Penelope Freeh

Penelope Freeh

Penelope Freeh is a Minneapolis/Saint Paul-based dancer, choreographer, teacher and writer. In 2010 she won a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Choreographers and a SAGE Award for outstanding Performer. Previous awards include a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers (1998), a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship (1998), and two Career Opportunity Grants (1999, 2001), and a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant (2001).

Her work has been commissioned by James Sewell Ballet, the Minnesota Orchestra, 3-Legged Race, the Walker Art Center/Southern Theater’s Momentum, the Weisman Art Museum, Minnesota Ballet, Skylark Opera and Russia’s Link Vostok Dance Festival among others. She has twice been presented by New York City’s Ballet Builders. Residencies include the Minnesota Dance Lab (part of the Regional Dance Development Initiative) at the College of St. Benedict, St. Catherine University, Carleton College, the University of MN, the Reif Center, the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and the Perpich Center for Arts Education.

Penelope danced for James Sewell Ballet for seventeen years, serving as Artistic Associate from 2007 – 11. She has set the company’s repertory on Portland Opera, Alaska Dance Theatre, Sandra Organ Dance Company and Company C among others.

She wrote a monthly dance column for twin cities’ METRO Magazine for the 2008 – 09 season for which she interviewed Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown and the local GLBT group 2-Step MSP Country Dancers among others. In May 2008 she was invited to write Why I Dance for Dance Magazine. She has contributed several essays to MinnesotaPlaylist.com and is the Walker Art Center’s dance blogger.

She is on faculty at the University of Minnesota and summer faculty at Michigan’s Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.

Penelope Freeh's Links:

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vimeo

McKnight Foundation Partnership | May 6 - 19, 2012

Slippery Fish

2010 McKnight Choreographic Fellow Penelope Freeh will be in residence to explore her first work with original composition. The residency will provide an opportunity for this exploration and collaborative endeavor with Jocelyn Hagen, a 2010 McKnight Composer Fellow. Envisioning the work as an evening-length duet, Freeh will also generate movement for herself and collaborator Patrick Corbin.

Much of the conceptual framework and underpinnings of the piece will evolve from the acts of collaboration. However, Freeh also intends to hone the work through an exploration of the following questions: “How can words and the act of writing influence the piece? How can we, individually and together, honor the traditions of our respective forms while pulling taut the lines that bind us to them? Do we want our piece to have a narrative flow, and if not, how can we create and sustain our own non-literal dramaturgy?”

This residency is supported in part by the McKnight Foundation.