"In its quiet way, RoseAnne Spradlin's choreographic voice is one of the strongest and most original in New York downtown dance."
--Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, Nov '99
"By no means conventional entertainment, "beginning" broadens the definition of dance."
--Elizabeth Zimmer, metro New York, May '11
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ROSEANNE SPRADLIN, CHOREOGRAPHER
RoseAnne Spradlin, New York City–based choreographer, has become known for her raw, luminous vision and provocative performance works. Spradlin's singular approach to choreography has its roots in her background in the visual arts and her study of both Western and Eastern forms of movement energetics and post-modern dance. Spradlin's work is concerned with the revelation of the individual performer and the probing of deep structures of perception and feeling embedded in human behavior.
Spradlin's newest work, "beginning of something," premiered at The Chocolate Factory in Long Island City, Queens, in May 2011. "What's going on here?" wrote critic Elizabeth Zimmer, reviewing the work. "Spradlin, one of the bravest choreographers of her generation, seems to be testing the possibilities, letting us witness, up close, the transformation of conventionally pretty young things into powerful icons." Critic Gia Kourlas wrote, "…even when focusing the eye on a bare breast or a quivering thigh, it's what throbs beneath the surface that matters."
Spradlin received a 2011 BUILD company grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts; other recent honors include a 2009 Artist Research Award from the Rockefeller Foundation, a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography, a 2007 Individual Artist Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in New York City and a three-year Lambent Fellowship in Performing Arts given by the Tides Foundation in 2006. In 2003 Spradlin received a New York Dance and Performance Award (BESSIE) for her 2002 work under/world. Spradlin received Choreography Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 1998 and 2006 and was also named an artist-in-residence with the forward-looking dance organization Movement Research in 1998 and 2006.
Spradlin has lived in New York City since 1983. For ten years she operated SQUID Performance Space in Manhattan; Spradlin’s company now has its base at Studio 65 in lower Manhattan. Spradlin teaches in New York City and internationally; she has taught workshops in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Germany, Great Britain and on the east and west coasts of the United States. She performed her evening-length solo Ends of Mercy in London in 1999 and her quartet Survive Cycle at the ImPulsTanz festival in Vienna in 2007.
In 2005 Spradlin became a licensed acupuncturist; she offers this transformative work to the NYC dance community at low cost, in private sessions and through her teaching.
