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Conversations on Choreography:
Core Group Biographies

Isabelle Ginot is a dance writer and researcher. For over 10 years she has contributed to a large variety of publications (such as Regards, Ballett International, La Croix, Les Lettres Françaises and Révolution) and with dance festivals and companies, where she worked alternativly as a publisher, an archivist, a producer, or a colloque organizer (such as Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Bagnolet, Festival International Montpellier Danse, Carnets Bagouet, etc.). Currently she is an associate professor at Dance Department of University of Paris VIII. Most of her research and teaching focus on dance analysis, strategies of perception, and politics involved in the practices of dance and of writing. Also a Feldenkrais practitioner, she is most interested in the articulation of movement experience. She has co-written with Marcelle Michel La danse au XX° siècle (Larousse 1998), is the author of Dominique Bagouet, un labyrinthe dansé (Centre national de la danse 1999), and co-edits the revue of Dance Department, Mobiles, as well as a forthcoming special issue of Protée (Canada)

Myriam van Imschoot

Myriam Van Imschoot is a dance writer and researcher. She is on the faculty of the Performance Studies MA-program, formerly Theater Studies, at the Institute of Cultural Studies of the University of Leuven. Her expertise in dance and performance studies has led to a range of activities (teaching, dramaturgy, editing books and magazines). Her doctoral project, the first dance project to be granted a fellowship in Belgium, deals with improvisation in dance performance. With Jérôme Bel she staged the performance "Jérôme Bel vs. Myriam Van Imschoot" (Brussels, 1999) on the occasion of a series of meetings on art and science. She participated in the project "Light" (Cie. Edna, 1998), in "Laboratorium" (Meg Stuart, 1999) and "Crash.Landing @ Moscow" (Meg Stuart, Christine De Smedt, David Hernandez/Damaged Goods, 1999). She was involved as a dance history teacher in PARTS, the school for dance and performing arts of choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in Brussels. Currently she is starting a website for dance and performance criticism, editing the journal Highway 101 (with Rudi Laermans) and pursuing her work on improvisation.

André Lepecki

André Lepecki is an essayist, dramaturge, and dance critic. He grew up in Lisbon, Portugal, where he became involved with the local dance scene in the mid 1980s. There, he collaborated as dramaturge and set-designer with choreographers Vera Mantero, Francisco Camacho, and João Fiadeiro. In 1992, he started his collaboration with Meg Stuart and later with Meg Stuart/ Damaged Goods. He worked as dramaturge for this Brussels based dance company until 1998. In 1993, he moved to New York where he obtained his Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Performance Studies. In the Fall of 2000, he joined the faculty of the Performance Studies Department at NYU as Assistant Professor. André's writings on dance, performance, and cultural theory appear regularly in publications in Europe and the US including Ballet International, The Drama Review, Performance Research, Nouvelles de Dance, Dance Theatre Journal, and ArtForum. In 2000, he co-directed the installation STRESS with designer Bruce Mau a commission from Hortensia Völckers Wiener Festwochen for the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna.

Diana is a Reader in Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, Devon, where she teaches Devised Theatre, criticism, and performance text writing in the MA and BA programmes. She is author of Writing Dancing/Righting Dance (Firkin Crane, 2000), First We Take Manhattan: Four American Women and the New York School of Dance Criticism (Gordon & Breach,1996) and has written extensively about dance in many publications and as Dance Critic for the Sunday Tribune (Ireland) where she had a weekly column from 1984-1992. She was a founding staff member of the Samuel Beckett Centre at Trinity College Dublin (actors' conservatory) where she was also awarded the first PhD in Dance. Diana trained with some of the original "family" of American Modern Dance including Martha Graham,Jose Limon, Anna Sokolow,and Merce Cunningham. She has choreographed productions at the Abbey, Gate and Royal Court theatres and has directed independently in fringe theatres in Ireland and the UK. Starting in January 2001, she will be Writer-in-Residence at the Institute for Choreography and Dance at Firkin Crane, an experimental project of dialogues with and about choreographers.

Scott deLahunta began in the arts as a dancer and choreographer. Since 1992, as a partner of Writing Research Associates, he has organised several international workshop/ symposia projects in the field of performance. He taught theory and composition classes from 1994-1998 at the School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam. Since Autumn 1998, he has been a consultant for the Laban Centre London on dance and technology applications and implementation. From February-May 1999, Mr. deLahunta was a guest professor with the Department of Dramaturgy, Aarhus University, Denmark where he was a co-organiser of the Digital Theatre Experimentarium. He is frequently invited throughout Europe to give presentations and contribute to publications on the overlap between dance and new media technologies. Currently, he is a Research Fellow at Dartington College of Arts, UK and working on a research project for the Arts Council England on the conditions for collaborations between performing arts and applied science practitioners.

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