'Changing Role of Art in Society' to be Fleming's talk topic
Maureen Fleming's Immortal Rose
(Photo by Lois Greenfield)
Performance artist, choreographer, and dancer Maureen Fleming will present a lecture-demonstration titled "The Changing Role of Art in Society" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, in Skidmore College's Dance Center.
Admission is free and open to the public. Audience members are urged to arrive early for best seats.
Fleming has gained international recognition on five continents for her singular form of multimedia performance. Connecting cultures and art forms, she is renowned for her original form of visual theatre. A Baltimore Sun review noted, "Watching choreographer and performer Maureen Fleming is like watching a magician. She demands that we suspend our rational beliefs. Her solo work 'Eros' astounded the audience with stunning imagery. It was part dance, part sculpture, and part dream."
Fleming studied extensively in Japan with Kazuo Ohno, co-founder of Butoh, an avant-garde movement developed in post-war Japan. She continued to study with Ohno's son, Yoshiro, and toured internationally with performance artist/choreographer Min Tanaka. In 1984 she became an artist-in-residence at La MaMa ETC in New York. She has conducted annual residencies at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and recently at the Seoul Institute of the Arts and the Juilliard School.
Her solo and group works have received international acclaim over the past two decades in Europe, Japan, Russia, and throughout the United States.
Fleming has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Asia Cultural Council, among others. She is a recent recipient of a Fulbright commission in Colombia (2005) and Korea (2006, 2007).
Fleming's evening-length works After Eros, Decay of the Angel, and Waters of Immortality included collaborations with playwright David Henry Hwang ( M. Butterfly), composer Philip Glass, sound designer Brett Jarvis, and light and visual artist Christopher Odo.
Her dance photography installation Dances From Home has been exhibited at La MaMa ETC La Galleria (2009), SUNY Project Space Gallery (2010) and at the Emma Willard Gallery this month.
Fleming's presentation is sponsored by Skidmore's Department of Dance.
