“To move… to jump… to dance… to escape gravity and the homogeneity of society and become yourself. Life is a marvelous kaleidoscope of countless simple actions that are as unique as each and every one of us. The expression of life is in itself a dance… even the most imperceptible shiver can be beautiful.”
Daniel Ezralow has made an award-winning career expanding the boundaries of dance. From his beginnings as a dancer with 5x2 Plus, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Pilobolus, and the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Ezralow’s professional life has grown to include work as a director and choreographer. He has, over decades, masterfully traversed the mediums of live performance, film and television, from modest venues to the world’s greatest stages. With a directorial approach both visceral and imaginative, his unique style of physical expression has earned him a distinguished international reputation as a groundbreaking artist.
Daniel Ezralow has conceived, directed and choreographed the new and original dance theater play PEARL, inspired by the life of writer and humanitarian, Pearl S. Buck, which opened at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater 2015. The Huffington Post called it, “a stunning collaborative spectacle of dance, theater, film, music, multi media and history." To bring to life the legend of Pearl, Ezralow traveled to Zhenjiang, China to research Pearl’s extraordinary journey. In China he conducted intensive dance workshops, discovering new international talent to complement Ezralow Dance Company’s signature performers, in this unique multi-cultural collaboration. In Tokyo, Daniel Ezralow conceived, directed and choreographed the critically acclaimedshow, ‘Flying Bodies, Soaring Souls’, in collaboration with legendary designer Issey Miyake. Ezralow also transformed the Mariinsky Theatre (Saint Petersburg), into a rolling wheat field, creating and directing a striking visual spectacle, provocatively reinterpreting Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’.
Interview with Joan Agajanian Quinn. Recorded on July 14, 2017.
As a director/choreographer, Ezralow has created fifteen original dance theatre plays that have toured internationally to glowing reviews. His most recent show OPEN, with Ezralow Dance, had its US premiere at the Wallis Annenberg Center in Los Angeles 2016. In addition, Ezralow has created live and filmed events at the Louvre Museum and the Pompidou Centre (Paris), Yankee Stadium and the Guggenheim Museum (NYC), the Getty Museum and The Ford Theater (L.A.) and the Opening Ceremonies of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
As a choreographer, Ezralow has been commissioned for original works by Paris Opera Ballet, Batsheva, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Philadanco amongst others. His choreography and aerial creations are in The Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil, Broadway’s Spider-Man:Turn off the Dark and the seminal musical film Across the Universe.
Hailed by The Chicago Tribune as “One of the best American dancer choreographers now working on an international scale”, Ezralow is the artistic director and founder of Ezralow Dance, a movement based company known for its explosive physicality, originality and humor.
He is one of the original dancer/choreographers to create MOMIX and a director and founding member of ISO Dance.
In television Ezralow conceived and created award the award winning dance specials Windows (Bravo), Episodes (PBS) and Josh Groban in Concert (PBS) and has choreographed music videos and staged shows for musicians including Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, Sara Bareilles, Sting, David Bowie and U2.
Ezralow’s work has earned him two American Choreography Awards for innovative and outstanding choreography, a Choreographic Media Honors Award, an Emmy Award, Emmy nomination, the Premio Positano (Italy), a Nijinsky Award, an Ischia Award and an NEA Choreographic Fellowship. This past fall he received the McCallum Theater Choreographic lifetime achievement award.