Barbara Dilley (Lloyd) (born 1938) is an American
dancer
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoi ...
,
performance artist
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
,
improvisor,
choreographer
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...
and educator, best known for her work as a prominent member of the
Merce Cunningham Dance Company
Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
(1963-1968), and then with the groundbreaking dance and performance ensemble
The Grand Union, from 1969 to 1976. She has taught movement and dance at
Naropa University
Naropa University is a private university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda. The university describes itself as B ...
in
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
, since 1974, developing a pedagogy that emphasizes what she calls “embodied awareness,” an approach that combines dance and movement studies with meditation, “mind training” and improvisational composition. She served as the president of Naropa University from 1985 to 1993.
Early life and education
Barbara Dilley was born in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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in 1938. She began dancing early in childhood and by the age of ten was studying with
Audrée Estey
Audrée Phipps Estey (January 7, 1910 – June 6, 2002), known as "New Jersey's First Lady of Dance", was an American dancer who founded the Princeton Ballet Society and the American Repertory Ballet.
Biography
Estey was born in Winnipeg, Mani ...
, who was the founder of the
American Repertory Ballet
The American Repertory Ballet (ARB) is an American ballet company based in New Jersey.
The company was founded by Audrée Estey in 1963, as the Princeton Regional Ballet Company. In 1978, it became a professional company and was renamed Princeton ...
and Princeton Ballet Academy. After high school, Dilley attended classes at the
Jacob’s Pillow
Jacob's Pillow is a dance center, school and performance space located in Becket, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. The organization is known for a Summer dance festival. The facility also includes a professional school and extensive archives a ...
dance festival before enrolling at
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.
...
in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1956. She received a BA from Mount. Holyoke in 1960.
Professional career
Dilley first came into contact with
Merce Cunningham
Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
in 1960, while participating in the
Connecticut College
Connecticut College (Conn College or Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. It is a residential, four-year undergraduate institution with nearly all of its approximately 1,815 students living on campus. The college w ...
School of Dance's annual workshop, where the renowned choreographer was in residence with his company. Cunningham asked Dilley to join his company in 1962, but due to a pregnancy she was not actually to join the company until 1963. Dilley was a key member of the Cunningham Dance Company during a very important period for Cunningham, and an exciting time for American dance. While in New York, Dilley was also active with the
Judson Dance Theater
Judson Dance Theater was a collective of dancers, composers, and visual artists who performed at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York City between 1962 and 1964. The artists involved were avant garde experimentalists ...
, and participated in a number of performances, including
Steve Paxton’s ''Afternoon (a forest concert)'', performed in the October of 1963 in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, in a wooded location near the home of
Billy Klüver
Johan Wilhelm Klüver (November 11, 1927 – March 20, 2004) was an electrical engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories who founded Experiments in Art and Technology. Klüver lectured extensively on art and technology and social issues to be address ...
.
In 1964, Dilley took part in the Cunningham Dance Company's first world tour, with stops in Venice, Paris, London, several cities in India, Bangkok and Tokyo, among other places. Cunningham’s 1964 tour featured music by
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
and
David Tudor
David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music.
Life and career
Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan ...
, sets and costumes by
Robert Rauschenberg
Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
, and a large number of Judson dancers, including Dilley, Paxton
William Davis,
Deborah Hay
Deborah Hay (born 1941 in Brooklyn, New York) is a choreographer, dancer, dance theorist, and author working in the field of experimental postmodern dance. She is one of the original founders of the Judson Dance Theater. Hay's signature slow and m ...
, Sandra Neels, and Albert Reid, as well as Alex Hay, who was hired to assist Rauschenberg with set and costume design. Their temporary exodus from New York was one among a number of factors that led to the decline and dissolution of the Judson Dance Theater.
In 1968 Dilley danced in the Cunningham company’s tour of Latin America, which included performances in Mexico City, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.
In 1969, Dilley performed as a member of the “Rainer Dance Group” in
Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental. ’s groundbreaking, improvisational ''Continuous Project - Altered Daily'' alongside Rainer, Paxton, Becky Arnold,
Douglas Dunn
Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE (born 23 October 1942) is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He is Professor of English and Director of St Andrew's Scottish Studies Institute at St Andrew's University.
Background
Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Re ...
and
David Gordon. This group of dancers formed the core of an ensemble of improvising dancers that came to be known as
The Grand Union, a group that also came to include
Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her dancers ...
. The Grand Union toured extensively in the early 1970s; while in the group Dilley performed pieces by other members as well as her own works, including “The Sapsuckersummer Dance” series at Cornell Summer Dance Group in 1970, “Wonder Dances” (1975) and “To the Golden Gate Bridge” from her dance series “Coast” (1968-1971).
In 1972, Dilley founded her own improvisational dance company, an all woman group called The Natural History of The American Dancer including Carmen Beauchat, Cynthia Hedstrom, Judy Padow, Mary Overlie, Rachel Lew and Suzanne Harris. They performed at the Whitney Museum on April 29, 1972 as well as at Bennington College, Oberlin College and other venues. That same year, Dilley participated in the first public performance of Contact Improvisation at the Weber Gallery with Steve Paxton. In 1974, Dilley cofounded
Danspace Project
Danspace Project is a performance venue for contemporary dance. Its performances are held in St. Mark's Church in the East Village area of the Manhattan borough of New York City.
History
Founded in 1974 by Barbara Dilley, Mary Overlie, and Larr ...
at
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery with
New York School poet
Larry Fagin
Larry Fagin (July 21, 1937 – May 27, 2017) was an American poet, editor, publisher, and teacher, and a member of the New York School.
Biography
Born in Far Rockaway, New York City, Larry Fagin grew up in New York, Hollywood, and Europe. He bega ...
and choreographer Mary Overlie. Also in 1974, Tom Hast, who had seen the Whitney performance and danced with Dilley in the Weber Gallery performance, invited her to teach at the first summer session of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, at the conclusion of which she was put in charge of designing a dance and movement program for the institute. She has remained involved with Naropa as director of the dance department (1974-1985), and president (1985-1993) since that time, and has maintained a busy schedule teaching and performing throughout the US and Europe. She is currently a professor of Contemporary Performance in Naropa University’s School of the Arts department.
References
External links
Barbara Dilley's papers at the New York Public LibraryBarbara Dilley interviewed in 2005, with audio, video and transcript
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dilley, Barbara
1938 births
American choreographers
American female dancers
Dancers from Illinois
Living people
Modern dancers
Naropa University faculty
Musicians from Chicago
Mount Holyoke College alumni
American women academics
21st-century American women