Sara Rudner (born 16 February 1944) is an American 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 ...

and dance educator.

Life and career

Sara Rudner was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, and studied dance at a neighborhood music school and ballet with

Bella Malinka Bella is a feminine given name. It is a diminutive form of names ending in -bella. ''Bella'' is related to the Italian, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese and Latin words for beautiful, to the name Belle, meaning ''beautiful'' in French. It increased in ...

. She graduated with a BA from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

and a MFA from Bennington College. She performed with Paul Sanasardo and also other groups, and in 1965 she became a founding member and in 1966 principal dancer for

Twyla Tharp Twyla Tharp (; born July 1, 1941) is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966 she formed the company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often uses classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music. Fr ...

's dance company, where she continued to work for twenty years. She also performed solo and collaborated other artists, including Dana Reitz,

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Latvian-born R ...

and

Christopher Janney Christopher Janney (born 1950) is an American composer, artist, and architect known for his work on the interrelation of architecture and music. Sometimes he attempts to make architecture more like music as in his sound sculptures titled "Urban Mu ...

. Rudner founded and directed the Sara Rudner Performance Ensemble, and has provided choreography for the Public Theater, the Santa Fe Opera, and the

Paris Opera The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be ...

. She served as Director or the Dance Program at

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...

until 2019. Rudner continues to perform professionally to good reviews.

Honors and awards

* Bessie Award * Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship * Dance Magazine award, 2009 *

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 ...

fellowship *

New York State Council on the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell (1905–1996), ...

fellowship

Works

Selected works include: *''Dancing-on-View'' *''Heartbeat'' *''33 Dances'' *''Dancing-on-View: Preview/Hindsight''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rudner, Sara 1944 births Living people Modern dancers Barnard College alumni Contemporary dance choreographers American female dancers American dancers National Endowment for the Arts Fellows Bessie Award winners 21st-century American women Sarah Lawrence College faculty