In a special effort to raise awareness about the Braswell Arts Center Virtual Benefit Gala, we are proud to present this years featured artists.

Who are you? And a bit about your training and experience?

My name is Jon Ole Olstad, I am 34 years old and I’m from Norway.

I started dancing at 16 years old, quickly realizing dance was my greatest passion. I was accepted to the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 2009. After college, I was hired for the tour project “Kamuyot”, a collaboration between the Swedish Riksteatern, and Batsheva Dance Company, led by artistic director Ohad Naharin. In 2013, I worked with Nederlands Dans Theater 1, led by artistic director Paul Lightfoot and I had the honor of working with Paul Lighfoot and Sol Leon, Johan Inger, Hofesh Shechter, Marco Goecke, Alexander Ekman, Jiri Kylian, Mehdi Walerski and Crystal Pite. My own choreography has been presented at Cross Connection Choreography Competition in Copenhagen, Korea Contemporary Dance Competition, Stockholm Dance Film Festival, and Gala of the stars in Florida. 

In 2015, I presented the solo “and we already knew the names” at the International Solo Tanz Competition in Stuttgart where I was awarded 1st prize dancer and 1st prize choreographer. In 2019 I  was awarded the production prize from Ballet Basel at the 33.rd International Hannover Choreography competition with the solo’ Finally it’s everything’.

 In 2009, I started teaching dance classes and 2015-2019 I lived in New York City where I dedicated my time teaching and choreographing. I’ve had the pleasure of sharing my knowledge and love for dance at NYU-Tisch, The Palucca School Dresden, Marymount Manhattan College, Acosta Danza, Khio- Oslo, Balletakademien in Gothenburg and Stockholm, The Alvin Ailey school, Peridance, Steps on Broadway, Broadway Dance Center, ArtÉmotion Summer Intensive- Ballet West, Joffrey Ballet Intensive, World Dance Movement Festival in Italy, NUOVA OFFICINA DELLA DANZA, Lines Ballet, Gallim Dance, Ballet Hispanico, Ballet Nuremberg, Ballet Leipzig, Theater Pforzheim, Carte Blanche Dance Company, BODYTRAFFIC and Theater Regensburg Tanz

What inspires you?

Life inspires me. The mystery and magic of life and how we as human being are constantly trying to figure out life inspires me.

In terms of choreography I get inspired trying to create a curious and interesting conversation between the music and the emotional conflicts within the dancers I get to work with. When teaching I get inspired by a young student or a professional dancer that has an unconditional love for their dance and craft, that allows them to make mistakes and learn new approaches to life, vulnerability and  movement.

Tell us about the work you are presenting or dancing in?

The work I’m presenting is a duet from an outdoor contemporary dance show called: Dancing In The Wild. The dancers are Carlos Luis Blanco Ramos from Cub and Siv Gaustad from Norway.

During the first lockdown of 2020, I was forced to move back home to my small town in Norway where I grew up and where my parents still live. I had no friends and no dance community there. The only thing I had was A LOT of time and never ending possibility to hike in gorgeous nature. My parents house is close to a national park and on one of my daily hikes during lockdown I got an idea to spend this time in isolation planning and creating a new dance performance. Fast forward to the summer of 2021 and after countless hours of intense work applying for funding, choreographing, planning the outdoor logistics, hiring dancers, making costumes and basically doing everything myself the 90 min show premiered. I choreographed the show and danced in it together with 9 other phenomenal dancers. The show took inspiration from dilemmas often presented in traditional Norwegian folk fairy tales and the audience was guided by the main dancer through a powerful Norwegian fairytale landscape situated in a quarry( open-pit mine). As a choreographer It was indescribably humbling to see the work the dancers put in and how they surrendered to the difficulties of dancing outside under extreme conditions.

Hardest part of your job?

Hardest part of my job is to make people understand that dancers, teachers and choreographers need to be paid and valued for the work they do.

Who has been the most influential person/people in your life? or Career? and why?

I feel like the one mentor who really taught me everything I know about dance is my contemporary/jazz teacher, Siv Gaustad, that I have trained with for 15 ears now. She’s still my biggest inspiration today; I look up to her immensely and I still become speechless every time I see her move. Her unique ability of making every single second of movement magical, strong, vulnerable and passionate is something I strive to find within my own dance. I saw her dance for the first time when I was 16 years old and back then we didn’t have YouTube or instagram so I was not exposed to a lot of dance. Standing outside the studio and peeking in to the class where she was dancing in, changed my life forever. I remember thinking that I had never seen anything like this before in my life and I felt with my whole body that I knew I wanted to dance every minute of life after that moment. I remember taking her class for the first time a few years later and just thinking, oh my, I don’t know anything about dance. There was no chance in hell I was able to follow the advanced warm-up, I didn’t know half of the steps, and after that class I felt so defeated, but at the same time, I thought that my goal was to be able to follow this class, to be able to learn every single thing in that hour-long warm-up, to be able to pick up every step in the choreography, and I just kept coming back.

I thought that it’s a marathon and that I’ll be able to push through this; I’ll be able to learn. After a few years of training , I ended up assisting her in class settings and choreography; I ended up being in her shows. I just saw myself in that first class from being the person in the corner in the back, to being the person who went through with it, and I think it’s really important to have those kinds of mentors in your life. And it felt surreal and truly full circle when she joined my show, Dancing In The Wild.

Something you like to do other than dance?

Other than dance I love to hike in the mountains, make food, drink coffee and watch documentaries.

Your wildest dreams for the dance world?

My wildest dream for the dance world would be that every dancer got a dance job they loved, could be proud of and that could pay their bills. Another dream would be to have dance as a subject in school and to let that be as normal, natural and important as a math or history class.

Something you would change in the REAL world?

In the real world I would change the focus more towards the learnings and experiences of emotional intelligence.

Please help us raise awareness about the Braswell Arts Center Virtual Benefit Gala, we need your support to reach our campaign goal for the new Braswell Arts Center at Aeschenplatz. Join us if you can!