Lisa Nelson is an American dance-maker, improviser, videographer, and collaborative artist. She was born in New York City in 1949 and currently lives in Northern

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the ...

Dancing life

Lisa Nelson began her training in traditional

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

and

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form ...

as a child at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most ...

in New York City and then

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

in Vermont. In the 1970s, she became interested in diverse approaches to dance improvisation, including performing with

Daniel Nagrin Daniel Nagrin (May 22, 1917 – December 29, 2008) was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, and author. He was born in New York City. Nagrin studied with Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, Hanya Holm, Bill Matons and Helen Tamiris whom ...

’s Workgroup in 1971-72. In 1973, she began a ten year investigation of video and dance from which she developed an approach to spontaneous composition and performance under the name ''Tuning Scores.'' Beginning in 1974, she took part, along with dancers

Steve Paxton Steve Paxton (born 1939 in Phoenix, Arizona) is an experimental dancer and choreographer. His early background was in gymnastics while his later training included three years with Merce Cunningham and a year with José Limón. As a founding mem ...

Nancy Stark Smith __NOTOC__ Nancy Stark Smith (February 11, 1952 – May 1, 2020) was an American dancer and founding participant in contact improvisation. Early life and education Born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 11, 1952, Stark Smith was the child of Dr. J ...

and others, in the early evolution of

contact improvisation Contact improvisation is a form of improvised partner dancing that has been developing internationally since 1972. It involves the exploration of one's body in relationship to others by using the fundamentals of sharing weight, touch, and movemen ...

, and was a crucial observer of its development through her work with video. In the ensuing decades, she has worked extensively with

, in particular on two improvisation duets that they performed together for several decades: ''PA RT'' (1978) and ''Night Stand'' (2004). Throughout the 1990s, in collaboration wit
K. J. Holmes
Karen Nelson and Scott Smith, she developed the ensemble structure of the ''Tuning Scores'', that she teaches internationally. She is recognized for her editorial and journalistic contributions on dance and improvisation and is the co-editor of the bi-annual dancer's journal ''Contact Quarterly''. Her writings have appeared in ''Nouvelles de Danse'', ''Contact Quarterly'', ''Writings on Dance'', ''ballettanz'', Movement Research ''Critical Correspondance'', and ''sarma.be''. She received a NY Bessie award in 1987 and an Alpert Award in the Arts in 2002.

Bibliography

On Lisa Nelson's work and the Tuning Scores

* Corin, Florence (éd.). 2001. ''Vu du corps. Lisa Nelson. Mouvement et perception''. Nouvelles de danse, #48-49. Bruxelles, Belgium: Contredanse. * De Spain, Kent. 2014. ''Landscape of the Now: A Topography of Movement Improvisation''. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. * Noë, Alva. 2006. Tuning the Body. ''Ballettanz''. * coloring pages. 2022
Interview with Lisa Nelson on the Tuning Scores
''Movement Research.''

Writings and interviews with Lisa Nelson

* Bieringa, Olive and Ramstad, Otto. 2014
Lisa Nelson: How Do You Make Dance?
''MnArtists''. * Little, Nita. 2006
Interview with Lisa Nelson on the Tuning Scores
''Movement Research.'' * Nelson, Lisa. 1995. The Sensation Is The Image. It's What Dancing Is To Me. ''Writings on Dance'', No 14, Summer. * Nelson, Lisa. 2022
Free Coloring Pages

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American female dancers American dancers 21st-century American women {{dance-bio-stub