Malcolm Low was selected in 2011 for a Choreographic Fellowship in Robert Battle’s New Directions Choreography Lab at Alvin Ailey. Originally from Chicago where he first trained with Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Homer Bryant and the Ruth Page Foundation, Malcolm went on to perform with Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Co., Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Ballet British Columbia, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Stephen Petronio, Complexions, Zvi Gotheiner and Dancers, Margo Sappington and most notably the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co., where he spent 5 wonderful years and had the great pleasure of touring with Bill T. Jones on his solo show, As I Was Saying. In 2005, Malcolm worked with Crystal Pite and her company, KIDD PIVOT, on the project, LOST ACTION. Malcolm has most recently worked with David Thomson on a new duet called Velvet that premiered at Roulette, and with Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group at New York Live Arts. He has also worked with Ralph Lemon on his “Parallels The END” project at Danspace. Mr. Low also performed with John Jasperse Company this year for Monday Nights at Judson Church. As a choreographer, Malcolm most recently has choreographed a work called One Forgotten Moment for Alvin Ailey 2, which will be performed again in 2014. He has been showing work since 1999 at the River to River Dance Festival in collaboration with DJ Spooky (2003), The House That Jack Built (2009), Catch n Release Variations #35 at Harlem Stage/Emoves (2009), Luscious Colors of an Unclear Canvas at the Wave Rising Series (2009 and 2011), Bookoo Space Grant (2011), Pushing Against Sisyphus at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (2011), Summer Stage at Red Hook Park (2011) and Main Stage 2012. Malcolm was awarded a BAX Passing It Down Award (2011), a Fund for New Work/Harlem Stage Gatehouse Grant (2009), and in 2012 was awarded the MCAF from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Malcolm was Guest Artist at Queens borough for year 2014. Malcolm received MAP Fund Grant for his work In The Thrust Towards The Future… I Want Leave Something Of Use (2014). He was awarded MCAF and Process Space Grant from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for In The Thrust Towards The Future…I Want Leave Something Of Use (2014). CUNYDance Initiative Residency at Hostos Community College (2014) and Lift/Off Residency from New Dance Alliance both for In The Thrust Towards The Future… I Want Leave Something Of Use (2014). He was just awarded a MCAF grant for his new work called Speakeasy for this year. (2015) And is excited to go on his tour to TanzFarm Art Center in Atlanta on March 25 thur 29 and will show an excerpt of In The Thrust Towards The Future…I want To Leave Something Of Use at Harlem Stage / Gatehouse on April 10, 11 and 17th a part of E Moves 16 .
Artistic Statement
I have found the drive and encouragement to make work from my observation of the great and the small instances of life, and from everything in between.
My creative process is informed by my view of the world, which has evolved through my immersion in literature, art and conversation.
For me, process is in and of itself a thing of beauty. I am interested in showing both the beauty of making work as well as the beauty to be found in its completion. With so many means of media available to artists and potential audiences these days, I want to share the excitement of this span of creation with the public.
I work with and perform for all types and kinds of people. I want all types and kinds of people to be exhibited in my work and I want everyone to take away something of value from experiencing it. To me, that would most perfectly represent the world in which I live and feel about, the spirit that moves me each day to be an artist – a representative of our global community.
It interests me to take real life situations and interactions, from the intensity of relationships to commonplace activities, and transpose them onto performing bodies and into a performance atmosphere or state. The physical aspect of creating my work starts with me making a phrase and then giving it to my dancers and to watch how their bodies form in the material. After this happens, I then begin to manipulate the phrase in various ways – putting the phrase on the floor, turning it, say, into a partnering duet, using the phrase going in and out of improvisation. This gives me a kind of “map” to where the movement can go. I then begin to build scenarios about how the choreography can be arranged. This “map” of course changes daily, almost hourly.
I work in a physical form, and as I age, I become more interested in how my work can exist without me doing it, how can my work live without me? I aim to use different disciplines and art forms to give breadth to my choreography, and perhaps to lengthen my creative life. How can my art live, and in what state? I wonder how my work translates into other forms, like video, or poetry. How many ways can it permute?
