Fall 2024 Guest Artists
Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein have been making performances together since 2017, functioning as a cogenerative, circulatory idea machine to stretch ideas over unconventional performative frameworks. Intensely physical and visually maximal, their work relies on dance like a slug needs rain to make slime, residing somewhere in the crawl space beneath the dance and theater rooms of the house. Fagan and Engelstein’s works are rooted in dance-adjacent physicality but reimagine what choreography can be used to accomplish theatrically.
LISA FAGAN is a choreographer, performer, and experimental performance maker based in NYC whose work has been called “The High Weird” by critics. She is the director/choreographer and a practicing member of the experimental performance company CHILD, recently artist in residence at Baryshnikov Arts Center. UPCOMING: 1-800-359-2113592 (choreographer/director) at Theater Mitu, Brooklyn, in March 2024 and HILMA (choreographer), premiering June 2024 at The Wilma Theater (Philadelphia), co produced by New Georges (NYC). Fagan’s work has been presented in NYC by: New York Live Arts, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Prelude, Mercury Store, Radiohole, LifeWorld, Target Margin, HERE Arts, Bard College (Choreographer: Promenade, Dir. Morgan Green), The Exponential Festival (2019/20 Exponential Fellow), Mabou Mines, Ars Nova, Movement Research, Gibney, Roulette, The 92nd Street Y, and others. She collaborates with many artists across disciplines supporting their shows choreographically and as movement director. On-screen choreography credits include the TV pilot THESE DAYS, premiering at Sundance 2021, and various music videos.
www.lisafagandanceproblems.com @lfdanceproblems
LENA ENGELSTEIN is a dancer, performer, and choreographer. She is part of the interdisciplinary performance collective CHILD, headed by Lisa Fagan. Her work, lauded as “subtly campy and hilariously queer” by the Brooklyn Rail, has been presented in NYC dance and theater festivals such as Prelude, Exponential Festival, and Fresh Tracks. Since 2020, Engelstein has collaborated with Jo Warren, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, and Magda San Millan on new works. Other recent performance credits include: Alexa West, Barnett Cohen, Brendan Drake, Falcon Dance (company member, 2018-present), Owen Prum + Lili Dekker, and Third Rail Company’s Then She Fell (company member, 2019-2020). She choreographs for and performs with the band Lou Tides. She has taught at SUNY Brockport, Colorado Mesa University, Bard College, and The Field Center. Lena holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Colorado College.@lenaengelstein
Bo Park has danced under world renowned choreographers (Keone and Mari, Brian Friedman, Kyle Hanagami, etc.), brands (Nike, Michael Kors, Moncler, etc.), and artists (Lil Nas X, Adam Lambert, BTS’ Jimin, etc.). However, Park began to choreograph and direct in search of what kind of artist she is. This began with the founding of her company, Shinsa the Collective, which Park has led since 2017, directing and choreographing each of the company’s 4 sold out shows. Shinsa received a residency from ArtX in New York City to extend their latest show called “LIMBO: The Echo”. Since the company’s founding, Bo has also choreographed shows for Virgin Voyage, Holland America Cruise, Stars Above Circus, and had an opportunity to be an associate director for the DPR Regime World Tour. Park has been a faculty member of Broadway Dance Center, BrickhouseNYC and Peridance Center.
A Merce Cunningham MinEvent with Live Music from Meredith Monk was performed at Barnard College in the 1970’s in LeFrak Gym. Lisa Boudreau will be setting the Cunningham movement and Allison Easter will be setting the voice work.
Lisa Boudreau is a graduate of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, Canada.
As a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1994-2008, she toured the world performing in more than 35 dances, including the world premieres of Scenario, Pond Way, and Biped. Lisa has been teaching the Cunningham Technique® since 1998. She has taught master classes and led repertory workshops at the New World School of the Arts (Miami, FL), Louisiana Tech University (Rustin, LA), New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (New Orleans, LA), Missy Crain School of Dance (Shreveport, LA) and The Place (London, UK). She has been a Merce Cunningham Fellow (2013, 2014 and 2019) and a recipient of the Merce Cunningham Trust Research Grant (2020). Lisa staged four solos for Night of 100 Solos and MinEvent for ACES Educational Center for the Arts.
She has danced with Bill Young, Dylan Crossman Dans(c)e, Glen Rumsey Dance Project, Daniel Squire & c., Milton Myers, Mafata Dance Company, and Bill Irwin. She was profiled in the book Movement at the Still Point, An Ode to Dance by Mark Mann. She is also a Yoga Alliance certified teacher with a passion for kinesiology, and her quest for efficient strength with optimal mobility, resonate in all of her classes.
Allison Easter is a NYC based interdisciplinary artist whose performing career ranges from the Obie-winning percussion show Stomp, to dancing in the companies of Ann Carlson, Jane Comfort, Amy Pivar and with Susan Marshall and Dancers (highlights include dancing at the NY State Theater and being featured in Tobi Tobias’ article Breathtaking Performances of 1994). She has spent over 35 years as a singer and performer with Meredith Monk, creating a role in the 2021 premiere of Indra’s Net and receiving a Bessie (Downtown Dance and Performance Award) for The Politics of Quiet.
As rehearsal director for Stomp, Ms. Easter oversaw the Off-Broadway cast and prepared two touring companies. She has directed and written her own work for stage and video, and taught at numerous colleges and universities, including Sarah Lawrence (where she received her BA), Marymount Manhattan, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Pace University and Bank Street College of Education.
She teaches regularly in Ms. Monk’s Dancing Voice/Singing Body workshops, guiding participants from around the globe in extended vocal techniques and in creating their own voice/movement/theater work. She has staged Monk’s work in locations as far flung as Manila, the Philippines, Kiev, Ukraine, Budapest Hungary, Boulder Colorado, Bennington College, Syracuse NY and now Barnard College.
NiNi DONGNIER is a New York based choreographer and artist of Mongolian descent from Inner Mongolia, who engages choreographed performance, moving image, technological intervention, and painting. At the heart of her work is a continues exploration of the metaphysical of the body and an array of materials that extend the sensory body, and its concrete relations to the compound spatiotemporal, ecological, and technological fields where she locates. She draws from everyday embodied experiences as a nomadic woman, her rooted trans-border nomadic art and philosophies, and contemporary culture to distill works that fuse perception, existence, eros, migration, landscape, sanctity, and ephemerality.
Her works has been presented by The Watermill Center, La MaMa| CultureHub, Movement Research, Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation, Mana Contemporary, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Media Art Xploration, New York Live Arts and others. Recent commissions include Shanghai International Dance Center Theater, Beijing Dance Academy, and Inner Mongolia Art Theatre.
DONGNIER co-founded NUUM Collective, whose projects have been supported by NEA and Google. She has taught at the School for the Contemporary Arts of Simon Fraser University, Beijing Dance Academy, CUNY Hunter College, and Barnard College| Columbia University. Currently, she works curatorially for the Movement Lab, and develops her upcoming project as an artist in residency at the Monira Foundation.