American multimedia artist and academic (born 1955)
Thomas Riccio, India 2013
Thomas P. Riccio (born 1955) is an American multimedia artist and academic. He received his BA from Cleveland State University in English Literature in 1978, his MFA from Boston University in 1982, and studied in the PhD program in Performance Studies at New York University from 1983 to 1984. Riccio has directed over one hundred plays at American regional theatres, off-off and off Broadway and has worked extensively in the area of indigenous and ritual performance conducting research and/or creating performances in: South Africa, Zambia, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Europe, Russia, Siberia, Korea, India, Nepal, China, and Alaska. In 1993 the People's Republic of Sakha (central Siberia) declared him a “Cultural Hero”. Performance ethnography project with the Miao people of SW Hunan, China, 2015-2019.
In 1980 Riccio was appointed Assistant Literary Director at the American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, MA and Research Assistant to Robert Brustein. In 1984 he was appointed Dramaturg and Resident Director of the Cleveland Play House. 1985 he served as Artistic Director of the Organic Theatre, Chicago. In 1988 Riccio was appointed as Professor of Theatre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Artistic Director of Tuma Theater, an Inuit theatre group. He continued in both of positions until 2003. From 2003-2024 Professor of Visual and Performing Arts, now Emeritus, at the University of Texas at Dallas. Since 2006 Riccio has worked with David Hanson at Hanson Robotics as a Lead Narrative Engineer (2005-2009) and was Creative Director 2017-2019. He has also served as a visiting professor at the Korean National University for the Arts, California Institute of Integral Studies, and the University of Dar es Salaam. He is a producing artist with Project X, a Dallas-based performance collective . He has created two media installations The Invention of Memory (2010) and Not So Indifferent (2012) both at Central Trak Gallery, Dallas. In 2011 with Lori McCarty he formed Dead White Zombies, a Dallas-based experimental, post-disciplinary performance and media group that utilizes ritual and indigenous expressions. Riccio serves as Poo Pa Doo (artistic director) of the group and has written, directed, and created installations for eight works since its founding. Blah Blah (2011); Flesh World (2012), (w)hole (2012), and T.N.B. (2013), Bull Game (2013), , Karaoke Motel (2014) , DP92 (2015) , and Holy Bone (2017) He was a Fulbright Specialist and an artist in residence at the Watermill Arts Center (2016) and is collaborating on 12 Shouts, a performance project with Sibyl Kempson for the Whitney Museum. Visiting Professor in Ethnography and Anthropology, Jisou University, Hunan, China. Principal actor, Wedding Dresses.
Notable works
2003: Published the book Reinventing Traditional Alaska Native Performance[1]
2004: Initiated the "Story Lab" and Artistic Director
2004: Kartasi, a new media performance work
2004: "Kenya's Community Health Awareness Puppeteers" article published by PAJ, Performing Arts Journal, #76 [2]
2006: Alpha Male, a cyberpunk paranoia new media performance work
2006: There is Never a Reference Point, a performance work about a person with multiple personality disorder [3]
2006: Inuit, a play awarded the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation Distinction Prize in Playwrighting[4]
2007: Participated in the creation of Einstein, a lifelike conversational robot, which was on display at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum NYC (12/2006 to 05/2007)
2007: Published the book Performing Africa: Remixing Culture, Theatre and Tradition[5]
2008: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a performance/media immersion inspired by the 1920 Expressionist film[6]
2008: So There and Orange Oranges, two short plays for the theatre, Festival of Independent Theaters, Dallas
2009: Some People a theatre/media performance work, Out of the Loop Festival and Project X, Dallas
2009: Andgena (The First), a devised performance work, Lul Theatre and Litooma, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, also conducted workshops at Addis Ababa University.
2009: Orange Oranges play published by Sojourn Literary Journal[7]
2009: Video Documentary Director and Editor, There is Never a Reference Point premiere Dallas Video Festival[8]
2009-2010: Featured Performance Artist, "All the World's a Stage," Dallas Museum of Art[9]
2010: Published Articles "Robot as Ritual Oracle and Fetish,[10]" University of Tartu (Estonia), "Performance of Body, Space and Place" chapter in Healing Collective Trauma, Springer Publishing[11]
2010: Participated in the creation of Bina, a conversational robot for Hanson Robotics
2010: PlayLab reading of new play TNB (Typical Nigga Behavior) Great Plains Theatre Conference and Workshop Instructor[12]
2011 Blah Blah, writer, director, installations, Dead White Zombies, Dallas. Semi-Finalist, National Playwright's Conference
2012 Flesh World writer, director, installations, Dead White Zombies, Dallas. Semi-finalist, National Playwright's Conference
2012 (w)hole writer, director, installations, Dead White Zombies, Dallas
2012 Rhythm Reality published, a chapter In Rhythms And Steps Of Africa, Studies on Comparative Aesthetics, volume 2: Studies On Anthropology And Aesthetics Of The African Dance, editor Wiesna Mond-Kozłowska.
2016 Huan Nuo Yuan, a video documentary of a Miao ritual, shown at Dallas Video Festival, EthnograFilm Festival (Paris), Beijing Film Festival, International Film Festival of Ethnographic Films, Sophia, Bulgaria, and Martinique Film Festival.
2017 Holy Bone, a site specific immersion performance, writer-director, Dead White Zombies
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