EPHRAT ASHERIE DANCE: “ODEON”

New York City’s Ephrat Asherie Dance, a dance company rooted in African American and Latine street and social styles, makes their Vail Dance Festival debut with ODEON. Set to the music of fin-de-siecle Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth combining samba and other popular Afro-Brazilian rhythms, ODEON delves into what happens when you bring together parts of the extended family of street and club dances–including breaking, hip hop, house and vogue– and remix them in a world that blurs time, tempo and genre. ODEON is an original dance work for six dancers and four musicians, the second collaboration between sister and brother team Ephrat and Ehud Asherie (choreographer and musical director, respectively). 

ABOUT EPHRAT ASHERIE: Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie is a NYC based b-girl, dancer, and choreographer and a 2016 Bessie Award Winner for Innovative Achievement in Dance. Asherie received Dance Magazine’s Inaugural Harkness Promise Award in 2018 and in 2017 she received a National Dance Project award. Asherie is a 2019 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow and a 2018-2019 City Center Choreography Fellow.  She is a 2020 MAP Fund Awardee and a 2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Her new work, UnderScored: Live and Direct, is currently in development and was awarded a 2019 Creation and Development Award from the National Performance Network. It is set to premiere in 2021 at Works & Process at the Guggenheim. Her company, Ephrat Asherie Dance, has been presented at the Apollo Theatre, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Joyce Theater and FIraTarrega, among others. She is honored to have worked and collaborated with Michelle Dorrance, Rennie Harris, Bill Irwin, Gus Solomons Jr., and Buddha Stretch. Asherie received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee where she researched the vernacular jazz dance roots of contemporary street and club dances. She has taught and set work at many university dance programs including Smith College, University of Richmond and University of California, Santa Barbara.  Immersed in NYC’s underground dance community for two decades, a space where the collective consciousness energizes and celebrates the unique interactivities and movements of each individual, she is forever grateful to the club for giving her the confidence to pursue a life as an artist.   

Generously Underwritten by Jonna Mackin.

Performance time, casting, and repertory are subject to change.

Photo credit: Ephrat Asherie Dance performs ODEON. Photo by Christopher Duggan.