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Wendy Osserman Dance Company
Wendy Osserman Dance Company

Dancers rehearsing in studio

Biographies
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If I were a choreographer, I’d envy Osserman for her smashing ensemble…performers who infuse each work with intelligence, committed presence, and palpable meaning. They are the right dancers for Osserman’s sculptural, expressionistic poetry.
- Eva Yaa Asantewaa

WENDY OSSERMAN DANCE COMPANY has been presented since 1976 in dance venues including 92nd Street Y, DanceNow Joe’s Pub, BAC, Dixon Place, DTW, Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space, La MaMa, and Theater for the New City. WODC has toured nationally and internationally, performing and teaching in colleges, schools, and festivals. The choreography explores the many sides of our personalities and relationships. The Company values its collaborations with musicians and composers such as Iva Bittová, Skip La Plante, Harry Mann, Victor Lewis, and Concetta Abbate as well as visual artists including Illya Azaroff, Charles Hinman, Sarah Olson, Ken Laser, and Sanya Kantarovsky.

Influenced by her experience working with Kei Takei’s Moving Earth in the ’70s, Osserman enjoys finding tasks for herself and the dancers. These border on the impossible, such as trying to touch while not wanting to be touched and the reverse; the attempt generates movement that is authentic as well as metaphorical. Osserman conveys her struggle to comprehend current events and history with drama and humor, confusing the personal with the political.

Read Performer Biographies

Wendy Osserman performing
One piece stands out particularly, a solo that joins dance to stand-up comedy, containing the artist’s utterly savory soliloquy and as much physicality as you could wish for. It is as if Lou Reed had been a choreographer.
- ICI Montreal

PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS
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  • two evening-length works created in collaboration with Iva Bittová, celebrated Czech composer/performer, 2008 & 2009
  • Scriabin’s 5th Symphony commissioned by Lumiatra for Baryshnikov Arts Center, 2008
  • 30th Annual John Lennon Tribute, Beacon Theater, 2010 site-specific scores at Chelsea Art Museum, 2006-2011
  • 40th anniversary season of WODC at Theater for the New City, where the company has appeared regularly over the past decade.
The company takes a bow after performing