Yvonne Meier

Biography

Originally from Zurich, Switzerland, Yvonne Meier has lived and worked in New York City since 1979, where she became a member of the original group around Performance Space 122, regularly collaborating with Ishmael Houston-Jones, Jennifer Monson and many others in the US and Europe. Her work, spanning anywhere from big spectacles to quiet solos, has been supported by three Fellowships in Choreography from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA Inter Arts, Franklin Furnace and Pro Helvetia. The American Masters program of the NEA has supported the upcoming recreation of her performance-instillation work, The Shining. She has received Bessie's Awards for her works The Shining (1993) and Stolen (2009). She has twice been supported through the Movement Research Artist-in-Residence program. In addition Meier has been teaching Releasing Technique and Authentic Movement nationally and internationally for the last 30 years. After a life-long commitment to improvisation she has developed her own improvisation technique known as Scores. Meier also teaches Children's dance classes in NY Public Schools through Movement Research's Dance Makers program. 

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Artist Statement

Through thirty years of improvisation, Yvonne Meier has developed the “score technique,” which provides dancers with a frame for experiencing and expressing physical urges from the body in relationship to a given task or situation. Generated through her subconscious mind, Meier’s dance works are characterized by a combined use of her score technique, structured improvisation, set choreography, and tasks. Prioritizing the works process and evolution over a specific idea or goal, Meier’s creative process begins with a practice of authentic movement and improvisation through which she discovers what a given work is “about” as it unfolds in the studio. This process is supported by the use of ordinary props and every-day objects that are used in unusual ways or circumstances. She amplifies these everyday objects through their extreme size or multitude, allowing for shock and an intensification of the theatrical moment. Meier works with music in various ways to heighten, support or disrupt other elements of the work.