Nancy Spanier

Last updated
Nancy Spanier
Born
Nancy Louise Spanier

(1942-12-29) December 29, 1942 (age 81)
Occupation Choreographer

Nancy Louise Spanier (born December 29, 1942) is an American dancer, choreographer, artistic director, filmmaker and educator. Her body of choreographic works includes pieces commissioned internationally by museums, universities, dance companies and foundations. She is the founder of the Nancy Spanier Dance Theatre of Colorado, a repertory company known for its highly theatrical and imagistic performances that explore themes through the integration of sculpture, props, and film. [1] Spanning her career, she has incorporated a variety of performance genres and has collaborated, among others, with award-winning playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie, and Anaïs Nin, who documented Spanier's performance in her last diary. [2] Spanier is a professor emerita at the University of Colorado, Boulder where she taught dance from 1969 to 2003.

Contents

Education and early career

Born and raised in New York City, Spanier began dancing at the age of four with Blanche Evan. At the age of 11, her choreography was presented at Carnegie Hall. [3] She trained at the American School of Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, The Juilliard School, the Martha Graham School, the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College and studied with Louis Horst, José Limón, Anna Sokolow, Charles Weidman and Joseph Pilates. She attended Professional Children's School and received her B.A. degree in Dramatic Literature from Middlebury College in 1964 and her M.A. degree in Dance from Mills College in 1969. [4] At an early age she performed with José Limón's company in Doris Humphrey’s Day on Earth, [5] with Pearl Lang Dance Theater, and with Tamiris-Nagrin Dance Company. [6] In 1968 she performed in Duke Ellington’s Second Sacred Concert at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco with the Xoregos Dance Company.

Professional career

In 1974 she formed the Nancy Spanier Dance Theatre of Colorado. Spanier also worked internationally as a freelance choreographer and director with theatre and dance companies in the United States and Europe. [7] In the mid-80s Spanier disbanded the Nancy Spanier Dance Theatre of Colorado and changed its name to Performance Inventions to reflect a broadening context for her work. [8]

She has collaborated with playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie, who performed in her Flesh Chronicles physical theatre piece. She was the choreographer of van Itallie's play The Traveller which had its premiere at The Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. [9]

Spanier was a professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado Boulder for 34 years. [10] During this period she founded her own school, The Dancecentre and directed the Movement Program at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts' National Theatre Conservatory. She guest taught at Naropa University, Stockholm's Statens Dansskola, Sweden's Lansteatern, Denmark's Aarhus Teater Skole, Copenhagen's Dansens Hus, Bali's Indonesian Institute of the Arts, and New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

She was granted a Choreography Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts as well the first Creative Fellowship in Choreography from the Colorado Council on the Arts. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Emily Harvey Foundation Artist Residency in Venice, Italy.

Selected works

In Splendid Unison, 2017
Post Op, 2014
Contemplations at 70, 2012
Of Memory, 2011
Le Jardinier de la Gafferie, 2010
Flesh Sites, 2007
Envolée, 2004
Echos, Esprits et Traces dans l’ancien Hospice de Hautefort, 2002
Flesh Chronicles, 1988
Fatal Attraction, 1985
Tribes, 1985
Migration: Heat of Angels, 1984
Spheres of Influence, 1984
Eternal Rendezvous: A Trilogy, 1983
Maiden Forms, 1982
Pageant in Passage, 1981
Triptych, 1981
High Country: A Celebration, 1980
Side by Side and Inside, 1979
Arena: A Documentary in Five Rounds, 1978
Canti d’Innocenza, 1977
Show on Earth, 1976
Abundance, 1976
Peak to Peak, 1975
A Peep Show: For Women Only, 1974
Time Wounds All Heals, 1973
Glass Camellias, 1972
Mauvais Jeu, 1971
Parched Plain, 1969

Books

Larisa Oancea, Nancy Spanier: The Arc of a Dancing Life, Performance Inventions, 2021.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnes de Mille</span> American dancer and choreographer (1905–1993)

Agnes George de Mille was an American dancer and choreographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Sokolow</span> American dance artist (1910–2000)

Anna Sokolow was an American dancer and choreographer. Sokolow's work is known for its social justice focus and theatricality. Throughout her career, Sokolow supported of the development of modern dance around the world, including in Mexico and Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Tamiris</span> American choreographer, modern dancer and teacher

Helen Tamiris was an American choreographer, modern dancer, and teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lar Lubovitch</span> American choreographer (born 1943)

Lar Lubovitch is an American choreographer. He founded his own dance company, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968. Based in New York City, the company has performed in all 50 American states as well as in more than 30 countries. As of 2005, he had choreographed more than 100 dances for the company. In addition to the company, Lubovitch has also done creative work in ballet, ice-skating venues, and musical theater, notably Into the Woods. He has played a key role in raising funds to fight AIDS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Cratty</span> American modern dancer and choreographer

Bill Cratty was an American modern dancer and choreographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Limón</span> Mexican dancer and choreographer (1908–1972)

José Arcadio Limón was a dancer and choreographer from Mexico and who developed what is now known as 'Limón technique'. In the 1940s, he founded the José Limón Dance Company, and in 1968 he created the José Limón Foundation to carry on his work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Lewis (choreographer)</span> American choreographer and author (born 1944)

Daniel Lewis is a U.S. choreographer and dance teacher, currently the Dean of Dance at the New World School of the Arts.

Virginia Tanner was an American dance instructor and founder of the University of Utah Children's Dance Theatre. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, she began her formal dance training at the University of Utah. She studied with Doris Humphrey in New York City before returning to Salt Lake City in the early 1940s to establish her school for creative dance for children.

Lucinda Childs is an American postmodern dancer and choreographer. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest movements into intricate choreography. Through her use of patterns, repetition, dialect, and technology, she has created a unique style of choreography that embraces experimentation and transdisciplinarity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modern dance</span> Genre of western concert or theatrical dance

Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which includes dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was considered to have been developed as a rejection of, or rebellion against, classical ballet, and also a way to express social concerns like socioeconomic and cultural factors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Nagrin</span> American dancer (1917–2008)

Daniel Nagrin was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, and author. He was born in New York City.

Colin Connor is a Canadian–British dancer, choreographer, and educator, based in the United States. With over forty commissions that span the worlds of contemporary dance, ballet and flamenco. Works draws from a large range of influences – musical, literary, social, and scientific – all used to bring attention back to the communicative power of the human body. He frequently, collaborates with artists of other disciplines, including composers, artists, and designers. As a choreographer, teacher and dancer, Connor is currently influencing the next generation of contemporary dancers and dance makers. Dancers who have trained with Connor have gone on to Mark Morris Dance Group, Scapino Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance, The Limon Dance Company and others.

Joel G. Fink is an American actor, director, acting coach and theatre administrator. He is Professor Emeritus of Theatre, The Theatre Conservatory of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in Chicago, where he also served as Associate Dean and Founding Director of the conservatory. Fink also served as the Casting Director/Artistic Associate of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival from 1988 until 2003. Fink holds a doctorate and an MFA from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He holds a BFA from the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camille A. Brown</span> American dancer

Camille A. Brown is a dancer, choreographer, director and dance educator. She is the Founder & Artistic Director of Camille A. Brown & Dancers, and has congruently choreographed commissioned pieces for dance companies, Broadway shows, and universities. Brown started her career as a dancer in Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, A Dance Company, and was a guest artist with Rennie Harris Puremovement, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Brown has choreographed major Broadway shows such as Choir Boy, Once on This Island and Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert! that aired on NBC. Brown also teaches dance and gives lectures to audiences at various universities such as Long Island University, Barnard College and ACDFA, among others.

Elizabeth Cameron Dalman is an Australian choreographer, teacher, and performer. She founded Australian Dance Theatre and was its artistic director from 1965 to 1975. She is also the founding director of Mirramu Dance Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dianne McIntyre</span> American dancer, choreographer and teacher

Dianne McIntyre is an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Her notable works include Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Dance Adventure in Southern Blues , an adaptation of Zora Neal Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, as well as productions of why i had to dance,spell #7, and for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, with text by Ntozake Shange. She has won numerous honors for her work including an Emmy nomination, three Bessie Awards, and a Helen Hayes Award. She is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and the Dramatists Guild of America.

Ze'eva Cohen is an Israeli American dancer and modern/ postmodern dance choreographer who founded and directed the dance program at Princeton University between 1969 and 2009.

Nejla Y. Yatkin is a German-American choreographer.

Miriam Pandor was a German dancer, director, choreographer, teacher and writer. She is well-known for her works which address racism, antisemitism and social injustice.

Portia Mansfield was an American dance educator and choreographer. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2004.

References

  1. Mann, Mary (1984-08-16). "Multimedia Show Crosses Artistic Boundaries". Audience Magazine.
  2. Nin, Anaïs (2014). The Diary of Anaïs Nin. 1966-1974. Boston: Mariner Books. pp. 281–282.
  3. Adam, Anthony (1955-01-09). "Little Nancy to Appear at Carnegie Hall. Dancer, 12, creates her own routines". Long Island Sunday Press.
  4. Caruso, Laura (Spring 1991). "Nancy Spanier. The Inevitably Right Move". Middlebury Magazine.
  5. Duffy, Ed (1954-11-18). "Ballerina, 12, to Dance South of the Border". Newsday.
  6. Terry, Walter (1960-08-17). "Tamiris-Nagrin Company". New York Herald Tribune.
  7. Caldwell, Larry (1978-01-29). "Spanier European Tour Proves Dance Can be Universal Language". Sunday Camera.
  8. Scott, Molly (August 1988). "Spanier Leaps From Dance to Performance Inventions". The Muse.
  9. Plunka, Gene A. (1999). Jean-Claude van Itallie and the Off-Broadway Theater. London: University of Delaware Press. p. 236.
  10. "University of Colorado, Theatre and Dance Department". 21 September 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-01.