New York-based choreographer and breakdancer Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie is known for all sorts of adventurous collaborations.
She founded Ephrat Asherie Dance in 2012, establishing a crew that, like her, is proficient in the African American and Latinx street and club movement styles that were born in the 1970s.
Her company crosses racial and cultural boundaries by working with different music and movement artists, such as jazz pianist Ehud Asherie (Asherie’s brother) and acclaimed tap dancer Michelle Dorrance.
In “Shadow Cities,” Asherie’s current project, she and her dancers are accompanied by Grammy Award-winning composer and pianist Arturo O’Farrill along with members of his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra.
Choreographer Ephrat Asherie, left, and composer/pianist Arturo O’Farrill have collaborated on “Shadow Cities,” a highly improvisational dance-music work that will be performed Feb. 22 in La Jolla. (Christopher Duggan)
Members of Ephrat Asherie Dance perform “Shadow Cities,” a highly improvisational dance-music work that will be presented Feb. 22 in La Jolla. (Christopher Duggan)
Members of Ephrat Asherie Dance perform “Shadow Cities,” a highly improvisational dance-music work that will be presented Feb. 22 in La Jolla. (Christopher Duggan)
Members of Ephrat Asherie Dance perform “Shadow Cities,” a highly improvisational dance-music work that will be presented Feb. 22 in La Jolla. (Christopher Duggan)
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Choreographer Ephrat Asherie, left, and composer/pianist Arturo O’Farrill have collaborated on “Shadow Cities,” a highly improvisational dance-music work that will be performed Feb. 22 in La Jolla. (Christopher Duggan)
Two shows, much of it improvised, will be staged at The Conrad in La Jolla next Sunday and that heightened, in-the-moment energy transmits to the audience. In simpler terms, their brain waves and yours can get synchronized. There’s science that supports that phenomenon.
The “Shadow Cities” theme celebrates the ways that, in that mysterious space where disparate elements meet, creativity can unite and transform. Though a lot of the action is uninhibited and spontaneous, all participants have worked together, professionally and socially, for years and are highly skilled.
“One of the beautiful things about this collaboration is that as artists, we are all rooted in improvisation because of the forms that we work in,” Asherie said. “Of course, there is structure in choreography, but there are pockets where improvisation lives and breathes. That is part of why this is such an exciting process for us. To honor the dances that we do, you have to leave space to improvise. It’s everything that makes you grow and connect and be more present.”
The choreography for “Shadow Cities” includes breaking, waacking, (those sharp arm movements similar to aircraft marshaling signals), partnering that thrusts a dancer in the air, floor sweeps and salsa hip swivels.
The dancers are exuberant, with a unified, infectious vibe reminiscent of an early New York club scene.
Before every “Shadow Cities” performance, the dancers and musicians face each other in a circle and go over stage notes, a common practice among live performers. But the “Shadow Cities” artists have an unusual tradition that O’Farrill started while on tour.
Each musician and dancer will sing a random note that creates a chord, a communal vocalization, though none are singers. There are times when it sounds odd. But that breaks the tension.
“Before soundcheck, when we were in a circle, I said, ‘Let’s remember this note we talked about,” Asherie recalled. “But then, Arturo sang a note and that’s what happened. There are times when we all coalesce, but mostly it’s like breathing together. It’s wonderful … and hilarious.”
Asherie and O’Farrill first met in 2019 while on a shared program titled the American Dance Platform at The Joyce Theater in New York.
They discovered many mutual interests and in 2024, they began working on “Shadow Cities.”
O’Farrill is a classically trained Mexican/Cuban pianist and composer who was born in Mexico and raised in New York. He has won eight Grammy Awards and has provided music for many dance organizations, among them, the San Francisco Ballet, Ballet Hispánico and from Cuba, the Malpaso Dance Company.
“I feel like I only became a musician when I started working with choreographers and dancers,” O’ Farrill said. “Until that point, I was a competent craft person. But when I saw human beings floating through the air in response to musical gestures, I felt that now, I can really begin to compose and play with purpose. When I compose now, I have to see the music in motion and hear the music in motion.”
Much of the music O’Farrill is performing in “Shadow Cities” is also improvised.
“But we are so comfortable, we are no longer dancers and musicians,” O’ Farrill said. “I feel we are an autonomous body. We no longer distinguish ourselves.”
Asherie was born in Israel, grew up in New York and earned a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, where she studied the roots of street and club dances. As a dancer, she was mentored by Richard “Break Easy” Santiago, a New York-based break-dancing instructor who exposed her to Latin rhythms.
Asherie also has traveled to Cuba to set work on the Malpaso Dance Company, which performed her dance “Floor… y ando!” in San Diego last year.
The “Shadow Cities” collaboration, Asherie says, expresses “a lot of different ideas while holding disparate emotions together.”
And get ready, that doesn’t just happen on stage.
According to a recent study by researchers at the University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, when people watch a live contemporary dance performance, their brainwaves sync up, signaling a shared focus and a sense of community that triggers positive, collective emotions.
“In many ways, this is very much like the club aesthetic, the collective consciousness that celebrates each individual,” Asherie enthused.
“That’s the energy of the work. You’ll see that each dancer and musician has a featured moment — to say what they want to say. That is, to me, the essence of the collaboration. You aren’t staying confined and that’s the idea of the club as a liminal or in-between space. Jazz is very much like that, too. There’s that freedom.”
La Jolla Music Society presents Ephrat Asherie Dance with Arturo O’Farrill in ‘Shadow Cities’
When: 3 and 7 p.m. Feb. 22
Where: the Baker-Baum Concert Hall, Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, 7600 Fay Ave., La Jolla.
Tickets: $35-$85
Online: theconrad.org