I was invited to an exclusive Q&A with choreographer Zvi Gotheimer before the presentation of ZviDance‘s much beloved work, “Personals” during their 20th Anniversary Benefit. Rather than reiterate his words in my  review of the performance (click here to read it), I thought it would be interesting to catch a glimpse of his actual responses. In this video Gotheimer addresses the ubiquitous question of the economic downturn and what it means for an artist and speaks a bit about how he handles a changing cast.

1. What was the first creative moment you remember?

I was a creative child, and as far as I remember I was always creating something: drawings, paintings, ceramic sculptures or improvising with a recorder.

2. Where did you grow up and how did you wind up where you are now?

I was brought up in a small kibbutz in the northeast of Israel. It seems miraculous to me that I ended up living my life in New York City. The distance between these two places is more than geographic. I was lucky to have received a scholarship from the America- Israel Cultural Foundation to study in New York and, like many other millions, fall in love with the city, where I eventually settled down for good.

3. What performance, song, play, movie or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?

Many works of art have made a strong impact on me in the past and still do in the present. Some influences Mahler’s Symphonies, movies by Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and many others, and choreography by Jerome Robbins, Jiří Kylián, Trisha Brown and many others.

4. What is your ideal creative activity?

Choreographing.

5. How do you begin your day?

I stretch and do conditioning exercises for about an hour.

6. Have you ever had to make a choice between work and art? What did you choose, why, and what was the outcome?

So far, I have been lucky to work mostly on projects related to the art form of dance. I enjoy both choreographing and teaching.

7. When you work, do you prefer the process or the result?

The process of creation is intense, to which nothing else compares. The period of creation, which can last months or even years, demands an immersion into a process headed toward making something excellent, without any clues on how to get there. As a work unfolds, ideas simply emerge from out of nowhere, and most of them disappear to the same place. Over the years, I have learned to accept this unsettling state of mind, and these days I thoroughly enjoy it. I view my work as constantly evolving, and so I’m not one to fixate too much on the results from any one work.