bio





Jennifer Allen, is a choreographer, performer and sound/video designer who recently moved to Champaign, IL after living in NYC for 17 years. While in NY, Allen created 4 full-length works - the most recent being Goodbye to old things – solos for superheroines, presented at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church.

In 1996, Allen created Candybox, a collaboration with Northwest dance artist Linda K. Johnson and musical trio Three Leg Torso. Candybox explored the relationship women have to the roles placed on them by society. 1997-99 saw Allen's collaboration with theater artist/writer Drew Pisarra in a pair of genre-based duets: FUTUREWORLD and The Land of Mystery. In '99-2000 Allen made the dance/theater/rock opera, Lady M, with an original score created by Northwest accordionist Miss Murgatroid. Lady M was performed for both New York and Portland, OR audiences. 2003-'04 found Allen working on the creation of a series of superheroine solo portraits for different female performers which culminated in the production Goodbye to old things. Allen was a 2005 MacDowell Colony Fellow where she began work on her newest project Open:Rachel - of which an in-progress version will be presented at Danspace Project, NYC, February 2006.

Allen’s work has been presented in NY at The Kitchen as part of the Dance in Progress Series, DTW's Fresh Tracks, Danspace Project, PS 122 - Avant Garde-a-Rama, Movement Research at the Judson Church, HERE, Dixon Place, Roulette, BAX and the Brooklyn Museum among others. Out-of-town productions have been seen at the Imago Theater, Reed College, Echo Theater, and The Hollywood Theater in Portland, OR and Ladyfest DC in Washington, D.C.

Allen has received financial support from the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Oregon Regional Arts and Culture Council, Movement Research Artists in Residence, multiple space grants from BAX, and a residency through PICA (Portland Institute for Contemporary Art).

Graduating from NYU’s TISCH School of the Arts in 1991, she worked as a performer with such influential artists as Yvonne Meier, John Jasperse, Donna Uchizono, DD Dorvillier, Jennifer Monson, Jennifer Lacey, Randy Warshaw, Tanya Gagne, Adrienne Truscott, Paige Martin and Scotty Heron.


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