Tere O’Connor

Tere O’Connor has been making dances since 1983 and has created over 40 works for his company. They have been performed throughout the US, Europe, South America, and Canada. O’Connor has created numerous commissioned works for dance companies around the world. Among these have been works for Lyon Opera Ballet and the White Oak Dance Project. He has also created works for Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jean Butler and Peggy Baker among many solo commissions.

O’Connor is a 2009 United States Artist Rockefeller Fellow. He received a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In 2014, O’Connor was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Art Award and was a 1993 Guggenheim Fellow. He has received three New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards and is a recipient of repeated grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, NEFA/National Dance Project, the New York Foundation for the Arts and many others.

An articulate and provocative educator, he has taught at festivals and universities around the globe. He is a Center for Advanced Studies Professor in Dance at the University of Illinois and divides his time between Champaign and New York City, where he has worked with his company, taught and mentored young artists for the last 45 years.