Keely Garfield

Biography

British-born choreographer Keely Garfield’s work has been presented at many theaters and festivals both nationally and internationally. Garfield has created work for ballet dancers (Dance Theatre of Harlem), antique puppets (Golem, Chechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre), musical theater (Gypsy, Sundance Theatre, Utah, Carnival, New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, Yeast Nation, the triumph of life, Alaska), children (Reel to Real, Lincoln Center), students (Barnard, The New School, etc), and MTV. Highlights include: Deep (The Joyce Theater), Disturbing The Peace (Zenon Dance Company, MN), Iron Lung (Groundworks Dancetheater, OH), and Disturbulance (Dance Theater Workshop), Scent of Mental Love (A film for Radio Bremen/Canal Arte), Line & Sink Her (Danspace Project), Limerence (WET 2008, Danspace Project 2009), Twin Pines (DMAC 2010, Danspace Project 2012). Garfield holds an MFA from UWM, teaches yoga and is a certified Integrative Therapist working at Beth Israel Medical Center. 

Artist Statement

“Essentially choreography is a vehicle for dancing. The inevitable dissolution of all thought, all shape, all activism, all particularity of expression invests dancing itself with valor and vitality. Choreographies become emergent containers in which spontaneous and original acts can occur.” – Keely Garfield 

Garfield’s dances are meticulously organized and immediately disrupted. She crafts ritualistic and askew tales characterized by aching and ironic invention. Her “mini-epics” are like tumbling stones in an edgy, thrilling stream of consciousness where religion, politics, domestic life and sexuality are playfully articulated and warped.