with videography by Scott Cook.
This work was commissioned by Brigham Young University and BYU’s Contemporary Dance Theater.
World premiere at Brigham Young University’s Contemporary Dance Theater’s Concert (February 2019), and later performed in Prague, Czech Republic (July 2019), DUMBO Dance Festival (October 2019), Paris and Belgium Tours (June 2022) and the film version screened at Arts On Site (December 2019), Detroit Dance City Festival (September 2020), Cross Move Lab December Showcase (December 2020), and Final Bow for Yellowface’s 10,000 Dreams Festival (May 2021).
Photograph by Gabriel Mayberry
“… Jesse Obremski, choreographing on Brigham Young University’s dancers, offers some of the more exciting movement of the night, brilliantly executed by five tenured students (in Obremski’s work Opportunity) whose careers certainly look promising.”
- Elizabeth Shew, The Dance Enthusiast Audience Review
"The best 10 minutes of my day.”
“Beautifully filmed to bring the humanity of Jesse’s work to the viewer. I feel like I am in the room with all of them..very moving.”
- Terese Capucilli, Former Principle Dancer and Artistic Director of The Martha Graham Dance Company
Istanbul, Turkey
Dance Films Association screened, presented by HBO
No Words
Music: No Words (by Trevor Bumgarner, a commissioned original composition)
Number of Dancer(s): Two
No Words is a dance film that has stemmed from the activism on gun control in America. The creation of this work was inspired by the impact of guns in America and asks the viewer to think further on what the next step could be in creating safer communities. The work is a fully collaborative effort between all parties of the team and has an original composition, No Words, created for this film by composer Trevor Bumgarner.
Note from the choreographer: “We, as one community, continually need to reflect on how we relate with one another. "No Words" looks to stimulate a conversation of finding respect and love for each other in a society that can easily desensitize this issue. We can quickly forget the sobering realities of these human experiences, one that may not be our own experiences but one, that still affects many humans today. The conversation begins with us all to address this difficult issue and find moments that promote love and respect for our country, our communities, and one another.”
This dance film was commissioned, filmed, and produced by The Roof Films at The Black Box Theater in The Church of the Blessed Sacrament (2018) and then presented at Arts on Site (2018), Queens DANCE SHORTS (April 2019), Lincoln Center for the Dance Films Association presented by HBO (July 2019), selected for Lift-Off Global Network First-Time Filmmaker Sessions (2019), selected for the Humanitarian Film Day in Istanbul, Turkey (March 2019), SEEQS Public Charter Schools in Honolulu, Hawaii (2020), and International World Dance Day UNESCO (IWDD) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (April 2021).
The live version of No Words had it’s world premiere at DUMBO Dance Festival (October 2018) and then later performed at HiArtists (March 2019) and The Jamaica Dance Festival (June 2019).