Reggie Wilson (Artistic Director, choreographer and
performer) founded his company, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance
Group, in 1989. Wilson draws from the movement languages of the blues, slave
and spiritual cultures of Africans in the Americas and combines them with
post-modern elements and his own personal movement style to create what he
calls "post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dances."
His work has been presented nationally and internationally
at venues such as Dance Theater Workshop, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Yerba
Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), UCLA Live (Los Angeles), The Flynn
(Burlington, VT), Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), Dance Umbrella
(Austin, TX), Summerstage (NYC), Linkfest and Festival e'Nkundleni (Zimbabwe),
Dance Factory (South Africa), Danças na Cidade (Portugal), Festival Kaay
Fecc (Senegal), and The Politics of Ecstasy (Berlin, Germany).
Wilson has traveled extensively: to the Mississippi Delta to
research secular and religious aspects of life there; to Trinidad and Tobago to
research the Spiritual Baptists and the Shangoists; and also to the Southern,
Central, West and East of Africa to work with dance and performance groups as
well as various religious communities.
Wilson is a graduate of New York University, Tisch School of
the Arts (1988, Larry Rhodes, Chair) He has studied composition and been
mentored by Phyllis Lamhut; Performed and toured with Ohad Naharin’s NY-based
company before forming his own Fist and Heel Performance Group. He has lectured, taught and conducted
extended workshops and community projects throughout the US, Africa, Europe and
the Caribbean. He has served as visiting faculty at several universities
including Yale, Princeton and Wesleyan Universities. He is the recipient of the Minnesota Dance Alliance's
McKnight National Fellowship (2000-2001). Wilson is also a 2002
BESSIE-New York Dance and Performance Award recipient for his work The Tie-tongued Goat and the Lightning Bug
Who Tried to Put Her Foot Down and a 2002 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. He
has been an artist advisor for the National Dance Project and Board Member of
Dance Theater Workshop. Most recently, in recognition of his creative
contributions to the field, Wilson was named a 2009 United States Artists
Prudential Fellow and is also the 2009 recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in
Dance.
His
collaborative evening-length work, The
Good Dance – Dakar/Brooklyn had its World premiere at the Walker Art Center
in November 2009 and NY premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December
2009 followed by a ten city US tour. Presently he is working on the Revisitation, an evening of works to be presented at New York
Live Arts March 14th- 17th. His work (project)
Moseses Project, will be part of the BAM Next Wave Festival 2013.
Maggie Allesee
