Chaz Buzan
I’ve been a fan of Chaz Buzan ever since finding him by clicking around on YouTube a few years back. He’s a supremely talented dancer and choreographer who has an amazing ability to improv and literally dance inside the songs that he is dancing to. Recently, I saw a new (completely improv) video that blew my mind, and I wanted to share. I hope you enjoy. As usual, if you are reading this from your email subscription, you will need to navigate to the live blog entry online to watch the embedded video. It starts slowly, but it’s absolutely worth watching.
This is one of his older works that I love, and shows a very different style. It’s like popping and locking modern. Absolutely hypnotizing.
I think that the thing that I love most about Chaz is his musicality- he dances not just to the words, or the melody, but listens to the silence of the songs as well and fills the empty spaces. He melds the song and the movement into a synergy that forces you to have a relationship with what you’re hearing and seeing as one experience.
I find so much inspiration in the way that he makes shapes and lines with his entire body, from his fingers to his toes. He is super aware and super physically adept and can manipulate his movement in ways that just blow my mind. While I may not aspire to dance just like him, I think that watching his dances truly expanded my horizons and understanding of what a freestyle could be.
Tomorrow’s post: Tuesday Tips- Spin momentum…
Beautiful! My mind is blown. What I find most impressive about his style is that even though he’s improvising, all of his moves are extremely well-chosen and for me it creates the impression that he has complete ownership of the music. Very inspiring!
I love the way that he not only owns the music, but breathes it. He lives within it and it’s as though he’s performing to live music performed by an artist who has been playing for him for years!
YES! he is one of my favorite contemporary dancers too. I love to go back and watch his videos (i love youtube for that) to learn about body movement.. He is very intricate. I love how he moves every part of his body to transition from one movement to another.
Absolutely! Every fiber of muscle and every fragment of bone are moving together in concert and he is isolating movements that you just don’t anticipate. A rippling shoulder makes you realize how beautiful an unexpected shrug can be. If you have any other inspirations that you’d like to share, feel free =)
[...] non-pole inspiration? Watch Chaz Buzan, Marie Chouinard, Kerri Kresinski, Wade Robson’s choreo, Jacoby & Pronk, [...]