Susan Rethorst is an American

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 ...

, writer, and teacher.

Biography

Susan Rethorst was born in Washington, D.C. in 1951. She began creating modern dance works in 1975. Rethorst studied dance with Judith Dunn (of Judson Dance Theater) at Bennington College and graduated in 1974. Some of performance practices have included "dailiness" and "stealing". Rethorst's work has been presented by the Whitney Museum, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, and other locations throughout the United States. Internationally her work has been produced internationally by the

Holland Festival The Holland Festival () is the oldest and largest performing arts festival in the Netherlands. It takes place every June in Amsterdam. It comprises theatre, music, opera and modern dance. In recent years, multimedia, visual arts, film and archite ...

(Amsterdam), Teatro Spazio Zero (Rome), the Kunsthalle Basel, Danse A Aix Festival (

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...

, France), The Room Festival (Jerusalem), among others. As a teacher she has developed B.A. and post-graduate programs in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...

, and

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, as well as the MFA Program in Choreography at the

Amsterdam School of the Arts The Amsterdam University of the Arts ( nl, Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten) is a Dutch vocational university of arts located in Amsterdam. The university consists of: * Academy of Architecture * Academy of Theatre and Dance * Breitner Aca ...

. In 2012 her book ''A Choreographic Mind: Autobodygraphical Writings'' was published by the Helsinki Theatre Academy, which was named one of the Best Books of 2012 by ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''.

Performance work

* Long Sleepless Afternoons (1979) * The Plunge (1981) * Stealing (1982) * Sons of Famous Men (1985) * Beau Regard (1989) * Picture This (1992) * Little By Little, She Showed Up (1995) * Behold Bold Sam Dog (2001) * 208 East Broadway series (2007-2013) * THEN (2014)

Awards

Bessie Awards The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessie Awards, are awarded annually for exceptional achievement by independent dance artists presenting their work in New York City. The broad categories of the awards are: choreography, ...

(1985, 2008) *

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 ...

(1999)
Foundation for Contemporary Arts
Grants to Artists award (2003) * Alpert Awards in the Arts for Dance (2010) *

Pew Fellowships in the Arts A pew () is a long bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview The first backless stone benches began to appear in English churches in the th ...

(2014) *

Doris Duke Performing Artist Award The Doris Duke Artist Award is undertaken by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and designed to "empower, invest in and celebrate artists by offering multi-year, unrestricted funding as a response to financial and funding challenges both unique t ...

Impact Award

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rethorst, Susan 1951 births Living people 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists American women choreographers American choreographers Writers from Washington, D.C. Bennington College alumni