Meet David Parker | Dancer and Choreographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Parker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I am a New York City-based choreographer who started The Bang Group with my dance partner, Jeffrey Kazin, in 1990 to create dances that embody and reveal the ways that rhythm functions in human interaction. We also wanted to gather a group of dancers who straddled the contemporary and percussive dance worlds. The Bang Group became more than a contemporary percussive dance company and emerged as a community of artists. With increased demand for our work, we incorporated as a non-profit in 1995. To sustain this work we incorporate producing, commissioning, teaching, mentoring and writing into our work though our primary output activity is the creation of dances which are performed reguarly in New York City and on tour throughout North America and Europe.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m 65 and Jeff and I have been involved with The Bang Group for nearly 35 years. We both still dance in the work I choreograph and we are active as producers, mentors, and teachers as well. Beginning a dance company in NYC in the nineties was very different from doing so now. The founding of companies based on shared creative commitments was typical then and the conception of dancers in such companies as experts in the style and process of the choreographer was the basis of the so-called “company model” of that time. While that model has been discredited as impractical or not adaptive to current circumstances, it remains a great model for creativity. I am grateful that Jeff and I have maintained our commitment to this model. Also, our work is unique. We transgress genre boundaries and work equally with contemporary techniques, classical techniques, tap dancing and percussive forms. This we do in a fluid manner and have generated a kind of polyglot form. As a choreographer what distinguishes my work aside from its physical and kinetic breadth is that I use audible rhythm in dance as the “voice” of the body and as a means to limn human relationships, interactions and states of mind.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
For me, the most interesting aspect of living in New York City is having a creative life. That involves work, naturally, but it also involves going to the theater, going to showings of works in progress and much time spent in lively discussion with colleagues in cafes, coffee houses, restaurants and bars. In New York, there are several overlapping dance communities and the sheer abundance of dance in NYC makes it unique in the United States. An ideal artistic visit to NYC would entail sampling these diverse dance communities and visiting the theaters which showcase their work–Pageant in Brooklyn, Danspace Project in the East Village, The Skirball Center, Abrons Arts Center, The Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music and, the small theater where The Bang Group produces original works called Arts On Site.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My co-director Jeffrey Kazin who founded The Bang Group with me, is the cornerstone of our sustainability. Jeff and I collaborate creatively and share many of the administrative duties involved in running the company but we also have tasks unto ourselves. We are complementary. We don’t envy each other’s talents and Jeff’s commitment, diligence and belief in the work are unparalleled.

Website: https://www.thebanggroup.com

Instagram: @frandpapa

Image Credits
Photos by Nicholas Burnham, Steven Pisano and Julie Lemberger