The Body-Brain-Gut of the Matter: Jody Oberfelder on Neuroscience and Movement
Choreographer and dancer Jody Oberfelder discusses her work, and how she uses her pieces to immerse the audience in the body: the heart, the gut, and the brain, and explores the connections between neuroscience and movement.
Meet This Episode's Guest
Jody Oberfelder
Jody Oberfelder is a director, choreographer, and filmmaker. Her newest work, the final installation in a series of body-centric multimedia explorations, Madame Ovary commits to examine the role biology and anatomy play in defining identity through a humanistic and thoughtful lens. Madame Ovary premieres May 15-19, 2019 at the Flea Theater. Her immersive work 4Chambers (2013), a piece about the heart, was performed in an historic home on Governors Island and in a former hospital. The Brain Piece (2017) was a choreographed experience: a union of movement, film, neuroscience and sound, giving audiences an interactive and intuitive opportunity to engage with their minds in motion. Oberfelder has been a guest teacher at Bryn Mawr University, Temple University, University of Hawaii, New York University, Middlebury College, Wayne State University, Moravian College, and Alfred University. She has been awarded a Joyce Theater Residency, a New York Foundation for the Arts BUILD Grant, and funding from NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Her company, Jody Oberfelder Projects (JOP), has performed internationally at Museu dos Biskeínhos (Braga, Portugal), NoD (Prague), Gallus Theater, Guelph Dance Festival (Canada), Centre National de la Danse in Paris, Die Werkstatt in Dusseldorf, The Pusan National Theater in Korea, The 20th Annual International Festival of Modern Dance in Seoul, and The Belgrade Dance Festival (with performances at The Belgrade State Theater in Serbia and the State Theater of Montenegro in Podorica). In the United States, she has presented her work at New York Live Arts, Abrons Arts Center, The Flea Theater, Dixon Place, Schimmel Theater, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, Jacob’s Pillow, MASS MoCA, Washington College, and The Yard in Martha's Vineyard.
As dance filmmaker, Oberfelder has created ten films: Dance of the Neurons, Come Sit Stay, Head First, Duet, Chance Encounters, LineAge, Rapt, Dizzy Memoir, Dots, and Snew. These films have been shown at Dance Films Association’s Long Legs Short Films Festival and The Dance on Camera Festival, Cinedans (Amsterdam), San Francisco Dance Film Festival, Cannes Short Film Festival, Dance Camera West, The Fargo Film Festival, Worlding the Brain Symposium, The London Dance Film Festival FRAME, Imagine Science Film Festival, DCTV, and VideodanceBA (Buenos Aires). Oberfelder also has choreographed commercials for Prada, Guerlain Perfume (with Hillary Swank), and Danskin.
Photo by Wowe Photography
Visit Jody online and hear more about her work at https://www.jodyoberfelder.com/