MANCC Welcomes Visiting Artist Tere O’Connor

Tere O’Connor (NY) Visiting Artist | July 29 – August 17, 2013

Tere O’Connor returns to MANCC to develop Bleed. Expanding on methods derived from his 30 years of choreographic exploration, this new full-length work will be created by blending three distinct dances – Secret Mary, Poem and a duet called Sister – into one work. The layering and assemblage of the source works will create a new logic that demonstrates the seeds of syncretism in choreographic thinking. Bleed will be the result of an 18-month development period with the initial three works performed in different venues from July 2012 – June 2013.

The first two weeks of the residency will be spent rehearsing the new work with the full cast. During the third week, the set designers and lighting designer will join the full cast to explore different iterations of the set, which will be mocked up in draft materials. The set will be comprised of components that can be assembled in different ways for a range of venues. The dancers and lighting designer will use the time to work with the different configurations of the set in order for the work to be in shape for touring beginning in January 2014, shortly after its premiere. O’Connor has created a process blog in association with scholar Jenn Joy to chronicle the process of making Bleed.

Bleed will premiere in December 2013 at the new Brooklyn Academy of Music Fisher Building as part of the Next Wave Festival.

In October 2013, O’Connor and company will return as part of Seven Days of Opening Nights to perform poem and Sister, as well as reflect on his summer residency with the School of Dance students. To find out more about his Seven Days of Opening Nights performance and to purchase tickets please visit FSU Opening Nights.

This residency is supported, in part, by Big Tree Productions, and through a Production Residency funded by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Tere O’Connor Biography

Tere O’Connor has been making dances since 1982 and has created over 35 works for his company. They have performed throughout the U.S. and in Europe, South America and Canada. He has created numerous commissioned works for dance companies around the world, among these have been works for the Lyon Opera Ballet, White Oak Dance Project and solo works for Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jean Butler.

O’Connor received a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. This spring, he was awarded a Faculty Award for Excellence in Research from the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois. He is the recipient of a United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Award, Creative Capital Award, Guggenheim Fellowship and more. He’s received repeated grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, NEFA/National Dance Project, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Map Fund, Jerome Foundation, et.al.

He is the 2013 chair of the Chime Without Borders mentorship program initiated by Margie Jenkins Dance Company in San Francisco. A much sought after teacher, O’Connor has taught at festivals and universities around the world. He is currently a tenured professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign dividing his time between NY and Il. He has created a process blog in association with scholar Jenn Joy to chronicle the process of making Bleed (bleedtereoconnor.org).

Please visit Tere O’Connor’s profile or email info@mancc.org for additional information about O’Connor’s residency.

The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC), at the FSU School of Dance, is a choreographic research and development center whose mission is to raise the value of the creative process in dance.