Danielle Davidson

Danielle is a performing artist / dancer, working primarily in experimental contemporary dance-theater forms. She is a self-proclaimed misfit thinker and (neuro)divergent-doer, with an eclectic and expansive practice involving: meditation/mindfulness practices, dance, creative writing, theater, comedic improvisation, acrylic and oil painting, advocacy for The Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH) and Health at Every Size® (HAES®), somatic-therapeutic practices, and yoga. Her practice encompasses many forms to articulate a concern with embodied consciousness, memory, and identity. The various forms she draws from enable her to create layered responses in experimental contemporary dance-theater, new media, installation, and collaborative performance art. Intuitive and process-driven, her work contains a spirit of improvisation and experimentalism. She makes and does things that are themselves punk-y, relational in odd ways, and stand implicitly against normative ideals of quality and functionality. Her aim is to make works that serve as catalysts for socially-engaged conversations, from which to create further invocations to creative resistance through making. She has created work independently and on commission, but has a preference for interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary/transdisciplinary, and collaborative approaches.

Her works have been presented by Festival International de la Danse, Seattle International Dance Festival, Gibney Dance Center, Keene State College, Endicott College, Dance Complex, The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought, Green Street Studios, Providence College, Brown University, AS220, Roger Williams University, WaterFire Providence, Festival Ballet Providence, and PVDFest.

In recent years, she’s made works alongside multidisciplinary artists: Jocie Adams, Shura Baryshnikov, Gisela Creus, Orlando Hernández, Andy Russ, Ilya Vidrin, and Riley Watts, and appeared in works by Diane Arvanites, Korhan Basaran, Alissa Cardone, Lorraine Chapman, Lina Cruz, Heidi Henderson, Kellie Ann Lynch, Tommy Neblett, Paul Singh, Sydney Skybetter, and B.J. Sullivan.

From 2015-2018 Danielle co-directed Doppelgänger Dance Collective with Shura Baryshnikov. DDC was an artist directed repertory collective which produced and commissioned new works by renowned artists, and performed internationally.

In 2018 with Orlando Hernández and Gisela Creus, she established HDC Dance Ensemble, a performing arts collective, whose interdisciplinary works incorporate elements of voice, percussion, improvisation, and storytelling through physical theater/dance to create unique movement experiences, primarily in a blend of tap and contemporary dance theater. HDC and American Indie Rock Band ARC IRIS created iTMRW; a 90-minute sci-fi-dance-theater production set to a live performance of the futuristic concept album by the Providence art-pop trio, which will be touring soon.

An Assistant Professor of Dance at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee from 2015-2020, Danielle has also facilitated workshops, classes and labs throughout Montreal, Toronto and New England in both graduate and post-grad programming

She obtained her DEC from L’Ecole Supérieure de Ballet du Québec / Cégep du Vieux Montréal in 2001, and furthered her performing arts training by completing a three-year certificate program at George Brown College in Theatre/Acting. In addition, she participated in numerous intensives and residencies in Europe and the UK in Action-Theater, Forsythe Modalities, Clowning, Physical Theatre, Improvisation, Skinner Releasing Technique, Partnering, Composition, and Body Mind Centering.

Before embarking on an independent career, Danielle danced with Ballet Espressivo, Line 1 Productions/Debra Brown, AmpleMan Danse, Productions Fila 13/Lina Cruz, and was a company member with Prometheus Dance.

She is the 2001 recipient of le 1er Prix du Jury from Le Festival International de Danse Encore and has received six grants from The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and three grants from The New England Foundation for the Arts, and most recently a grant from Canada Council for the Arts.

danielledavidson.net