New York, NY
Molissa Fenley
Born 1954, Las Vegas, Nevada
Formally working with the idea of the individual in space, the space changed by the individual's presence and the presence of the individual altered because of her placement in space.
Ensemble work concerned with the space around dancers, how they intersect and weave, after-image effects of one dancer's space seen again by another dancer in counterpoint or in resonance of a repetition -- space seen from different points of view from one dancer to the next. Rhythmically working together in parallels of time frames but each dancer sometimes on their own rhythmic trajectory, sometimes in unison with another element that is asymmetrically askew (movement quality or choice phrase). Dancer's space seen inside/outside of another dancer's space -- a square inside of a square, a circle inside of a circle, a triangle inside of a square.
The choreography sees the dancer as an individual bringing their own particular voice to the translation of the actual dance vocabulary.
The choreography tries to express a feeling of freedom, created in a very intimate, close-in kind of way but performed as if far away.
Many pieces are created in collaboration with contemporary artists (composers, sculptors, painters, poets, playwrights).
Dance that suggests different states of mind through an immersion into a movement vocabulary that is particular for each dance. dance that is formed by an initial idea of the spatial construct, for example, "Floor Dances" (1989), performed inside a circle of stones by artist Richard Long, the dance stays within the scale of the sculpture never coming to the figure in full standing. The vocabulary's images created after seeing photographs of birds and other marine animals encrusted with oil after the Exxon oil spill in Valdez. That dance was placed in time. Other dances have evolved from the idea of spatial orientation as a beginning that also makes room for the intuition of the moment, the spontaneity to suggest going somewhere else.
1975 B.A. in Dance, Mills College
2000 Weathering , solo with sculpture by Merrill Wagner, commissioned by New England Foundation for the Arts; premiered at The Kitchen, New York
1997 Trace, solo with music by Jonathan Hart Makwaia, painting by Roy Fowler, and text by John Jesurun; premiered at the Joyce Theater, New York.
1993 Witches Float, solo with music by Alvin Lucier, sculpture by Kiki Smith, commissioned by and premiered at Krannert Arts Center, University of Illinois, Urbana.
1989 Floor Dances , solo with music by Henryk Gorecki, sculpture by Richard Long, commissioned by and premiered at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Equitable Center, NYC.
1988 State of Darkness, solo, music by Igor Stravinsky, commissioned by and premiered at the American Dance Festival, Durham, NC. 1985 Cenotaph, (5 dancers), music by Jamaaladeen Tacuma, text by Eric Bogosian, commissioned by and premiered at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Lee, MA.
1985 Esperanto, (5 dancers), music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier, premiered at Shinjuku Hall, Tokyo, Japan.
1983 Hemispheres, (3 dancers), music by Anthony Davis, visual element by Francesco Clemente, costumes by Rei Kawakubo, commissioned by and premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next wave Festival.
1980 Energizer, (4 dancers), music by Mark Freedman, commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop, NYC, premiered at the Modern Museet, Stockholm.
1994 Bridge of Dreams, (21 dancers),Deutsche Oper, Berlin with music by Laurie Anderson and decor by Kiki Smith.
1986 A Decent into the Maelstrom, (15 dancers) Australian Dance Theater, Adelaide, with music by Phillip Glass and decor by Eamon D'Arcy.
1986 Feral, (13 dancers), Ohio Ballet, with music by Robert Lloyd.
1999 and 1992 Asian Cultural Council, Tokyo, Japan
1996-2000 Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida
1998 Djerassi Resident Artists' Program, Woodside, CA
