ROSANNA GAMSON

Artist Statement

I make evening-length dance theater pieces that braid together several tracks of information– often via text, music, and technology as well as movement. Each project puts me in dialogue, through research and deep physical inquiry, with points of view I don't understand, whether artistically or culturally. Striving to build a complete aesthetic world for each project, I pursue both artifice/stylization/metaphor and realness. I love extreme movement and the intimacy that happens between viewer and dancer on that edge. The major theme that runs through my work is the complexity of living in shared space, and I've pursued collaborations with artists holding points of view very different than my own that take me into new (to me), and sometimes uncomfortable, worlds. My base is Los Angeles, where the tensions between multiplicity, assimilation and identity create necessary conversations, and I want my work to reflect my home city.

Bio

A native New Yorker, Rosanna Gamson studied composition with Hanya Holm, Bessie Schonberg, and Phyllis Lamhut and earned a BFA and MFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts under the chairmanship of Lawrence Rhodes. She performed internationally as a member of Andrew DeGroat & Dancers, and in the dances of Yvonne Rainer, workshop performances of Robert Wilson, and in many others’ dance projects. Additionally, Gamson studied with poets Charles Simic, Louise Glück, and Thomas Lux and her poetry has been published in a number of literary magazines and journals. Since moving to Los Angeles, Gamson has created eleven evening-length dance theater works as Artistic Director of Rosanna Gamson/World Wide (RGWW). Gamson's continuing investigation of improvisation and group-authored performance practices has developed into Gamson's game system GO, which she began teaching internationally in 2017. Gamson has served as dramaturg, mentor and consigliere to both young and established choreographers and directors, and actively supports the development of the Los Angeles dance community through her Terra Nova Choreographic Residency program. Gamson is the on faculty teaching composition at CalArts at the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance where she is the Interim Dean of the Dance Department and Program Director of the MFA in Choreography.