Emanuel Gat

Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat has been invited by ICK to create a new performance for the company in 2018. The choice for Emanuel Gat derives from an interest in his aesthetics and form language and from the specific way in which he approaches the dancers. Gat wants to create an environment in his work in which dancers feel sheltered, on the one hand, and challenged, on the other; an environment of excitement and confusion, optimism and rage, expectations and fear, doubts and opportunities. Greco and Scholten regard Gat as a choreographer who can give the dance ensemble of ICK a strong identity, a new step in the search for the identity of the body.

Emanuel Gat first came into contact with dance at the age of 23, during a workshop by Israeli choreographer Nir Ben Gal. A few months afterwards he joined the Liat Dror Nir Ben Gal Company as a member and went on international tours with it. In 1994, he began as an independent choreographer, drawing inspiration from the principles of American post-modern dance. Besides a choreographer, Gat is also a musician and a photographer.

In 2014 Gat set up his own company, Emanuel Gat Dance, at the renowned Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv. There, he created the pieces Voyage d'hiver (2004) and Le Sacre du printemps (2004), which were both awarded with a Bessy Award. In 2006 there followed K262 and 3for2007 in 2007, after which he moved to France in 2008 to take up residence in Istres (near Marseille) at the Maison Intercommunale de la Danse. Silent Ballet (2008) is the first piece Gat created in France and it was followed by Winter variations (2009) and Billiant Corners (2011).

Since 2013, Emanuel has been attached to the Festival Montpellier Danse as an artist and for it, his company developed the project Up Close Up, which spawned two pieces, The Goldlandbergs and Corner Etudes, a photographic installation It's people, how abstract can it get? and a choreographic event entitled Plage Romantique, A one-hour piece for 9 dancers that was performed at the Agora Courtyard (University of Northern British Columbia) during the 34th edition of the Festival Montpellier Danse.

From 2016 until 2018 Gat was attached to the festival as a choreographer. In this context he created the performance SUNNY, a choreography for 10 dancers, in the summer of 2016. For this he collaborated with musician Awir Leon, a former dancer with the company, who provided live accompaniment to the choreography.