NICHOLE CANUSO
Philadelphia, PA
Nichole Canuso is a choreographer and performer whose work spans genres and experiments with the participation of audience bodies, personal narratives, and what she describes as “the kinesthetic intellect.” Trained in various performance techniques, including ballet, modern dance, contact improvisation, clown, and tai chi, Canuso has dedicated much of her career to ensemble-generated processes. Her most recent projects include Pandæmonium (2016), a cinematic work of recorded and live movement, and The Garden of Forking Paths (2013), an immersive performance for groups of six audience members, who are led via instructions on headsets.
In addition to being artistic director of Nichole Canuso Dance Company, which she founded in 2004, Nichole Canuso has been an active member of the Philadelphia performance community since 1997. She was a company member of Headlong Dance Theater for twelve years, an associate company member of Pig Iron Theater Company, and co-founded Moxie Dance Collective. Canuso also has a background in physical theater and clowning, and worked with physical theater master Bill Irwin as a creator/performer in The Happiness Lecture. Choreographic residencies include 2009 and 2014 fellowships at the Maggie Allessee National Center for Choreography (FL), Millay Colony for the Arts (NY), the Swarthmore Project (Swarthmore College, PA), the Choreographer’s Project (Susan Hess Dance Studio, Philadelphia) Amherst College (MA), The Orchard Project (NY) and the BiLateral Residency in Budapest Hungary. She is currently on faculty at the Pig Iron School for Advanced Performance Training (APT), and Headlong Performance Institute (HPI), and has been commissioned by Bryn Mawr College, American Philosophical Society Museum, Axis Dance Company, Temple University, among others. Presentations of her work include New York Live Arts (NYC), American Repertory Theater (MA), The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (MD), The American Philosophical Society Museum (Philadelphia), University of Austin (TX), FringeArts (Philadelphia), HERE arts center (NYC), Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival (NYC), MANCC (Tallahassee), Velocity (Seattle), ODC (San Francisco).
Canuso came to NCCAkron in November 2019 for Dancing Lab: Physically Integrated Dance, with AXIS Dance Company (Oakland, CA), Dancing Wheels Company (Cleveland, OH), and Tiffany Mills (Brooklyn, NY).
Dancing Lab: Physically Integrated (2019)