Jasmin Vardimon is one of the biggest names in contemporary dance and is constantly pushing boundaries within contemporary dance, whether it’s pushing what dancers are able to do or her creative ideas with set and props and how she can transform a blank stage setting. Jasmin Vardimon has always inspired me; ‘Pinko’ was one of the first contemporary dance performances I have watched live and since then I’ve always been captivated by her work as a dancer and an audience member. Since watching her work online and in theatres, I have been inspired by the storytelling within her work and how her ideas intertwine together. One of my favourite things about Vardimon’s work is how each piece has a further meaning where she links it to social challenges that are currently relevant and challenging in the world today, making her work relatable for the audience.

When the task came to write about a key figure on contemporary dance, I instantly knew who I was going to focus on. I have always been really fascinated by Jasmin Vardaman’s way of working with props and how the props influence/support the meaning of her work.  As an audience member watching Vardimons work, something that stands out in her work is the strong narrative written story line for the audience to follow her work as she takes you along a journey, which allows almost all her work and meaning to have a clear purpose. Another aspect of her work that inspires me is how she can completely transform the stage with set and props and how this then changes the atmosphere. A lot of her work focuses on a classic story such as medusa that she re-tells, for an audience member this is exciting to watch as we don’t know how she will interpret the story line, her work is also easy for an audience member to follow along and her set changes make it visually engaging to watch.

Jasmin Vardimon has been creating work for over twenty years, where she has been an Associate Artist since 2006 at Sadler’s Wells theatre, as well as Associate Artist at The Place and at Yorkshire Dance, alongside this she founded her company in 1998 and has been creating ground-breaking work ever since. Vardimon grew up in a Kibbutz in central Israel where she started dancing at Kibbutz dance company, where she was a member for five years before moving to London where she founded her company. During her time growing up in Israel in the Kibbutz, she was very influenced by human behaviour as she grew up in children’s houses where she had to work with children. Later, she joined military service at 18 where she did this as a sociological interviewer, she became influenced in how people tell their life stories. Jasmin Vardimon’s many works include a narrative storyline that retell classic stories that she brings the audience along a journey and uses props to create and change her atmospheres during her works. Her works include, Alice (2022), Medusa (2018), Pinocchio (2016), Yesterday (2008), park (2005, re-worked in 2014), 7734 (2010), Justitia (2007), Freedom (2012), and Maze (2015). Vardimon often communicates a fascinating yet dark storytelling during her work that captures the audience’s attention. Her way of retelling classic stories such as medusa and Pinocchio are so clever, and this is something I really admire in her work. Vardimon’s physical dance style challenges her dances and pushes them to the limit and pushes the physical ability of what her dancers can do, whilst also pushing their physical theatre skills and work with various props and set designs. When Vardimon looks for new dancers in open auditions the dancers she is normally looking for are multi-talented dancers that are versatile and can express through different ways such as able to deliver text, act, different dance styles, and preform with strong emotion.

Vardimon views dance as its own form of expression and communication, for example it can shine new light on subject matters, stimulate emotions, raise awareness and provoke thoughts. Through her work she is interested in raising questions, increasing awareness and provoking thoughts rather than giving the audience answers and reaching a finale conclusion. Something that draws me into Jasmin Vardaman’s work as an audience member is how she works with present social concerns such as pollution, politics, sexism and so on, this is important to her because she feels that ‘Art has the power to communicate different levels of understanding.’ (Glenthorne Dance, 2021).

 By working with social concerns as a main area in her work she can really relate to present situations and people can even learn more about situations from watching her work. This is something I find powerful in her work; everything has such a significant meaning. I think that’s why her work is so popular because people can relate to it. Another element that inspires her creative work is personal experiences. For example, she visited the concentration camps as a teenager and visited her grandfather’s grave there, this was a very strong experience that stuck with her when she grew up. It took Vardimon time to process this experience and to eventually develop it into artwork but later on in life this would be a huge influence for her piece 7734. (Jasmin Vardimon, 2020). 

 She is also hugely influenced by observing society when creating her work. This is something I love about her creative process because she actively gets information from our current world from just watching. Observing society is also how she created one of her early works, Park. As she often works with big social concerns this links in well with our work during unit 2 on the protest project. We used breath and voice as a way of portraying unity and a voice for when people can’t be heard. This is something that can be seen throughout all her work, she spoke about this during an interview about her work Medusa,’ We used the use of breath in medusa, to sink with each other in morning class, to create unified community and organism that has its own rhythm and timing not related to the music.’ (Jasmin Vardimon, 2019)

This is also something Vardimon used during her companies prep for shows and in training, she uses a lot of breath so that the dancers acknowledge each other and to try and unify as one. This is something I really kept in mind during working on our protest project and that the more we would practice breathe work together the more in sink we would become as a whole and this was vital during our work on protest project. Vardimon has also been influenced by human behaviour, she grew up in Kibbutz and later on in life joined military service at 18, where she did this as a sociological interviewer, she became influenced in how people tell their life stories. When creating her work, she likes to think of the props as the dance’s partners, which could open more movement opportunities when you think of the props in this way. Vardimon’s use of props supports her choreographic approach by linking lots of different ideas, such as medusa. In this piece Vardimon looked into the gendered historical significance of the classic tale Medusa. During this work Vardimon explored, the myth, the symbolism and the idea of reflection whilst also being inspired by marine life which is where the octopus like movements stimulated from. She also took inspiration from the current social concern of pollution to support the idea of marine life she portrayed this idea of the ocean and sea life throughout her piece, to link this she used a lot of trash during this piece. This is something I find so incredible in her work, how everything has a meaning and is somehow linked together, this is something I hope to really draw upon during my creative work. 

Vardimons work has influenced the dance world with her creative ideas with setting props and her ability to transform her stage settings. Her physical dance style pushes the ability of dancers and what they can do as-well as influencing classic stories and retelling them. The affect her work has had on me as a performer and choreographer is catastrophic; she has influenced my creative ideas and way of thinking. Something that strikes me about her work is how whenever I’m an audience member, I am constantly surprised by what I have seen on stage, and I always leave the theatre with so many questions and thoughts. This is something I really hope to take forward during my creative work and bear in mind how the audience can be surprised by what they see on stage. She has challenged what is physically possible for contemporary dancers as she is constantly pushing them to the limit and making her dancers stronger. 

REFRENCE LIST:

Glenthorne Dance (2021). Jasmin Vardimon Influences. [Online Video]. 8 July 2021. Available from: https://youtu.be/6VFfzORN5YE. [Accessed: 24 March 2023].

 

 Jasmin Vardimon (2023). Jasmin Vardimon MBE. [ONLINE] Available at: https://jasminvardimon.com/bio/jasmin-vardimon/. [Accessed 12 April 2023].

 

Jasmin Vardimon (2020). Jasmin Vardimon Zoom Q&A. [Online Video]. 12 May 2020. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TIsvdgrRZM. [Accessed: 20 April 2023].

 

Jasmin Vardimon (2019). How does the use of breath influence and initiate movement in Medusa? Available from: https://youtu.be/AYtKEaw1Q6c. [Accessed: 24 March 2023].

 BIBLIOGRAPHY:

BBC Four. 2023. Young dancers 2022. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/23KGm4ZK8s5hzBKLR6Dqr4z/jasmin-vardimon. [Accessed 5 April 2023].

 

Jasmin Vardimon (2023). Anthony Matsena in conversation with Jasmin Vardimon. [Online Video]. 12 May 2020. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPwtkEjjLrw. [Accessed: 30 June 2020].

 

 

The Stage. 2023. Jasmin Vardimon: 'I grew up in a kibbutz built by poets. That’s informed my vision for JVHome'. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/jv2s-jasmin-vardimon-i-grew-up-in-a-kibbutz-built-by-poets-thats-informed-my-vision-for-jvhome. [Accessed 5 April 2023].