ABOUT ME
Ken James
movement creator/artist
Production Manager, Technical Director, Stage Manager, and Lighting designer for dance and theater.
Director, Performance Art Resources – a world-wide free resource for performance artists
Bio
Creative Work:
Ken James is a movement and dance artist, a lighting designer, production manager, technical director, and stage manager for dance as well as an avid reader, rock climber, teacher, and more.
As a movement artist, Ken navigates the human experience in stage and site-specific work, performance art, durational art, installation art, and screen dances by weaving subconscious patterns of thought, habits, and interactions of our creature into my choreography. I respect high levels of movement training without adhering to an aesthetic of virtuosity, attention to detail without demanding perfection, tradition with skepticism and investigation.
Currently working on creating greater audience engagement in installation, multimedia, and movement based work through unexpected interfaces, Ken is looking to get create dances that anyone can enjoy and interact with.
Ken has performed for audiences at the San Francisco Yerba Buena Center, dangling from ropes at a train station in Chicago, in the gardens of the Walker Arts Center, and dragging 100 lb. log through the busy streets of Manhattan. James was the recipient of the famed Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzie) for his duet work “The Adventures of Cunning & Guile” with the amazing choreographer Chris Black.
On top of the afore mentioned practices, Ken has created Performance Art Resources, an online research aid listing artists, opportunities, articles and literature on performance art from every country in the world. Currently, over 149 countries and well over 2000 artists are represented.
With over 30 years of lighting, production management, and stage management work for companies such as Li Chiao Ping Dance and Ririe Woodbury Dance company, Ken has lit and run shows across the United States in a wide variety of venues. He has also taught production at Mills College in California.
EDUCATION
2017- University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI.
2019 MFA, Dance. Distinguished Graduate Fellow.
- Thesis research keywords: HCI, Dance Installation design, Embodied experience,
- Highlighted courses taken: Screendance, Dance Lighting, Laban Movement Analysis, Feldenkrais
1987 Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH.
BS, Philosophy with a minor in Mathematics.
Boards and Panels Served
Board of Directors, Dancer’s Group, San Francisco, CA
Ohio Arts in Excellence Award Panelist
Djerassi Artist in Residency Program Dance Panel
Board of Directors, San Francisco Butoh Festival, San Francisco, CA
Board of Directors, Fellow Travelers Performance Group
Awards and Selections (selected)
2020 Iowa Arts Council / NEA grantee for virtual site-specific work, “Movement in the Streets, Dances of Des Moines”, a project for ten virtual installations of dance from local communities and cultures to be installed around city.
2019 Moving Forward: 2020 American Dance Platform (ADP) Symposium,selected to participate in the inaugural ADP Symposium hosted by New York University and The Joyce Theater which focuses on inclusivity, equity, belonging, and technology in dance education.
2017 Distinguished Graduate Student Fellow, 2018-19 University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Peck School for the Arts.
2007 San Francisco Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzie) for choreography for The Adventures of Cunning & Guile with Choreographer Chris Black
Research and Writing
Performance Art Resources. Developed and created a website for artists and researchers of performance art. This site covers artists from over 149 countries and over 2000 artists, pages for festivals, literature and regional articles.
LATEST STORIES
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