OMAR ROMAN DE JESUS

MONDAY, 7/22

2:00-4:00PM

$5

Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway NYC
Entrance 53A Chambers

The Playground NYC allows dancers to experience various choreographic styles and ideas, engage with a new community of dancers, and gather resourceful information and inspiration from the array of choreographers involved. In turn, established choreographers are paid for their creative investigations, are given free space to explore new movement with professional dancers, and are provided with the opportunity to establish relationships with new dancers and fellow choreographers.

CLASS DESCRIPTION: 
Through demanding physicality and an embodied contemporary movement practice, his class engages the dancers’ capacity to receive and apply detailed information while connecting the relationships between body and mind. By using his movement vocabulary and choreographic voice, my teaching methods focus on the retention of detail. Omar encourage dancers to understand that the power of their movement is found through their approach; focusing on how nuance can inform the delivery of the steps.

To support his vision, Omar developed a cardio based warm up that helps strengthen joints and muscles, creating stamina for the body to further expand its capacity for a fully embodied range of motion. 

BIO:
Omar Román De Jesús (San Juan, PR) began his formal training at the School for the Performing Arts in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Omar was a member of Balleteatro Nacional de Puerto Rico from 2006-2011. During this period, he won the Championship Cup and Gold Medal at the National Dance Competition in Puerto Rico.  He received a scholarship to the Ailey School in 2011, and after two years, he began his professional career in the modern and contemporary dance world.

He has toured nationally and internationally with Yin Yue Dance Company, Ballet Hispánico and Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company. He has performed and led works by Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, David Parsons, Robert Battle, Mary Pat Henry, Trey McIntyre, Kate Skarpetowska, Michelle Manzanales, Jennifer Archibald, Tania Peréz-Salas, Carlos Pons, Ephrat Asherie, and Yin Yue. Omar had the honor of performing duets by Tania Perez Salas and Michelle Manzanales at the 2018 TITAS Gala. He is proud to have danced at BAM Fisher, NY and the 2019 Schrittmacher Festival in Germany, where he performed an evening length show by Yin Yue. 

Omar's choreography has been recognized for its originality, and he has been praised for his ability to craft an emotional arc. He has received several awards including the Audience Award at The Dance Gallery Festival and 1st place Steps Commission at the Reverb Dance Festival in NYC. He has been commissioned twice by Instituto de Cultura de Puerto Rico to create work as part of the International Dance Festival of Puerto Rico, where he was awarded the Ambassador of Dance medal. His work, Daniel, was performed at The Joyce Theater as part of David’s Parsons’ 2017 GenerationNOW Fellowship. Omar has won choreographic competitions including the Joffrey Academy of Dance's 8th annual Winning Works Choreographic Competition and the Whim W’Him’s  Choreographic Shindig. He was the first person commissioned to create an original work on Jacob Jonas The Company. He truly enjoyed creating original work this year in collaboration with the students of The Ailey School and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. 

Omar is the founder of New York City based dance company, Boca Tuya, a company who’s mission is to spread sensitivity, kindness, and joy in humanity by raising awareness through art. 

Omar is fond of education and has experience teaching workshops and master classes all over the world for dancers, non dancers, and children on the Autism Spectrum.