Art & Soul -- Amy O'Brien Choreographer 11.18.09 BOISE, ID (idaho) - JYL: It's easy to connect with Amy O'Brien--her self confidence and gentle nature draw you in.

O'Brien: "I love performing though, I like looking the audience in the eye and trying to make some sort of a connection."

JYL: This thin, muscular woman is intense and elegant. She's graceful yet wild when she dances, but always in self control. She practices in her new studio in the Boise area. It's long and narrow--she just painted the walls a metallic gold color. On one end of the studio she's hung a white sheet to serve as a screen.
O'Brien: "I have this projector set up and it's some snippets of some of the pieces that I've worked on over the years and performed in and choreographed."

SFX pulling up chairs

JYL: We pull up a couple chairs and turn on the projector the first thing on screen is O'Brien dancing to the music of Chopin .a work she also choreographed.

SFX music pushing buttons

O'Brien: "It ended up being the jumping off point for a work that I created for Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project and it was performed in New York and kind of all over the world and it was a great experience for me."

JYL: When the Mikhail Baryshnikov, the famous Russian dancer and choreographer, saw O'Brien's dance, he asked her to create a piece for him for three dancers. He discovered her in a sense.

O'Brien: "He definitely liked my imagery and the truthfulness of my work and if I would ever kind of veer off into getting too much into the pure physical dance and lost sight of my idea he would just say Don't forget your idea."

JYL: That focus guided O'Brien as she grew and matured in the New York dance scene. Choreographer Twyla Tharp took her to another level. She trained four years with Tharp. O'Brien says Tharp was tough but she gave O'Brien permission to explore dance at new level.

O'Brien: "She did a really great piece called In the Upper Room and I was a member of her company for some years and we recorded a version of it for Dance in America on PBS and this is just the beginning of it and I'm a lot younger here laughs; I'm the one on the right, there " :20

JYL: That one dance was a 40-minute non-stop performance with multiple costume changes and dancers weaving in a trance like state to the music.

fade music out

JYL: O'Brien's choreography can be equally complex; her process always begins alone in a studio with music.

O'Brien: just move--move to the music and just see what comes out; I like having a little bit of a sense of humor; but it's all intuitive; I never have a plan; it's a big problem-solving experience laughs"

JYL: It's a journey driven by emotion, guided by physicality and intellect that at some point all come together.

O'Brien: "I love to rehearse, I like to be very prepared so then I don't have to think about that; and then let the music take you through and fine tune everything as you go."

JYL: She's had a lot of practice. O'Brien has been dancing since she was eight years old. She grew up in San Diego, kept on dancing and evolving, until one day she woke up and was a professional dancer living in New York.

O'Brien: "I actually just went to New York for two weeks to visit and then I never came back home."

JYL: She didn't want to go back to San Diego because she had become a part of New York's dance scene. O'Brien did a lot of musical theater and dance during her New York years; she was also drawn to other aspects of theater.

O'Brien: "When I wasn't on the stage I was behind the scenes maybe helping build a set for the next show ."

JYL: O'Brien is still building these days. Her workshop is full of skill saws .one of her favorites is the Saws-All.

O'Brien: Sfx pulling saw from shelf "Let me put this blade in it right here, so if you wanted to work your way out of prison, if you had a Saws-All you could do that "

JYL: But instead O'Brien uses her tools to restore a cabin in Atlanta, an old mining town 26 miles from Boise. She spends her summers there. During autumn and winter she does performance art.

O'Brien: "It's all performance driven; having an image in your head and fulfilling it; making it come to life."

JYL: And she's stepping out on a limb lately. Amy O'Brien's latest creation took place at Boise's Modern Hotel. She had an actor walk across Room 226 in the hotel carrying a 36-layer cake to a closet with fish inside. After all it is all performance art. I'm Jyl Hoyt.
© Copyright 2012, idaho