: ''For the actor, see

David Dorfman David Dorfman (born February 7, 1993) is an American attorney and former actor. He portrayed Aidan Keller in the 2002 horror film remake '' The Ring'', and its 2005 sequel ''The Ring Two''. His other film roles include Sammy in ''Panic'', Joey ...

, and for the screenwriter, see

David S. Dorfman David Dorfman is an American film director. He attended New York University and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in screenwriting. After years of working as a script reader at William Morris, Dorfman finally broke through and sold his f ...

'' David Dorfman (born 1955) is a dancer,

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 ...

, musician, activistNew London Day Article on War Protest
/ref> and teacher. A native of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, he received his bachelor of science in business administration degree in 1977 from

Olin Business School The Olin Business School is one of seven academic schools at Washington University in St. Louis. Founded in 1917, the business school was renamed for entrepreneur John M. Olin in 1988. The school offers BSBA, Master of Business Administration (M ...

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

. In 1981, he received his MFA in dance from

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 ...

New London, Connecticut New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States, located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, Connecticut. It was one of the world's three busiest whaling ports for several decades ...

, where he is regularly the chairperson of the department of dance, having joined the faculty in 2004. In 1985 he founded his company David Dorfman Dance, one of the nation's leading modern dance companies.New York Times Article on David Dorfman
/ref> He received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 2005 to continue his research and choreography in the topics of power and powerlessness, including activism, dissidence and underground movements. He has also been awarded four fellowships from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, three

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

fellowships, an American Choreographer's Award, the first Paul Taylor Fellowship from The Yard, and a 1996 New York Dance & Performance Award ("

Bessie Bessie is a feminine given name, often a diminutive form (hypocorism) of Elizabeth, Beatrice and other names since the 16th century. It is sometimes a name in its own right. Notable people with the name include: People *Bessie Abott (1878-191 ...

"). His choreography has been produced in New York City at venues ranging from

Lincoln Center Out of Doors Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln ...

and the BAM Next Wave Festival to

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...

, the

Joyce Theater The Joyce Theater (“The Joyce") is a 472-seat dance performance venue located in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The building opened in 1941 as the Elgin Theater, a movie house, and was gut-renovated and reconfigured in 1981-82 to re ...

Dance Theater Workshop Dance Theater Workshop, colloquially known as DTW, was a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies that operated from 1965 to 2011. After a merger it became known as New York Live Arts Located as 219 19th Street ...

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 Larry ...

/St. Mark's Church,

P.S. 122 Performance Space New York, formerly known as Performance Space 122 or P.S. 122, is a non-profitable arts organization founded in 1980 in the East Village, Manhattan, East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in an abandoned public school building. ...

and Dancing in the Streets. His work has been commissioned widely in the U.S. and in Europe, most recently by Bedlam Dance Company (

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

), d9 Dance Collective (

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

), and the

Prince Music Theater The Prince Theater is a non-profit theatrical producing organization located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and specializing in music theatre, including opera, music drama, musical comedy and experimental forms. Founded in 1984 as the American Mu ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

for the musical ''Green Violin'', for which he won a 2003

Barrymore Award The Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre is an annual, nationally recognized award program by Theatre Philadelphia for professional theater productions in the Greater Philadelphia area. Each season culminates in the Fall with an awards cerem ...

for best choreography. Dorfman was the recipient of a 2010 Whalie Award (southeastern Connecticut music awards) for the best hip hop/rap group for his work with the band, as well as a 2011 Whalie for Album of the Year for the release ''Two Sides''. In 2017, Dorfman made his Broadway debut as choreographer of

Paula Vogel Paula Vogel (born November 16, 1951) is an American playwright who received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play ''How I Learned to Drive.'' A longtime teacher, Vogel spent the bulk of her academic career – from 1984 to 2008 – at Bro ...

's play

Indecent Inappropriateness refers to standards or ethics that are typically viewed as being negative in a society. It differs from things that are illicit in that inappropriate behavior does not necessarily have any accompanying legal ramifications. Co ...

, which was nominated for three

Tony Awards The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...

, including the

Tony Award for Best Play The Tony Award for Best Play (formally, the Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre) is an annual award given to the best new (non- musical) play on Broadway, as determined by Tony Award voters. There was no award in the Tonys' first year ...

. In addition to his work in dance, Dorfman also performs with the New London-based hip hop band Above/Below, playing

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...

Works

* Prophets of Funk - Dance to the Music, using the music of

Sly and the Family Stone Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco. Active from 1966 to 1983, it was pivotal in the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music. Its core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, record producer, and multi-i ...

* Disavowal,New York Times Review of Disavowal
/ref> which examines the life and legacy of abolitionist and (in)famous "race traitor"

John Brown John Brown most often refers to: *John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859), American who led an anti-slavery raid in Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859 John Brown or Johnny Brown may also refer to: Academia * John Brown (educator) (1763–1842), Ir ...

* underground,New York Times Review of underground
/ref> inspired by a documentary on the Weathermen * Older Testaments, to music by composer/trumpeter Frank London of

The Klezmatics The Klezmatics are an American klezmer music group based in New York City, who have achieved fame singing in several languages, most notably mixing older Yiddish tunes with other types of more contemporary music of differing origins. They have ...

* Lightbulb Theory and Impending Joy * See Level, the company's first evening-length work * To Lie Tenderly and Subverse * A Cure for Gravity, set to music by popular composer and recording artist Joe Jackson

References

External links

David Dorfman Dance Company

Archival footage of David Dorfman Dance Company performing in ''Prophets of Funk'' in 2011 at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

Above/Below bandcamp page
* Interview wit
Zouch Magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorfman, David American male dancers 1956 births American choreographers Living people Artists from Chicago Olin Business School (Washington University) alumni Connecticut College alumni Washington University in St. Louis alumni