Gustavo Zajac

Gustavo Zajac is a theater director, choreographer and professor of musical comedy and jazz dance. He currently resides in New York.

Career

Theater and television

As an actor and dancer he played Tulsa in Gypsy with Mabel Manzotti, Ambar La Fox, Sandra Guida and Eleonora Wexler.[1] He shared the stage with the first Argentine dancer Eleonora Cassano on the show Cassano Dancing, while on television he worked with the Argentine star Susana Giménez.[2]

In 2002 he founded his own dance company called TEN, made up of ten dancers whom he formed and with whom he made public shows of Theater Dance and Lyrical Jazz participating in various festivals.[3] He has also been a guest professor since 2002 in the international summer program of the Point Park University in Pittsburgh.

Zajac was summoned in Argentina as translator of David Leveaux and Jonathan Butterell, director and choreographer of Nine respectively. He served as Resident Director of the same musical starred by Juan Darthes, at the Metropolitan Theater of Buenos Aires. He also co-directed the plays "La lista completa" and "Paulatina aproximación" by Javier Daulte at Teatro Payró.[1][2]

From the year 2000, Zajac began working in the city of Buenos Aires as assistant director and choreographer for various musicals such as "La Tiendita del Horror" directed by Robert Jess Roth and Matt West and played by Sandra Ballesteros and Diego Ramos.[4][5] He also worked as a choreographer in "Aplausos" in 2004, with the actresses Claudia Lapaco and Paola Krum.[6]

He also directed and choreographed the plays "Nativo", for which he received the Trinidad Guevara City of Buenos Aires Award for the best choreography; "Man of La Mancha" in 2005, starred by the singer Raúl Lavié and "Víctor Victoria" with Valeria Lynch in 2006,[7] for which he won the ACE Award for Best Director in Musical Theater.[8]

In addition, he was choreographic director of the tango shows "Tangorama" in 2006,[9][10] "Bien Argentino" in 2008 and "Puerto Buenos Aires" in 2009, where he worked with the artists Mora Godoy, Patricia Sosa, Laura Fidalgo and Maximiliano Guerra.

In 2013 he returned to national television as the director of choreography for the program "Your Face Sounds Familiar", hosted by Alejandro Marley Wiebe for Telefé. Artists from the cycle included Carmen Barbieri, Lucía and Joaquín Galán from the Pimpinela duo, Laura Esquivel, Pablo Granados, Martín Campi Campilongo, Rocío Girao Diaz, Jey Mammon and Benjamín Amadeo.

In 2017 he directed Humberto Tortonese in the Argentine version of the box office comedy "An Act of God".[11][12]

International work

By mid-1999 he started working on Broadway. His first performance as a choreographer was in association with Wise Guys, along with British film and theater director Sam Mendes at the New York Theater Project. Also, he participated with the choreographer Jonathan Butterell in the assembly of the commercial E-Bay on Broadway, broadcast on American television and also directed by Mendes.[2]

In 2003 he traveled to New York, convened by the creative team of "Nine" on Broadway to work on a version of that musical played by Antonio Banderas and Chita Rivera. A year later, the same producer called him as associate choreographer of "Fiddler on the Roof" with the actor Alfred Molina and directed by David Leveaux.[13][7]

In 2005 he entered the Asian market as a choreographer of "Nine" at the Art Sphere theater in Tokyo, Japan. He was the conductor and choreographer of the musicals "Blood weddings" and "Yerma" based on the plays of the Spanish writer Federico García Lorca.[14] He also directed and choreographed "Argentango" in Tokyo and Osaka in 2014 and was choreographer of "The Lost Glory", musical that marked the 100th anniversary of the internationally known Takarazuka Revue Company, in 2015.

He was director and choreographer of "Fiddler on the Roof" at the National Theater of Korea in Seoul, Korea, in 2008. In that country, he also directed and created the choreography of "Lovers in Paris" and "Sweet come to me Stealthily" in 2010 and 2012, respectively.[7]

He landed in Mexico City in 2010, as director and choreographer of "Timbiriche the musical", based on the themes of the legendary group Timbiriche.[15]

In 2016 he was associate director and choreographer of the musical "Pirates of Penzance" at the mythical City Center of New York City.[16] Also, he choreographed one of the productions of the "24 Hour Musical", starred by the Broadway star Bebe Neuwirth.[17]

He was in charge of "Cyrano", the musical by Frank Wildhorn at the LG Arts Center in Seoul, in 2017.[18] In 2018 he served as director and choreographer of "Barnum" at the Chung Mu Art Hall in Seoul, Korea.

During the same year he was the choreographer of "Evita" at the St Louis Repertory Theater, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.[19][20] He also was director and choreographer of "Bernarda Alba" Musical at Wooran Foundation, Seoul, Korea.[21]

Awards and nominations
AÑO Award Category Play Country Result
2010  Argentine Council of Dance  Recognition of the Teaching Trajectory Argentina Winner
2006  Association of Critics of Shows, ACE Best Director in Musical Work Víctor Victoria  Argentina Winner
2006-2009  Association of Critics of Shows, ACE Best Choreography Port of Buenos Aires, Tangorama and Bien Argentino Argentina Nominated
2006  Association of Critics of Shows, ACE Best Choreography Víctor Victoria  Argentina Nominated
2005-2006   Association of Critics of Shows, ACE  Best Director in Musical Work Man of La Mancha Argentina Nominated
2005 Government of the City of Buenos Aires Best Choreography
 Native Argentina Winner
2004 Association of Critics of Shows, ACE Best Choreography
 Aplausse Argentina Nominated

References
  1. "De Broadway a Buenos Aires". La Nación (in Spanish). 29 March 2007.
  2. "El argentino que hace "Nine "". La Nación (in Spanish). 12 April 2003.
  3. "Gustavo ZAJAC". Les Inclassables API (in French). 15 September 2017.
  4. "Un local inquietante". La Prensa.
  5. "Delicioso humor negro". La Nación (in Spanish). 9 March 2001.
  6. ""Aplausos " para El Nacional". La Nación (in Spanish). 6 June 2004.
  7. "Director Portrays Fiddler in Korean Sentiment". The Korea Times. 22 October 2008.
  8. "Víctor Victoria fue la obra más nominada" (in Spanish). La Nación. 2006-10-24.
  9. "Compañía de Marisol Pecci presentará "Hello Broadway" - Espectaculos". ABC Color (in Spanish).
  10. "El tango tiene nuevo color". La Nación (in Spanish). 31 March 2006.
  11. "Página/12 :: espectaculos". Página/12 (in Spanish).
  12. "Tortonese regresa al teatro, como Dios". La Nación (in Spanish). 18 November 2016.
  13. "'Jewish' play dazzles Korea". Ynetnews. 12 June 2008.
  14. ""Yerma" o la fecunda labor de una actriz y su director". La Nueva Provincia (in Spanish).
  15. "El éxito de Timbiriche será llevado al teatro". Expansión (in Spanish). 24 February 2010.
  16. Gans, Andrew (October 15, 2015). "Montego Glover, Hunter Parrish, Betsy Wolfe Join Forces With Opera Star for Pirates of Penzance Concerts". Playbill. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  17. "Master Voices Are the Stars of Pirates of Penzance". Seen and Heard International.
  18. "Encuentro intensivo de danza Jazz a cargo del reconocido coreógrafo Gustavo Zajac". Diario 7 Lagos (in Spanish).
  19. Hetrick, Adam (2018). "Michelle Aravena and Sean MacLaughlin Will Star in Evita at Repertory Theatre of St. Louis". Playbill.
  20. Farmer, Tina. "Like the Peróns, The Rep's spectacular 'Evita' is fiery, fascinating and a bit flawed". KDHX.
  21. "Raúl Lavié y Nito Artaza: "En La jaula de las locas triunfan los buenos, el amor y la diversidad"". La Nación.
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