“What surprises people about me is that I come across as calm, quiet and shy, but when I dance I have raw, dynamic, explosive energy.”
—Zack Gonder
Backstage
Early influences. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire inspired my love of dance at age five. I repeated their moves in front of the TV while watching Singing in the Rain and That’s Entertainment again and again. I also danced to The Nightmare Before Christmas. So began my eclectic approach to this art form.
Ballet. Hip hop. Modern. Freestyle. With 15 years of ballet under my belt, I’m able to bring controlled technique to any type of dance, but I love to move fast and explosively, with raw energy that connects to both the dancers and the audience.
The beat. The music. My hip hop background has helped me to hear music in a different way. Good freestyle poppers can hit every beat and not have heard the song before. It’s so intuitive.
Juilliard. My first company experience. I danced with 23 fellow students every day for four years. We had the privilege of working with master choreographers from all over the world, who helped take our dancing to a whole new level.
Breakthrough moment. While performing a piece for the third time, I witnessed it evolving in real time. When you know something so well, it seems like it’s reached a limit, but then if you stick with it more, you break through and discover aspects of the piece you didn’t realize were there.
Letting go. While practicing an intricate piece, I had to think about so many things simultaneously that it felt like a release of the ego because there was so much more importance on the group than the individual. I love the feeling of being part of something larger than myself.
In my spare time. I watch horror movies (my father, a film professor, wrote his dissertation on horror films of the ‘40s and ‘50s, so I come by it honestly). I eat four tablespoons of peanut butter a day. I taught myself to play the piano so I could learn the Linus & Lucy song.
My dream. To perform — as much as I can, for as long as I can. I’d love to work for a company or other choreographers in Asia, collaborate with visual artists, musicians, or beatboxers, and help inspire more widespread interest in contemporary dance there.
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