Meet Seda Aybay | Kybele Dance Theater Artistic Director & Choreographer

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

Hi Seda, what do you think makes you most happy? Why?
A lot of things makes me happy… More and more I find a deeper sense of appreciation of every moment of life, creativity and what I do.

I am an artistic director, choreographer, performer and educator. As cliché as it may be, dance, creating performances, creating artists are the reflection of my essence. So being able to do what I love the most brings happiness. Yes there are a lot of challenges of what I do. Financial ups and downs, constant rejections, fatigue and more… Instead of getting lost in these negativities I try to focus on the lessons of each challenge, hoping that the next time it will be a different experience.

I focus on creating. I love the process of creating! Going to the studio with openness to the possibilities excites me. Especially if my dancers are as open as I am, the experience becomes magical.

Than the moment of taking the work in to the theater to give the finishing touches and being able to see it almost to it’s completion brings another sense of happiness.

Of course the creation is never fully complete till it is shared with an audience. What I do, create, put on stage is to share with the hope of touching peoples’ minds and souls. I love to bring a complete emotional experience to my viewers that are coming from different backgrounds, ages, races, genders and at the end seeing/hearing their thoughts, feelings about the performance thrills me the most.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?

I am inspired to create works that build bridges between genders, races, cultures and communities with themes and concepts that are relatable to each and every person. Born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey I grew up traveling all over the world. As a result, I have been exposed to many different cultures, traditions and stories. These experiences led me as a young artist to find common ground, connecting cultures as I create different works with this unique perspective. The underlying concepts of each story and vision for a new dance always relate to fundamental human relationships and how people interact. Exploring and questioning the deeper level of connections beyond just the physical sense lead to a journey of finding part of one’s self in another person: connecting, separating and reuniting. This synergy on stage is experienced by the audience as their own self-reflection moving through time and space.

I desire to awaken the audience’s emotions by accenting forgotten moments of life through fusing contemporary dance with Turkish imagery and a diverse repertory created to inspire, think, and spark imagination. Utilizing nuanced movement to invent new dance morphs known contemporary style into new territory. Pushing the physical body to its limits for electrifying moments on stage amidst fearless risk taking allows for moments of beauty and surprise as well as the unusual and bizarre; this is the essence of my work. My approach to movement has evolved to include quick shifts of weight, dynamic use of momentum and gravity, and refined abstraction of daily gestures. Contrasting movement textures are created through extreme body positions, syncopated rhythms, and level changes. I believe in the clean lines of classicism swiftly blending into the earthiness of modern dance and the daring of contemporary.

I see the stage as my canvas; every moment should behave like a painting filled with complex detail and composition. Lighting and costuming have always been an integral part of my vision and, alongside my choreography, mediums blend to create depth and architectural design on stage, accentuating the magic of live performance. While striving to bring contemporary dance to the forefront of expression, I hope to inspire future generations of art lovers.

I got to where I am with lots of sacrifice, sweat, tears, laughters, self search… It was and still is a process of learning, discovering and re discovering. It’s not easy but as long as you love and appreciate the process and can find joy in the process than the challenges becomes experiences to take you to the next place rather than crush you.

Kybele Dance Theater (KDT) started as a dream of a kid who lived in the other side of the world. Today we are slowly getting to be know more and more nationally in USA. The dream itself is to be universal, well multi-versal 🙂

I founded KDT in 2003 Los Angeles, seeking to cultivate an experience that infuses theatrical and contemporary dance with Turkish socio-cultural narratives and imagery. Drawing from a diverse tapestry of experience, I use my unique multicultural approach to craft gestural movement, syncopated rhythms, and lush curves into repertoire that abstracts and amplifies the forgotten moments of everyday life; the mundane becomes powerful, seductive, and profound. Through a sophisticated lense, KDT fosters an ever evolving vocabulary including evening length programs, mixed repertory work, educational performances, and festivals.

KDT aspires to share contemporary dance with a larger community by reaching audiences of all backgrounds.The company has toured Aybay’s work throughout the United States including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Fresno, Concord, San Jose, Palm Desert, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York. By encouraging audiences to embrace the unknown and trust in the transcendent power of dance, KDT inspires all those who are willing to embark on a narrative journey infused with poetic abstraction and candid emotion.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Quick munch breakfast Take a dance class at Marat Dukayev Studio
Breakfast/brunch at Rose cafe
Bargamot Station to check out the art galleries and do some site specific dance videos
Very early Sunset dinner at Malibu Farms Restaurant at the pier
See a dance concert at Dorothy Chandler, Broad Stage, Wallis or any location that is presenting dance
Have quick drinks at the 71 & above
Find out where ever is that night’s salsa dance scene is and go there next.
Late night munch at the Bossa Nova

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?
I am so lucky that I had many great people in my life guiding, helping, supporting and believing in me. My husband Carl Owens always believes, supports and there for me. I am thankful to my mentors Suna Ugur, Reggie Brown, Karen McDonald. My core support at Kybele Dance Theater; Executive Director Lori Tilkin DeFelice, Technical Director Mark Baker, Beautiful Dancers who always are ready to take other hats; Karlo Ramirez, Rachel Walton, Robert Gomez, Morgan Goodfellow, Advisory Board; Renae Niles, Karen McDonald, Alexandra Grigorieva, Mark Tomasic, Katja Reitemeyer, Ann Greer, Sharon diHaworth.

Website: kybeledance.com

Instagram: @aybay_seda

Linkedin: Seda Aybay

Facebook: Kybele Dance

Youtube: Seda Aybay

Other: Vimeo: Seda Aybay

Image Credits
Photographers: Malachi Middleton, Denise Leitner, Shawna Sarnowski, Paul Antico, Lori Tilkin deFelice