Deganit Shemy

Deganit Shemy

New York-based Israeli choreographer Deganit Shemy studied visual arts at the Kalisher School of Art and Dance at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem.

Shemy's works, which create a critical gap between content and form through its distinguished movement vocabulary, have been commissioned and presented, at Danspace Project, PS 122, Dance Theatre Workshop, DUO Multicultural Arts Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Inaugural Ringling International Arts Festival in Sarasota, Singapore Fringe Festival and at various venues through Israel.

Ms. Shemy has been an Artist-in-Residence at Dance New Amsterdam, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, DUO Multicultural Arts Center, Movement Research, Dance Theatre Workshop and Baryshnikov Arts Center; has received space grants from the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center in 2005 and 2008 and was selected as a 2008-09 Sugar Salon Artist. She has also been awarded a 2008 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a 2010 BUILD Grant.

Shemy won a Gvanim Bemachol Contest (2003), the A.W.A.R.D. Show (2008), was honored with the Choreographer Award from the American-Israeli Cultural Foundation (2003) and named Young Choreographer of the Year by the Israeli Ministry of Education (2004).

Ms. Shemy's most recent choreography, 2 kilos of sea, was commissioned by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and presented as a site-specific work at the Sitelines Festival in July 2010. The evening-length premiere of 2 kilos of sea was commissioned and presented by Baryshnikov Arts Center in September 2011.

In addition, Shemy continues in her teaching positions. She has served as a 2010 Barbara Bray Ketchum Artist-in-Residence at Sarah Lawrence College and as a guest teacher at the Roger Williams University of Rhode Island. Most recently she was a guest artist at the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.

Returning Artist | March 8 - 15, 2011 I April 8 -21, 2012

Hungry Kite

Shemy's 2011 residency was the first part in a series of research residencies to develop Hungry Kite, which explores issues of self-judgment, guilt and self-consciousness, as well as unrealistic ideals and stereotypes. Shemy and her collaborators mined movement vocabulary, experimented with the use of children’s toys, and explored video projection; three interwoven areas of inquiry for the new work.

Shemy invited students to participate in an open rehearsal and presented her work-in-progress at the Congress on Research in Dance Special Topics Conference held at FSU March 11 -12, 2011.

This residency was made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Collaborators in Residence: Elyssa Dole, Denisa Musilova, Savina Theodorou [Performers], Kate Freer [Projections Designer]. Slideshow photos by Al Hall.

BAC Partnership | September 20 – October 4, 2009

Arena

Shemy’s work seeks to reevaluate the associative relations between content, form and time. In this residency, she continued to expand and refine Arena, in hopes of further crystallizing the relationship between mechanical movements and emotion - a central motif in her work. Shemy states, “the gap between these two seemingly opposite concepts seem to expand and contract in different situations; I seek to further investigate how to control this gap and then manipulate it.”

Arena originally premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in April, 2009. This residency helped refine the work for the inaugural Ringling International Arts Festival in Sarasota, Florida in October, 2009.

Collaborators in Residence: Robin Brown, Erika Eichelberger, Denisa Musilova, Leah Nelson and Savina Theodorou [performers]. Slideshow photos by Kathryn Noletto Felis.