Douglas Dunn 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 ...

and

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 ...

based in New York City.

Choreography

Dunn premiered his professional company, Douglas Dunn and Dancers, in 1976, where he served as artistic director. He was commissioned by various companies to choreograph works including the

Paris Opera Ballet The Paris Opera Ballet () is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded ...

, Groupe de Recherche Choréographique de l'Opéra de Paris, Grande Ballet de Bordeaux, New Dance Ensemble of Minneapolis,

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

(Minneapolis), Repertory Dance Theater (Salt Lake City), Ballet Théâtre Francais de Nancy, Institute for Contemporary Art (Boston), Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (Australia), and

Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...

(Oregon).Kowa, pp. 221-223. Dunn uses many different choreographic elements in his dances which makes it hard to classify him into a specific genre of dance.Banes (1979), p. 187. He conveyed a

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

approach in his work by using elements of silence, stillness, simple movements, text, pedestrian movements, gestures, wit, and humor. He also incorporated varying

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

such as elaborate costume, music, set designs, and lights. In ''101'', a performance exhibit choreographed in 1974, Dunn used his apartment to create a maze of cubes of rough-hewn lumber that covered his entire loft. For four hours a day and six days a week in two months he held an open studio for viewers to enter the set and explore his creation in which they would find him lying on top of the boxes in a sort of trance with his eyes closed. Among Dunn's best-known works are, ''Nevada'', ''Four for Nothing'', ''101'', ''Octopus'', ''Time Out'', ''Gestures in Red'', and ''Lazy Madge''.Banes (1979), pp. 188-191. He is mostly known for creating solo pieces like ''Lazy Madge'', ''Haole'', and ''Nevada''. However, he also created many group pieces like ''Celeste'' in 1977 which featured about forty dancers.Banes (1998), 460. and many later large group works such as ''Stucco Moon'', ''Spell For Opening The Mouth Of N'', ''Informations'', ''Cleave'', ''Buridan's Ass'', and ''Cassations''. In 1980, Dunn created ''Pulcinella'' as a commission for the

. He was commissioned by l'Opéra de Paris in 1981 to set his work, ''Cycles'', on the Groupe de Recherche Chorégraphique.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Banes, Sally. ''Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. * Banes, Sally. "Dunn, Douglas." In ''International Encyclopedia of Dance,'' Vol. 2, ed. by Selma Jeanne Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. * Cohen-Stratyner, Barbara N. ''Biographical Dictionary of Dance''. New York: Schirmer Books, 1982. * Craine, Debra, and Judith Mackrell. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Dance''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. * Kowa, Rebekah J. "Dunn, Douglas." In ''International Dictionary of Modern Dance'', ed. by Taryn Benbow-Pfalzgraf. Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 1998.

External links

Douglas Dunn and Dancers

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunn, Douglas Living people American choreographers People from Palo Alto, California Year of birth missing (living people)