Faculty

Profile

I want to experience, create, think and write about art that pushes me, changes me, and that I carry with me. What else matters? The work I make challenges the boundaries of the performance experience, blurring distinctions between theatre, dance, image, language, and sound to create a new theatre of engagement. And I want to work together with other people in the rehearsal room, struggling through process and exploration to create work that is energetic, passionate and playful. My research is centered on new performance from a historical, cultural and theoretical perspective.  What constitutes performance and how can we push the boundaries of conventional dance, theater and visual art practice to merge into the broader plane of a new performance?

Degrees Held

PhD, Performance Studies, Northwestern University

MA, Performance Studies, Northwestern University

BA, English, Oberlin College

Professional Affiliation

I founded Human Company with Kelly Hanson, and am Co-Artistic Director, helping to explore developmental and cross-disciplinary models for performance in creating new work for the stage.

In addition to teaching, I also work in arts management and grant writing, currently working at New York Live Arts, after several years of consulting work for David Bury & Associates and as a freelance development specialist.

Recent Publications

Books:
20th Century Performance: A History of Interdisciplinary Artistic Practice. Under Contract, Routledge. Proposal accepted for publication and contract signed to complete a history of performance practice integrating influences from theater, dance and the visual arts.
Pina Bausch: A Sourcebook, ed.  Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2012. A collection of source material on Pina Bausch and Tanztheater, with introductory essays and newly translated interviews with the artist.
Performance Practitioner Series: Pina Bausch. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2009. A monograph on Pina Bausch following the model of this series with sections on biography and context, major works, rehearsal and developed performance and exercises and techniques.

Seleted Essays in Edited Collections and Journals:

"A Theater of Bodily Presence: Pina Bausch and Tanztheater Wuppertal." The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater.  Ed. Nadine George-Graves. London and New York: Oxford UP, 2015: 213-235.

"Bausch's American Legacy." Inheriting Dance: An Invitation from Pina.  Ed. Marc Wagenbach and the Pina Bausch Foundation.  Berlin: Transcript Verlag, 2014: 115-126.

“Creating the Moment: Anne Bogart and SITI Company” Actor Training: 2nd Edition. Ed. Alison Hodge. London and New York: Routledge, 2010: 288-304.
“Realigned Presence.” A Reflection on Pina Bausch. HotReview: a peer-reviewed online journal of theater. Ed. by Jonathan Kalb. http://www.hotreview.org/articles/realignedpresence.htm
“One Breath from the Wind of Change: Big Dance Theatre Developmental Process for The Other Here.” Theatre Forum, Summer 2007: 40-49.
“Dance into Theatre: Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.” Theatre Forum, Fall 2004: 59-66.
“Nur Du (Only You) a piece by Pina Bausch,” TPQ, Spring 1997: 288-298. 

Performances and Appearances

Against the Dying of the Light (writer/co-producer), original piece created and directed by Kelly Hanson, HUMAN COMPANY, NYC, (2010, Irondale Theater Center, i-Park (East Haddam, CT), WOW Café)

III (producer/director) original works, HUMAN COMPANY, NYC,(2009, PS 122)

Faust (producer/writer),original piece, HUMAN COMPANY, NYC,(2008, BAX showcase)

Schiele (producer/director) original piece HUMAN COMPANY, NYC, (2007, HERE Arts Center)

Research Interests

I am interested in Avant-Garde artistic practice of the Modern Era across disciplines in the visual arts, music, dance and theater, cultural shifts and changes of the 20th century, and contemporary performance and artistic production.