Dancer and Choreographer Molissa Fenley visits Hotchkiss as Guest Artist in Residence October 23 - 30
Posted October 17, 2012
The Hotchkiss Dance Department is pleased to welcome visiting guest artist, Molissa Fenley, to campus October 23 through October 30.
Currently an Associate Professor of Dance at Mills College, Molissa Fenley is an eleven-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship and frequent collaborator of composers John Cage, Phillip Glass, Henryk Gorechi, and Laurie Anderson; video artist John Sandborn, visual artists Francesco Clemente and Kiki Smith, among others. Ms. Fenley will conduct master classes and prepare a commissioned work for the Hotchkiss Dance Company.
Based in New York City since 1977, the year she formed her company, Molissa Fenley and Dancers, Ms. Fenley has choreographed over seventy-five works during a career that has spanned thirty-five years. Early works were commissioned by The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, the American Dance Festival, and The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival.
The company has performed nationally at such venues as the Joyce Theater, Summerstage, The Kitchen, City Center, Alice Tully Hall, and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. Internationally, Ms. Fenley has choreographed works for the Australian Dance Theatre, the Deutsche Oper Ballet of Berlin, the National Ballet School of Canada, and the Korea/Japan Performing Arts Exchange Association. Her work has been performed by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Elissa Monte and David Brown, Dance Alloy, Young Soon Kim Dance Company, and more. Two of Fenley’s pieces, “Cenotaph” and “State of Darkness,” have been awarded “Bessies” (New York Dance and Performance Awards) in choreography.
Ms. Fenley has been on the dance faculty at Mills College since 1999, in residence every spring semester. Since 2003, she has also taught choreography at the Experimental Theater Wing of New York University. In 2008 she was awarded a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and the same year was named a Guggenheim Fellow. Recent performances by the company include the Judson Memorial Church as part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of the 92nd Street Y. A revival of Ms. Fenley’s work “Regions” (1995) was also part of the celebration program, supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpiece Initiative.
Ms. Fenley and dance writer Ann Murphy are writing a book on Fenley’s choreography, slated for publication later this year. For more information regarding Molissa Fenley please visit her website, http://www.molissafenley.com. For more information about her guest artist residency, please contact Alice Sarkissian Wolf, Director of Dance.
