Nina Martin (dancer)

Nina Martin is an American choreographer, dancer, and pedagogue. Originally from Austin, Texas, Martin moved to New York City, where she lived for 17 years. She currently resides in Fort Worth, Texas.

Career

While in New York City, she was very active in the downtown dance scene. She performed with notable dance-makers Mary Overlie,[1] David Gordon, Deborah Hay, and Martha Clarke.[2] In 1980, Martin performed contact improvisation with Lisa Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith, Daniel Lepkoff, Randy Warshaw, and Steve Paxton as part of the program Beyond the Mainstream,[3] a program of WNET.

Martin, along with Paul Langland, Diane Madden, Stephen Petronio, Lepkoff, Warshaw, and Robin Feld formed Channel Z, a performance collective that was active from 1982-1987. Martin also exhibited her own choreographies while living in New York City such as Changing Face,[4] Copyright,[5] Date with Fate,[6] and On the Other Hand[7]

In 1994, Martin relocated to San Diego, where she formed the performance collective, Lower Left, with Jane Blount, Mary Reich, and Karen Schaffman. They were the collective in residence at Sushi Performance and Visual Art for several years. While in residence, Martin along with her colleagues created Horns Wings More Tales[8] among other performances.

Martin initiated research into Ensemble Thinking in the mid 1990's. Ensemble Thinking is set of movement training scores that draws dancers' attention to compositional forms.[9] Ensemble Thinking trains the improvising dancer to be able to shift fluidly among solo, group and contact-improvisation compositional awarenesses,[10] and also deal with the complexity[11] that often arises in improvised group dances.

Teaching

Martin has taught at dance festivals and studios throughout Europe, such as Impulstanz[12] in Vienna, the International Contact festival Freiburg,[13] and Tanzfabrik[14] in Berlin.

She has taught at NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing, University of California San Diego, University of California Los Angeles, among other institutions. Currently she in on faculty at Texas Christian University[15]

References

  1. ^ http://archive.thekitchen.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/new.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  2. ^ Rich, Frank (June 30, 1988). "REVIEW/THEATER; MARTHA CLARKE EXPLORES THE CLASH OF THE SEXES (Published 1988)". The New York Times.
  3. ^ Beyond the mainstream. November 12, 1980. OCLC 13692798 – via Open WorldCat.
  4. ^ Anderson, Jack (June 13, 1989). "Reviews/Dance; Chronicling Anxieties of the City Dweller (Published 1989)". The New York Times.
  5. ^ Anderson, Jack (November 26, 1984). "DANCE: NINA MARTIN PRESENTS 'COPYRIGHT'". The New York Times.
  6. ^ Anderson, Jack (April 15, 1990). "Review/Dance; Ghoulish Wit in Bill by Nina Martin". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Anderson, Jack (February 16, 1984). "DANCE: NINA MARTIN OFFERS HER 'ON THE OTHER HAND' (Published 1984)". The New York Times.
  8. ^ "Horns Wings and More Tales". November 30, 2000.
  9. ^ Buckwalter, Melinda (16 December 2010). Composing While Dancing. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-299-24814-7.
  10. ^ Martin, Nina (Summer–Fall 2007). "Ensemble Thinking: Compositional Strategies for Group Improvisation". Contact Quarterly: 10–14.
  11. ^ Liska, Suzanne. "4". Choreographic Research Combining Contact Improvisation and the Alexander Technique: Somatic, Practice-Based-Research, and Ethnographic Inquiry (MA thesis). York University.
  12. ^ "ImPulsTanz Archive". www.impulstanz.com.
  13. ^ "09_descriptions". www.contactfestival.de.
  14. ^ "Workshop Bescheibung-1 - Tanzfabrik Berlin". archiv.tanzfabrik-berlin.de.
  15. ^ "College of Fine Arts | Nina Martin". finearts.tcu.edu. 14 June 2017.