Earlier this year, the United States Artists (USA) announced their 2019 USA Fellowships and Washington University Alumnus David Dorfman ('77) was among this year's recipients. USA President and CEO Deana Haggag says, "Each fellow is a reminder of the breadth of our cultural landscape, and the 2019 cohort is yet another testament to how much incredible work is happening across the country." In a statement announcing the fellowship, David Dorfman Dance stated, "To us, and countless communities around the globe, David is a passionate artistic director, devoted teacher, and inspiring mentor. David's soulful and visceral movement vocabulary sparks dialogue around our complex humanity, and we continue to be enlivened by his vibrant energy."
Dorfman, a native Chicagoan, is the recipient of a 2005 Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. He has also been honored with four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, an American Choreographer’s Award, the first Paul Taylor Fellowship from The Yard, and a New York Dance and Performance Award (”Bessie”) for David Dorfman Dance’s community-based project Familiar Movements (The Family Project).
As a performer, he toured internationally with Kei Takei’s Moving Earth and Susan Marshall and Co. Dorfman holds a BS in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Dance from Connecticut College, where he joined the faculty in 2004 and is currently Professor of Dance and Department Chair.
Dorfman’s choreography has been produced in New York City at venues ranging from the BAM Next Wave Festival to The Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, The Duke on 42nd Street, Danspace Project/St. Mark’s Church, P.S. 122, and Dancing in the Streets. His work has been commissioned widely in the U.S. and in Europe, most recently by AXIS Dance (Oakland, CA), Bedlam Dance Company (London)
Each year, individual artists and collaboratives are anonymously nominated to apply by a geographically diverse and rotating group of artists, scholars, critics, producers, curators, and other arts professionals. Applications are reviewed by discipline-specific panels who select the finalists, which are then approved by our Board of Trustees. According to United States Artists, fellowships are $50,000 unrestricted awards recognizing artists for their contributions to the field, and allowing them to decide how to best support their lives.
David was deeply moved to receive the Fellowship, remarking, “This will be a lovely period where I can exalt in the fact that some people have ongoing faith in what I do…I have been thinking: Is this the opportunity to do something really unusual? Could this be seed money to start a different kind of collaboration? I love the idea that with this fellowship, I have the opportunity to get up in the morning and dream in any way, shape or form.”
Information and photos for this article was pulled form the David Dorfman Dance Website and Press Release; and United States Artists website.
