CHOREOGRAPHER TERE OCONNOR RETURNS TO THE WALKER ART CENTER WITH BLEED

[T]his masterly work incorporates bits of ballet, gestures ordinary and obsessive, formal invention and flares of drama, the virtuosic and the casual, all treated equally but each moment is strikingly singular. New York Times

MINNEAPOLIS, March 2, 2015 For his return to the Walker after an eightyear absence, choreographer Tere OConnor collapses three recent dance works into a single choreographic exploration. In BLEED, OConnor examines ways that disparate cultures blend in a symbiotic relationship through fullbodied virtuosity and enigmatic intrigue. Tere OConnor Dance performs BLEED ThursdaySaturday, March 1921, 8 pm in the William and Nadine McGuire Theater. BLEED features 11 of the most distinctive and accomplished movement practitioners in the country, including Heather Olson, David Thomson, Cynthia Oliver, Hilary Clark, and Silas Riener, who expertly balance the ruminative and the playful with captivating results. Though a respected innovator in New Yorks contemporary dance scene, OConnor makes works for everyonefull of humor, humanity, and witand seems wholly aware that an uncompromising investigation of choreography as a mirror of human consciousness doesnt have to exclude fun (New York Times).

About Tere OConnor

OConnor is Artistic Director of Tere OConnor Dance. He has created over 40 works for his company and toured these throughout the US, Europe, South America, and Canada. He has created numerous commissioned works for other dance companies, including the Lyon Opera Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, and solo works for Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jean Butler. OConnor received a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, is a 2009 United States Artist Rockefeller Fellow, and a 1993 Guggenheim Fellow among numerous other grants and awards. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project, The MAP Fund, and many others. He has received three BESSIES, New York Dance and Performance Awards. In October 2014, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. An articulate and provocative educator, OConnor has taught at festivals and universities around the globe for 25 years. He is a Center for Advanced Studies Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he lives for one semester each year. OConnor is an active participant in the New York dance community mentoring young artists, teaching, writing, and volunteering in various capacities. BLEED, premiered at BAMs Next Wave festival in December 2013 and continues to tour the United States with upcoming stops at On the Boards in Seattle and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The company presented a week of encore performances of BLEED at Danspace Project in New York City in December 2014 and they presented two works at the American Realness Festival in January 2015, Sister and undersweet in NYC.

Tickets to Tere OConnor Dances BLEED are: $28 ($24 Walker members) and are available at walkerart.org/tickets or by calling 612.375.7600