Ann Carlson
| Ann Carlson | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 21, 1954 Park Ridge, Illinois |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Dancer |
Ann Carlson (born October 21, 1954 ) is an American dancer, choreographer and performance artist whose work explores contemporary social issues. She has performed through the United States an internationally and has won a number of awards.
Contents |
[edit] Beginnings in Dance
Calson was born in Park Ridge, Illinois.[1] She graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in modern dance from the University of Utah in 1976. In 1983 she became one of the first students of the University of Arizona to earn a graduate degree in dance.[2] Even though Carlson received extensive dance training as a child, she defined dance as "any conscious movement in time and space".[1] Carlson came to this conclusion when she was 12 years old after attending a lecture and demonstration by Murray Louis at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.[1] Because of her broad view of dance, Carlson often tackles important issues in her work and believes that whatever methods are needed to convey a message are the methods that need to be utilized.[1] As a result Carlson takes her work far beyond the confines of traditional "dance" into a realm that could be called performance art[citation needed].
[edit] Career
Carlson spent the late 1970s to the early ‘90s of her dance career performing. During this time Carlson performed with Territory Dance Theater in Tucson, Arizona and Meredith Monk.[1] She performed her first solo concert in 1986 and performed to music composed by Stewart Wallace and Phillip Glass.[1] As a choreographer, Carlson’s work has been performed throughout the United States; some notable places her choreography has been featured have been Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.[1] Internationally her work has been performed in West Germany, Prague and Mexico City. Carlson’s choreography has earned her a New York Dance and Performance Award in 1988, American Dance Festival Award in 1988, the CalArts Alpert Award in Dance in 1995,[1] and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award in 1998.
[edit] Style of Work
Some critics refer to Carlson’s work as dance-theater and some refer to it as talking dancing.[3] Her work often incorporates different movement components, speaking or acting components, and props or sometimes animals.[4] A piece entitled The Dog Inside the Man Inside represents all these areas of Carlson’s work and is from a series of work called Animals. The setup of this piece includes a straight chair, a television set, a white picket fence, and, most notably, a real live dog.[5] Other animals are later featured, including a goldfish, a cat and a goat.[1] Carlson said she wanted "to make works that could respond to a living being, that I couldn’t choreograph in the way that I’d been taught to choreograph".[1]
[edit] External links
- Jack Anderson: "The Dance: Ann Carlson's 'Animals'" 7 February 1988, The New York Times
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Benbow-Pfalzgraf, Taryn. International Dictionary of Modern Dance. (Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 1998), p. 106–108.
- ^ Harris, William. "DANCE; On a Tour of Tableaus, You Move, They Don't." The New York Times. 14 May 2000. Section 2; Page 46. University of Texas Lib., Austin, TX. 24 March 2008. > LexisNexis
- ^ Tobias, Tobi. "Dance Review: Ann Carlson Is Her Own Kind of Down-to-earth." New York Magazine. (28 Feb 2000). 24 March 2008 http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/dance/reviews/2246/
- ^ Keefe, Maura. Talking Dancing: The Choreography of Space and Character in Contemporary U.S. Dance. (Ann Arbor, MI.: ProQuest Information and Learning Company, 2002), 127
- ^ Keefe, Talking Dancing, 122
