Megan Mayer
(MN)
2012
- Megan Mayer is a choreographer, performing artist and photographer based in Minneapolis. Her dances resonate with audiences by fusing nuanced imagery gleaned from vulnerable situations with a strong sense of musicality and comic timing. By unearthing and luxuriating in anti-performance moments, traditionally undisclosed aspects of performance, in turn, become the focus. She excels at revealing and showcasing performers’ distinctive personalities and characteristics in her dances.
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Mayer is a recipient of a 2010 McKnight Foundation Fellow in Choreography. Additionally, she was awarded a 2010 Jerome Foundation Travel Study Grant, affording her a choreographic mentorship and workshop with New York dance artist Douglas Dunn in Fall 2010. Her production We tried to throw the light (2010) was commissioned by The Southern Theater. I Could Not Stand Close Enough To You (2009), co-commissioned by The Walker Art Center and Southern Theater for Momentum: New Dance Works, was named 2009’s top dance event by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. Her suite of Pulp Dances (2007) was commissioned by the Minnesota History Center.
She has premiered original dances at The Southern Theater, The Walker Art Center, Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater, The Soap Factory, CATCH series (NYC) and in public bathrooms. She has a growing body of work of short dance films, one of which, Over Time (2009), was commissioned by Skewed Visions’ Cubicle Series. She holds a B.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota.
Soft Fences
Partnership Project: McKnight Artist Fellow | February 12 – 25, 2012
Collaborators in Residence: Charles Campbell, Angharad Davies, Gregory Waletski [performers], Elliott Durko Lynch [sound designer/performer], Kevin Obsatz
“Orbit, as I understand it, refers to the trajectory of an object around a moon, planet or star. However, I read another description of it as the exquisite balance between gravity and momentum. That definition intrigues me, because it made me think of people in a transitional state where one is neither arriving nor leaving.” – Megan Mayer, 2010 McKnight Fellow in Choreography.
Through a lens both personal and collective, Mayer explored the themes of transition, displacement, and isolated experience. While in residence, she engaged in extensive research related to space travel and the psychological states of astronauts as a concrete example of displacement through extreme journey and re-entry, orbit, and the physical state of “being between gravity and momentum.” Mayer’s Entrypoints included a visit to the Kennedy Space Center, a personal interview with former Astronaut, Dr. Norman Thagard, and a tour of Tallahassee’s Challenger Learning Center. She synthesized these experiences along with her collaborators to generate movement vocabulary, a sound score, and video footage for this latest work. The residency culminated with an informal showing and dialogue.
This residency was supported in part by The McKnight Foundation in partnership with Springboard for the Arts.
