Steve PAXTON

Born 1939 in Phoenix, Arizona. He has researched the fiction of cultured dance and the 'truth' of improvisation for 40 years. He lives on a farm, and he has received grants from Change, Inc., the Foundation for Performance Arts, John D. Rockefeller Fund, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has been awarded two NY Bessie Awards, and is a contributing editor to "Contact Quarterly" dance journal. He was one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater, Grand Union, Contact Improvisation, Touchdown Dance for the visually disabled (UK), and began his career studying modern dance techniques, ballet, Aikido, Tai Chi Chuan, and Vipassana meditation. He performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Co. from 1961-65. He lectures, performs, choreographs and teaches primarily in the USA and Europe. Recently he collaborated Mikhail Baryshnikov, Trisha Brown, Lisa Nelson and etc. In 2008 he published a DVD-ROM "Material for the Spine" and book with Contredanse in Brussels.