Biographies of visiting artists Olivier Tarpaga Olivier Tarpaga is a dancer-choreographer, musician-songwriter and performing arts consultant based in Columbus, Ohio. He is a recipient of the Lester Horton Award for his 2008 work “Disorder Inside Order” presented by the Target dance series at the Ford amphitheater in Hollywood. He has danced for David Rousseve/Reality from 2006-2009. He has worked and collaborated with choreographers such as Brett Raphael, Christian Canciani, Ousseni Sako, Lacina Coulibaly, Auguste Ouedraogo and Bienvenue Bazie. Tarpaga just returned from Niger in March 2013 creating a new work for ADC at the centre culturel Franco-Nigerien commissioned by the ministry of culture. In October 2012, he was commissioned by the Temple of Fine Arts to create “The way of sands” for ten dancers and six musicians in Perth, Australia during the Swan Festival of Light. Over sixteen thousand people in only three shows have seen the piece. This summer he will create “Option B”, a new work for Frontier Danceland Company in Singapore. In 2008 Tarpaga was commissioned by Zig Zag Ballet to choreograph Visage a new work for twelve professional ballet dancers and two international musicians with a world premier at the Rich Forum Stanford Center for the Arts in Connecticut. He is a recipient of numerous grants including a Chime Mentorship Fellowship with David Rousseve as his mentor. He is currently a faculty at the department of dance and the School of Music of The Ohio State University, the Department of Drama and Dance at Kenyon College, OH and the Department of Dance at Denison University, OH. Tarpaga co-founded a study abroad program to Burkina Faso through The Ohio State University Department of Dance. He was recently commissioned to train and compose a music and dance concert for Sibongie in Kaohsiung Taiwan and his 2011 music concert Saraka with his Dafra Kura Band performed at the International Sacred Arts Festival in New Delhi and toured four major cities in India, invited by the Government of India. Saraka performed numerous concerts plus a very acclaimed collaboration with Kryasta Guna gamelan ensemble at the Bali Spirit Festival in Bali Indonesia. Tarpaga has worked, performed, collaborated and recorded with rock artist POE at Capitol Records in Hollywood. In 2008 he was invited to re-interpret Beethovens ninth symphony with West African instruments in a sold-out concert with British singer Billy Bragg and numerous guests at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica CA. He has studied dance with Salia Sanou, Seydou Boro, Alassane Congo, Mathilde Monnier, David Rousseve, Robert Seyfried, Nana Nilson, Victoria Marks and Lionel Popkins. Tarpaga has performed, taught dance in over forty five countries in Africa, Europe, Americas, Asia and Australia.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 08:01:38 +0000