Vanessa Anspaugh

Vanessa Anspaugh, is a choreographer/performance based artist. She was born and raised in Los Angles, CA amongst an eclectic family of artists, affected by the vast urban landscape and Pacific Ocean. The numerous paradigms of paradox existing in Los Angles in the 80’s and 90’s made vibrant and stark impressions on her as a meandering child of this particular time and place. In 2001 she relocated to New York where she based herself for the better part of the last two decades. As a performer Anspaugh has worked for Taylor Mac, Faye Driscoll, Aretha Aoki, Juliette Mapp, Robbinschilds, and devynn emory. She was deeply influenced by her one year with MGM GRAND (Modern Garage Movement) collaborating with Jmy Leary and Biba Bell with whom she toured the western coast with. In 2017 she was a Bessie nominee for Most Outstanding Production (The End of Men) as well as a NEFA NDP (National Dance Project) 2020 grant finalist for her latest work in process, Aggression Confession . Her work has been commissioned and presented by, The Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts, Danspace Project, DTW, The Sculpture Center, The Kitchen, The Rubin Museum, The River to River Festival, The Hessel Museum including other national & international venues. She has had a number of creative residencies supported by, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, CPR, Abrons Art Center, DTW, Kaatsbaan Center for the Arts, Bard College, Colby College among others…In 2013 beloved dance champion Sam Miller invited her to join the first cohort of the LMCC Extended Life Artist Grantee & Residency program where she worked closely with mentor Jennifer Monson. Her work has been written about in multiple periodicals such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art Forum, The Brooklyn Rail, The Movement Research Journal, and academic journals such as a piece on The End of Men, by academic Mirium Felton-Dansky in the May 2020 issue of Theatre Survey. Since her child was born Anspaugh has moved about as a visiting teaching artist at Bowdoin, Colby and Bates Colleges in Maine. There, she found deep inspiration from the wild coastal landscape reminiscent of her California home-land.