Check Out Nadav Heyman’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nadav Heyman.

Hi Nadav, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My path into dance and filmmaking, and art in general, is pretty unorthodox. I am originally a basketball player. That’s all I wanted to do my whole life is be a professional hooper. I played for the Israeli Junior National team and got recruited by a small university, but two years in, I could feel myself drifting toward new pursuits. I started writing. I started experimenting with a camera. And then when I was 21, I met a woman who invited me to join her dance company (Ate9 Dance Company based in LA) as a narrator and a soloist. Being a naive, cavalier kid, I accepted her offer and started dancing professionally, slowly transforming my body from a stiff athlete to a groovy mover (or at least I’d like to think so). It was also my foray into art and performance. I experienced what it’s like to conceptualize something, choreograph something, build something from the ground up. It became pretty clear to me that making art is the coolest thing ever, and it’s what I wanted to do.

When I left Ate9 a few years later, I assumed my professional dance career would be over so I decided to commemorate my short stint with a dance film. A solo. Just me in a blackbox, moving. That film, “Helena”, ended up finding success, screening in festivals, being published by Button Poetry, and catapulting me into the craft of dance filmmaking. Over the next eight years, I made more films, formed more incredible collaborations, screened in more festivals, won awards, got invited to artist residencies, and had my work published by Dance Magazine. My latest dance film, “Old Man at the Corner Store”, won the 2023 Audience Award at Dance Film Festival Prague and is still currently touring around the world. In 2021, I joined the Los Angeles Dance Film Festival as a judge and board member, and in 2023 I founded the first global online platform for dance films at dancefilmmaking.com. It’s a niche, but I genuinely think dance films are the sh**. The combination of movement, cinematography and music makes for such cool art, and both LADFF and dancefilmmaking.com were created to celebrate that. Films on our platform are also totally FREE. Anyway, that’s how I got here and why I’m spending so much time pushing the envelope of dance cinema.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Smooth road? What’s that? Where do I find those?

No, the road as a dancer and director has not been smooth. I think the biggest obstacle was being an outsider. I came into the dance world as an outcast, a jock with no skills, no technique, and no ability to learn traditional choreography. The dancers around me were phenomenal, former students at Juilliard, Boston Conservatory, etc. so having to watch their effortless movement was kind of painful. I always felt like the ugly duckling, the little brother who couldn’t do what his older siblings could do. What’s the expression, comparison is the thief of joy? In this case, comparison was the thief of progress and a catalyst of insecurity.

Over time I learned how to brush off my shortcomings and channel my strengths. I accepted that I had something to offer… it just wasn’t the same as what others could offer, and that’s okay. It sounds easy but it takes a minute to come to terms with our idiosyncrasies. I eventually carved out my own space in the dance world. No one was going to do it for me. To this day, I can’t do traditional choreography, but that doesn’t stop me from dancing, from making films, from being embraced by the dance community. So I would hope that other people who feel like outcasts in their field can look upon me as a case study. If a jock with no formal dance or film training can make award-winning dance films, you can probably do whatever you want.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a writer, dancer, and filmmaker specializing in narrative and movement-based films. You can see some of my work at nadavheyman.com and somilotofilms.com.

My first feature screenplay, “Jackie & The Rats”, was recently voted a Top 50 Script of the Year by the Academy Nicholl Fellowship (the official Oscars competition). I wrote it with my creative partner, Erez Heiman, who I make most of my narrative work with (he’s a creative genius). It’s a story about a single mom to a boy with Down syndrome who receives a terminal diagnosis. A drama-comedy set in the 90s, the film has tons of entertainment value and, more importantly, the potential to make a significant social impact. This will be my feature directorial debut, and we’re still in the funding stage, so if you’re interested in learning more or getting involved, hit us up (www.jackieandtherats.com).

My latest dance film, “Old Man at the Corner Store”, which I made with my friends at Vacation Theory and Like Minds, has been my most successful film to date. We won the Audience Award at Dance Film Festival Prague and recently screened at the prestigious Dances With Films festival in Los Angeles in front of a sold-out crowd. It tells the story of an elderly man who crosses paths with the neighborhood mischiefs, a group of ten-year-old, who begins mocking him but end up forming an unlikely friendship.

I think I’m most proud of my collaborative approach. I’ve cultivated a network of artists and friends who want to make cool stuff and lift each other up. I don’t do well in toxic competitive environments. I think they stunt creativity. I’ve been really deliberate about who I work with, what stories I tell, and how I go about crafting my career. If it’s not fun and challenging, what’s the point?

What sets my work apart is its depth. I’m not interested in visually-driven films, they kind of bore me (sorry, Wes). I’m inspired by stories, characters, and human connections. I would hope that all my films, whether they’re narrative or dance, have a soul. They should obviously look good too, but the visual language exists to complement the story, and not the other way around.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Persistence. I don’t think this is unique to me and most artists would probably say the same thing. Success takes an ungodly amount of persistence and layers upon layers of thick skin. You mostly fail. You mostly get rejected. You mostly feel like an *d**t. But then eventually, something clicks, you get an opportunity, you get seen, you get validated, and it all starts to make sense. Ironically, the key to persistence is that it has to make sense before the validation comes, too.

Contact Info:

• Website: dancefilmmaking.com
• Instagram: @nadavheyman, @dancefilmmaking, @ladancefilmfest
• Youtube: youtube.com/dancefilmmaking
• Other: nadavheyman.com, somilotofilms.com

Image Credits
Cheryl Mann Jonathan Daniel Pryce Los Angeles Dance Film Festival