PRESS RELEASE:
Gwen Welliver

DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP
presents
GWEN WELLIVER
in a Studio Series work-in-progress showing of
Portraits 1-3

Jan 28 - 29 at 7:30pm

New York, NY, December 16, 2009 - Gwen Welliver concludes her 100-hour creative residency, as a part of Dance Theater Workshop’s Studio Series, with two work-in-progress showings featuring material created with dancer and choreographer Kayvon Pourazar. Portraits 1-3 are part of a series of movement works concerned with the effect of drawing in performance. Working with both real and abstract lines, Welliver examines line as a common form of human communication.

“… a poethical relationship to dancing, something very different from that performative exchange, something about a set of living minds moving around a room together.” -  Karinne Keithley, Critical Correspondence

The showings will take place at Dance Theater Workshop in the third floor studios, Jan 28 - 29 (Thursday - Friday) at 7:30pm. There will be an In-Process Talk on January 29 (Friday) moderated by choreographer, writer and sound designer Karinne Keithley. Tickets are free with a suggested donation of $5 at the door. Tickets can be reserved in person at the box office or by calling (212) 924-0077. Box office hours are Monday - Friday from 5pm - 9pm and Saturday - Sunday from 12pm - 8pm.  Dance Theater Workshop is located at 219 West 19th Street between 7^th and 8^th Avenues.

About the Artist
Gwen Welliver is a dancer, teacher and choreographer who has been based in New York City since 1990. She performed with Doug Varone and Dancers from 1990-2000 and was awarded a New York Dance and Performance (’Bessie’) Award for Sustained Achievement while dancing with the company.  During this time she also served on the faculty of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Dance Department (1995-2000).  Gwen then joined the Trisha Brown Dance Company (TBC) as Rehearsal Director (2000-2007). With TBC she directed stagings of Ms. Brown’s seminal early works, an extensive repertory, and Brown’s choreography for opera. Prior to working in NYC Gwen performed in Philadelphia with ZeroMoving Dance Company (1988-2000), under the direction of Hellmut Gottschild, once an assistant to German dancer and choreographer Mary Wigman.

Gwen has taught extensively in the U.S. and abroad at venues including the American Dance Festival (North Carolina; Chile),  Dansens Hus (Denmark), International Summer School of Dance (Japan), Kalamata International Dance Festival (Greece), P.A.R.T.S. (Belgium), and with support from the Dance Theater Workshop Suitcase Fund, the Moscow Contemporary Dance Summer School ‘TSEH’.  In New York Gwen has been on the faculty of Movement Research and the Trisha Brown Studios since 1997. Gwen has shown her work at Movement Research at the Judson Church, NYU Tisch School of the Arts Summer Festival, the American Dance Festival (faculty concert), SUNY Purchase, and Bennington College.  She recently completed a Teaching Fellowship/MFA ‘09 at Bennington College.

About the Studio Series

The Studio Series offers an opportunity for research and development in a creative residency format, providing resources of time, space, and a commission. The Studio Series is a research laboratory for physical explorations and new movement investigations with a focus on process, not final performance/product. The “performances” are intended to be informal public showings to share ideas with an audience in the intimate working space of the studio. Studio Series artists are curated internally by the Artistic Director in conjunction with Programming staff and guest curators from Urban Word NYC and Dance Theater Workshop’s season artists.

Funding
Dance Theater Workshop’s Studio Series Commissioning and Creative Residency Program is supported by The Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Jerome Robbins Foundation.

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Dance Theater Workshop is the preeminent U.S. based center for dance and performance that maintains an uncompromising mission to identify, present, and support independent contemporary artists and companies to advance dance and live performance in New York and worldwide. Dance Theater Workshop supports innovative artists through all facets of their creative process and offers audiences the opportunity to experience and engage with artistic expression in bold and evocative ways.

Dance Theater Workshop’s 2009-2010 Season Supporters   (as of July 1, 2009)

Private support provided by: American Masterpieces: Dance Initiative of the New England Foundation for the Arts; The Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; The Ford Foundation; French United States Exchange in Dance of the New England Foundation for the Arts; The Howard Gilman Foundation; The Mertz Gilmore Foundation; The Greenwall Foundation; The William Randolph Hearst Foundations; The Jerome Foundation; The Lambent Foundation; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts; National Performance Network; The New York Community Trust; New York State DanceForce; The Jerome Robbins Foundation; Rockefeller Brothers Fund; The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; The Scherman Foundation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; The Shubert Foundation, Inc.; The Trust for Mutual Understanding; and The Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund.

Corporate support provided by: Bloomberg L.P. and Consolidated Edison Company of New York.

Public support provided by the following government agencies and elected representatives: National Endowment for the Arts; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; Kate D. Levin, Commissioner; Speaker Christine C. Quinn; New York City Council; New York State Council on the Arts; New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; Senator Thomas K. Duane, New York State Senate.

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