Steve
Paxton

Steve Paxton has researched the fiction of cultured dance and the ‘truth’ of improvisation for 55 years. He lives on a farm, and he has received grants from Change, Inc., E.A.T., the Foundation for Performance Arts, John D. Rockefeller Fund, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has been awarded two NY Bessie Awards, and is a contributing editor to Contact Quarterly dance Journal. He was one of the founders of the Judson dance Theater, Grand Union, Contact Improvisation, Touchdown dance for the visually disabled (UK), and began his career studying modern dance techniques, ballet, Aikido, Tai Chi Chuan, and Vipassana meditation. He performed with the Merce Cunningham dance Co. from 1961-65. He lectures, performs, choreographs and teaches primarily in the USA and Europe. In 2008, he published a DVD with ContreDanse in Brussels, ‘Material for the Spine’. In 2013 he was featured in Tanz I’m August, Berlin, Germany; and ‘Night Stand’ was performed in NYC at Dia:Chelsea. In 2014, his work ‘Bound’, with jurij Konjar, was presented in Ljubljiana, Venice, Munich. In June 2014, he received the Venice Biennale Leone d’Oro for life-time achievement in dance.’Quicksand’, an opera by Robert Ashley, premiered in January, 2015 at the Kitchen, NYC, and Festival D’autumne in 2016, featuring choreography by Paxton. ‘Bound’ was at Festival D’autumne in Paris, ADI, in Maryland, and at REDCAT in Los Angeles.