Jody Sperling
Jody Sperling is an American dancer, choreographer, and dance scholar based in New York City. She is the Founder/Artistic Director of Time Lapse Dance, a dance company that gives a postmodern twist to vintage genres, from the fin de siècle spectacles of Loie Fuller, to circus and music hall entertainments.[1]
Biography
Sperling holds an MA in Performance Studies (New York University, 1996) and a BA in Dance and Italian (Wesleyan College, 1992).
Sperling became interested in Fuller in 1997 when she performed Fuller's The Butterfly Dance.[2] Since then, she has gained an international reputation as an expert on Loie Fuller and as a contemporary interpreter of Fuller’s style of dancing. She has lectured and/or performed at colleges, universities and international festivals and conferences in countries such as the United States, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Russia.
Sperling has created five Fuller-inspired solos:The Serpentine Dance (after the 1891 original); The Magic-Lantern Dance (a collaboration with the American Magic-Lantern Theater); Dance of the Elements, La Nuit set to the music of John Cage; and Debussy Soirée. She has also developed group works such as Ghosts (2008); the trio Roman Sketches (2007), co-commissioned by Vermont Performance Lab, LLC. and Marlboro College,;[3] and the septet Ballet of Light (2007), a reinterpretation of Fuller’s 1908 original, commissioned by the University of Wyoming with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts/American Masterpieces program.
Sperling’s interest in dance history has led her to perform works from other periods, such as Yvone Rainer's 1960s Trio A, and her dance Orlando was inspired by an interest in 16th-century galliard steps. She is also a hoop dancer/instructor, and has created dances for low-flying trapeze.
She has written occasional articles for Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, and other publications, including a contribution to the six-volume International Encyclopedia of Dance (Oxford University Press, 1998).
Sperling has served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Dance History Scholars.
References
- ↑ "Jody Sperling: Time Lapse Dance" (PDF). Maryhill Museum of Art. June 2008. p. 2. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
- ↑ "Dance Instruction Manuals: Video Directory". Library of Congress: American Memory. Retrieved 14 November 2010.
- ↑ Anderson, Jack (May 14, 2007). "Jody Sperling and Loïe". New York Theatre Wire. Retrieved 14 November 2010.