"In its quiet way, RoseAnne Spradlin's choreographic voice is one of the strongest and most original in New York downtown dance."--Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, Nov '99
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ROSEANNE SPRADLIN, CHOREOGRAPHER
RoseAnne Spradlin, New York City–based choreographer, has become known for her raw, luminous vision and provocative performance works. Spradlin's singular approach to choreography has its roots in her background in the visual arts and her study of both Western and Eastern forms of movement energetics and post-modern dance. Spradlin's work reveals the individual performer while also probing the deep structures of perception and feeling embedded in human behavior.
Spradlin's newest work, Blue Liz, will premier at The Kitchen in New York City in October 2008. Blue Liz samples imagery, text, and sound from the 1960's to evoke the decade's wartime mindset and the emergence of a pop/minimalist aesthetic in the arts. Incorporating ten performers, multiple locations and pre-recorded and live video elements, Blue Liz questions what can be redeemed and what has been lost from the 1960's, a critical decade in American and world culture.
In 2003 Spradlin received a New York Dance and Performance Award (BESSIE) for her 2002 work under/world. Since receiving the BESSIE, Spradlin has created several acclaimed works - NOVA, a dance/installation presented in a loft space in downtown Manhattan in 2005, and Survive Cycle, a quartet featuring video by artist Glen Fogel in 2006. Critic Gia Kourlas called NOVA “stunning” in a New York Times article analyzing the use of nudity in contemporary dance; John Rockwell, writing in The New York Times, called Survive Cycle “beautiful and well worth seeing.” Survive Cycle premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City in November 2006, was presented at the ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna in August 2007 and was remounted at DTW in January 2008.
Spradlin's recent honors include a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography, a 2007 Individual Artist Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in New York City and a three-year Lambent Fellowship in Performing Arts given by the Tides Foundation in 2006. Spradlin received Choreography Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 1998 and 2006 and also was named an artist-in-residence with the forward-looking dance organization Movement Research in 1998 and 2006.
Spradlin was born in Oklahoma City and attended the University of Oklahoma and Ohio University, receiving degrees in Art and Dance. For ten years Spradlin operated SQUID Performance Space in Manhattan; Spradlin’s company now has its base at Studio 65 in lower Manhattan. Spradlin teaches in New York City and internationally; she has taught workshops in Greece, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Great Britain and across the United States.
