Celebrated dancer-choreographer spends week in residency at UF

November 14, 2011

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Ellen Cornfield, a New York choreographer and dancer, and a longtime member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, is spending this week in residency at the University of Florida School of Theatre + Dance.

Cornfield will teach master classes and give artist talks from Nov. 14-19.

Cornfield has been working in her field for 40 years. Her childhood was spent playing and singing in the expansive outdoor space of the Virginia countryside.

She began modern dance training (Graham Technique) in 1968 at the University of California Berkeley, performed in the University Company, and by her fourth and last year was teaching Graham technique to a beginning class. She moved to New York City to study and perform with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1974-1982), with whom she toured the world and earned a reputation as one of the foremost Cunningham dancers of her generation.

Cornfield then worked as a guest artist at numerous universities throughout the U.S. and with several small companies, choreographing, teaching and performing. She formed Cornfield Dance in 1989 to support her choreographic investigations.

Cornfield has traveled with her company throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan, bringing her lush and elegant choreography to new audiences, performing in theaters, universities, as well as outdoor and public spaces. She is a master teacher, and has taught at many of the world’s major dance institutions.

Cornfield’s superb dancers, with whom she works in a collaborative process, embrace and illuminate the dynamic, athletic and legible movement language that supports the arc of Cornfield’s choreographic investigations. She has a bachelor’s degree in history from Berkeley and a master’s degree in performance studies from New York University, and is on the roster of the Pentacle Gallery in New York City.