Choreographer Eryn Rosenthal examines the democratic underpinnings of Contact Improvisation and the role of the body in transgressing previously legislated boundaries. She has worked with choreographers Sello Pesa, poet Elizabeth Alexander, and documentary theatre pioneer Anna Deavere Smith, among others. Eryn’s ongoing series, The Doors Project, investigates transitions — political, social, intimate — through site-based performance in different doorways around the world. Her related performance, Freedom Suite: Transaction Being Processed, is based on ongoing oral history research with anti-Apartheid activists from the 1980s in South Africa. Eryn holds a BA from Yale University and an MFA in dance from the University of Michigan (U-M), where she also studied in the Ford School for Public Policy. She has performed and taught throughout the US, South Africa, and Europe, and is currently teaching an interdisciplinary performance seminar and film series at U-M's Residential College. She is delighted to be back at U-M as a King-Chávez-Parks Visiting Professor and Artist in Residence for Dialogue-Building, Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives. www.erynrosenthal.com
NCID-2128
Eryn Rosenthal
Visiting Professor and Artist
University of Michigan
Education/Degree:
1 Dance (University of Michigan)
About
Current Work
Diversity and inclusion-related goals are at the heart of Rosenthal's work, which is impelled by empowerment-building performance, research, teaching, and engagement. Performance, for her, is fundamentally connected with teaching and community engagement, each of which she conceives as a rigorous investigation of democratic values — especially those of diversity and inclusion in public space, the stage, and the classroom.
In her current position as Artist in Residence for Dialogue-Building, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiatives at U-M, she has been developing various initiatives that ask what the body can bring to larger discussions of diversity, empowerment, and inclusion.The residency, a first at U-M, is sponsored by over 12 departments, and draws upon her ongoing research on the connections between a dance form known as Contact Improvisation and democratic activism in South Africa, Spain, and the US. The residency has included specialized pilot programs in the music department, the Trotter Multicultural Center, and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT), in addition to professional development trainings, interdisciplinary workshops, and a working group.Her work at U-M culminates in several creative and pedagogical projects this semester, including Root Vegetables, a choreographic work on groundedness, growth, and expanding definitions of beauty in the dance department. The work comes out of reflection on larger questions of institutional and departmental culture, and ways of productively shifting micro-environments toward being more inclusive and welcoming for people from diverse backgrounds. It is also a collaboration with first grade sculptors at a local elementary school (who are creating giant root vegetable sculptures that form part of the performance), and with a local community farmers’ market. Rosenthal is also teaching an interdisciplinary performance-making course and accompanying film series at U-M’s Residential College, cross-listed for graduate credit in the School of Social Work (SSW) and the EXCEL program of the School of Music, Theatre and Dance. The course, a humanities seminar-meets-creative workshop, Personal, Present and Immediate: Making Performance on Socio-Political Questions, is a generative laboratory to make rigorous, experimental works that open reflection on socio-political issues. The course also examines works of dance, film, theater, and visual arts that involve sense-making of marginality, and disambiguates site-based complexities between human rights, trauma, activism, and art-making.
For more information, please see:
In her current position as Artist in Residence for Dialogue-Building, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiatives at U-M, she has been developing various initiatives that ask what the body can bring to larger discussions of diversity, empowerment, and inclusion.The residency, a first at U-M, is sponsored by over 12 departments, and draws upon her ongoing research on the connections between a dance form known as Contact Improvisation and democratic activism in South Africa, Spain, and the US. The residency has included specialized pilot programs in the music department, the Trotter Multicultural Center, and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT), in addition to professional development trainings, interdisciplinary workshops, and a working group.Her work at U-M culminates in several creative and pedagogical projects this semester, including Root Vegetables, a choreographic work on groundedness, growth, and expanding definitions of beauty in the dance department. The work comes out of reflection on larger questions of institutional and departmental culture, and ways of productively shifting micro-environments toward being more inclusive and welcoming for people from diverse backgrounds. It is also a collaboration with first grade sculptors at a local elementary school (who are creating giant root vegetable sculptures that form part of the performance), and with a local community farmers’ market. Rosenthal is also teaching an interdisciplinary performance-making course and accompanying film series at U-M’s Residential College, cross-listed for graduate credit in the School of Social Work (SSW) and the EXCEL program of the School of Music, Theatre and Dance. The course, a humanities seminar-meets-creative workshop, Personal, Present and Immediate: Making Performance on Socio-Political Questions, is a generative laboratory to make rigorous, experimental works that open reflection on socio-political issues. The course also examines works of dance, film, theater, and visual arts that involve sense-making of marginality, and disambiguates site-based complexities between human rights, trauma, activism, and art-making.
For more information, please see: