I find great pleasure and creative synergy in the thinking and problem-solving between creators with backgrounds in different spheres of knowledge. I’m drawn to the friction and meshing that arises when joining distinct disciplines with unique histories, languages, processes, and rules. Working with the body to bring these systems into dialogue is wonderfully flexible and immediate.
Susan Marshall is a choreographer who has collaborated with visual artists, scientists, and composers on large theater productions, gallery installations, films, opera direction, and marching band and percussion ensembles. She is known for employing modest means to resonant effect, and her movement vocabularies, which often include everyday gestures, are distilled to near abstraction and finely calibrated. Freedom within constraints and humor are constants in her work and process.
Susan’s New York–based dance group, Susan Marshall & Company, has performed in theaters throughout the United States and abroad for over 30 years. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and three New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards. Susan’s work is in the repertories of the Nederlands Dans Theatre, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. Commissions include dances for Lyon Opera Ballet, Ballet Frankfurt, Ballet Hispánico, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
A Professor and Director of the Program in Dance at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, Susan is working on her latest creative project, “Rhythm Bath,” an immersive performance installation she is creating in collaboration with set designer Mimi Lien, the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University, and members of the neurodiverse community. Traditional performance-viewing rules often demand audiences be seated, quiet, and still—requirements that exclude many neurodiverse people and others. What if we reimagined these rules? “Rhythm Bath” recently received funding from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project and the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
