Collaborations
Multidisciplinary creative projects
Ilana enjoys and seeks collaborations with multidisciplinary artists of all kinds, including:
cultural centers
dance companies (ballet, tap, hip hop, modern, dance theater, tango, swing, ballroom, contemporary)
comedy groups (sketch, stand up, improvisation)
theater companies (experimental, Shakespearean)
jazz ensembles
fashion designers
visual artists (photographers, painters, collage, mixed media artists, digital, projection designers, lighting designers)
athletes (artistic and rhythmic gymnasts, ice dancers)
chefs and vineyards
educational farms
writers (spoken word, poets, novelists, memoirists, journalists, academics)
medical professionals (research, public health outreach projects)
software engineers, designers and architects (AR, AI, VR, video game design)
She especially enjoys curating musical experiences that include works by underrepresented composers and works she commissions from living composers. Her past collaborators have included Olympic gymnasts and dance companies.
Recent Projects
Artist Statement
As an artist, one has the responsibility to make the world a better place. I am an artist who believes in the importance of collaboration in a performance; whether that's with other musicians, collaborations across disciplines, or even exploring a medium which I have a passion for and want to bring to the stage through a process of research and experimentation.
Artists make people realize beauty, ugliness, and the truth about the world. It's about opening people's eyes and making them feel new things. Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel. Because that's what they're going to leave the room with. The feeling they felt through the experience. Fear? Anger? Surprise? Love? Pain? Awe? Realization? That power of feelings is in the hands of the artist. The audience can feel whatever they want to feel. But when feeling pushes away all the doubts that there is something special, it does transform the world, it makes problems seem far away; you know you've been struck by magic. It's hard to explain but it exists. Can you look for it? I don't know. Can it reach you? Yes, that's why it's magic. It's an illusion, a wonderful, lovely, inspiring illusion that makes you say "I'm ready to take on the world. I'm ready to do something great. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready." This is all in the form of selfless giving, boundless creativity and loving collaboration with a vision.
It's not about perfection. It doesn't exist. It's about purpose, grit, gratitude, flow and trust every time you put one foot in front of the other. Do you want to be right, or do you want to create something new? You'll never know unless you try. Every challenge is an opportunity in disguise. The greater the challenge, the greater the opportunity. How much can you go beyond your comfort level? How much can you go out of the box of your usual? It's about putting your best out there. No matter what the situation. At the end, you can say "I did everything I could to get here." It's scary, but if you don't take a risk, how will you grow? There will always be uncertainty. How can you discover places you've never been to before if you don't make the jump to reach them? The piece starts somewhere, and it continues to travel, develop and change through the various steps and decisions made by the artist crafting it and shaping the reality of what gets seen, and in the process, opening doors to other pathways of exploration and learning. The beginning is not the end result. Even the end result is not the end result. It's all part of a process in which each step leads to the next leap and opens the world's and the artist's eyes to places they've never been to before, or are reconnecting with, after a time apart.
