Talking Dance - artists talk series

STEPS BEYOND FOUNDATION & STEPS ON BROADWAY PRESENT
TALKING DANCE

Join us for one-on-one virtual conversations with leaders in the field and discover their stories, what propels their creative drive, and other relevant issues on their mind. The series, moderated by Allen Maniker, continues in 2022 on Sunday evenings. In support of the artists and our events, a suggested donation of $10 is appreciated.

Sunday, May 8 @ 7pm ET
PRESERVING OUR LEGACY:
A CONVERSATION WITH NORTON OWEN & WENDY PERRON

Wendy Perrone

Wendy Perron

Wendy Perron is a dancer/choreographer turned writer/editor/scholar. She trained equally in modern dance and ballet before earning a BA from Bennington College and an MA from SUNY Empire State College. She danced with the Trisha Brown Company in the 1970s and choreographed more than 40 works for her own group, which received commissions from Lincoln Center Festival, the Joyce Theater, Jacob’s Pillow, and the Danspace Project. Perron has taught at Bennington, Princeton, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and the Conservatory at SUNY Purchase, and she has often adjudicated for ballet and choreography competitions.

In the early 1990s she served as associate director of Jacob’s Pillow, where she conceived and co-directed an international intensive in improvisation. She was the editor in chief of Dance Magazine from 2004 to 2013, and has also written for The New York Times, The Village Voice, vanityfair.com, and journals in Europe and China. An authority on Judson Dance Theater and postmodern dance, Perron has lectured across the country and in Russia and China. In 2011 she was the first dance artist to be inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Hall of Fame. Her second book, The Grand Union: Accidental Anarchists of Downtown Dance, 1970-1975, met with acclaim when it was published in 2020. She has recently performed with Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks in downtown venues. Her new online series, “Unsung Heroes of Dance History,” presents research on dance artists outside the “canon.” She has been on the Juilliard faculty since 2019.

Norton Owen, photo by Bill Wright

Norton Owen

Norton Owen is a curator, writer, and archivist with nearly 50 years of professional experience in dance. He has been associated with Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival since 1976 and has been Director of Preservation since 1990, overseeing the PillowTalks series as well as all activities involving documentation, exhibitions, audience engagement, and archival access. He is the curator of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive, an acclaimed online video resource, and host of a podcast entitled PillowVoices.

In addition to his work at Jacob’s Pillow, he was Director of the Limón Institute for 14 years and served as Resident Curator for the National Museum of Dance. In 2000, Dance/USA selected him for its Ernie Award, honoring “unsung heroes who have led exemplary lives in dance.” He has also received awards from the Martha Hill Dance Fund, Dance Films Association, the José Limón Dance Foundation, and the Theatre Library Association. Currently the President of the O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, he is a past chair of both the Dance Heritage Coalition and the Dance Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts. In recognition of his 40th anniversary at Jacob’s Pillow, the Norton Owen Reading Room was dedicated in his honor in 2015.