Kelley Donovan and Dancers “… gorgeously fluid, strongly rooted movement” -The New York Times “... notable for its fluid, sensuous movement; skillful structure; and evocation of a self-contained yet somehow expansive world.” - Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times About the Company Kelley Donovan & Dancers create Formed in 1997, Kelley Donovan and Dancers has that investigates the internal performed in numerous venues around the Boston world of transformation and area, including Tufts University, Lesley College, expresses the intimate self through MIT, Mobius, Harvard Salem State, Dance Complex movement, ranging from soft fluidity and The Federal Reserve Bank in Boston; WAX, to athletic physicality. Exploring the Movement Research, Joyce SoHo, The Hatch, Green gray area between the extremes of Space, Dixon Place, The Fresh Fruit Festival, purely classical and Galapogos, The Merce Cunningham Studio and the theatrical narrative, Donovan creates 92nd St. Y in New York City. Her work has received movement rich with imagery, financial support from The Artist Foundation of experienced viscerally and expressive Boston and a Space Grant from the 92nd St. Y in of transformation. New York City. About Kelley Donovan

Kelley Donovan teaches modern dance at UMass Boston, Boston Center for Adult Education and Third Life Studios in Somerville. She received a B.A. from Bradford College in 1989. She has performed work by Ann Carlson, Liz Lerman, Amy Spencer, Richard Colton and Rozann Kraus. She received the ”Dance Belt” award from the City of Cambridge for her creation of the Dance Action Network list serve, which is a one-stop source of information for the Boston Dance Community and currently coordinates over 1000 dance artists in New England. Donovan was the recipient of the 2012 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artistic Fellowship grant.

“Few choreographers today have such a clear sense of space and continuity” -Marcia B. Siegel, Boston Phoenix Newest Work Transitional State

Boston Premiere March 16-17, 2018

“Particularity — a way of moving that is specific to a certain physique and kinetic sensibility — is one of the qualities that makes a choreographer’s work interesting to watch.” “…she seamlessly segues among brief solo passages, quietly synchronized duos and small groups of dancers moving with different rhythms and impulses, only to fill the stage suddenly with the full group of 13 performers.” - Roslyn Sulcas, New York Times

Length of Piece: 45 minutes “’… both economical and lush, never a moment wasted or exceeded.” R - Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times E Transitional State (35 minutes) P

Changing Skin (5 minutes) E R Triadic Memories (4 minutes) T

The Body Becomes The Messenger (15 minutes) O

“…tempering strength with vulnerability, she can turn sharp edgesinto soft corner with R sensuous fluidity.” – Karen Campbell, Y Press Quotes

“Kelley Donovan’s best works are all about transformation. Tempering strength with vulnerability, she can turn sharp edges into soft corners with sensuous fluidity.”

- Karen Campbell, Dance Magazine

“Fluid, sensuous movement was disciplined by Ms. Donovan’s remarkable feel for creating variation, using counterpoint to keep our eyes and minds alert and seamlessly assembling and dispersing her dancers. Pure pleasure.”

-Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times

“Donovan’s abstract movement unfurls in great kinetic waves of motion punctuated by moments of stillness, but nothing ever quite settles. Sharp angles and slicing limbs segue into liquid curves and coils with startlingly ephemeral shifts of weight and energy.”

-Karen Campbell, The Boston Globe

“Ms. Donovan... appears to trust the expressive power of movement alone... Ms. Donovan plotted the piece, sending the dancers on and off stage and spinning them into unexpected clusters, solo moments and enclosing circles. Subtle variations in speed in the pushing, driving helped to create the sense of an approaching climax... The orderly choreographing of disorder is no small feat, but Ms. Donovan and her collaborators pulled it off.”

-Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

“The choreography has the idea of letting go embedded into its very aesthetic... The choreographer herself... enters midway like the eye of the cyclone that has been generating movement all the while. She is like a double helix in motion, constantly flipping perspective. She seems to reach out and coil inward at the same time, her body twisting and spiraling, arms curving forward and back with quick shifts of dynamics.”

-Karen Campbell, Boston Globe Kelley Donovan & Dancers are available for workshops, lecture demonstrations, master classes, and performances.

“There are principles at work in Ms. Donovan’s choreography: an interest in movement exploration, in the musical qualities of the moving body, in the way energy courses through a dancer, in the pull of gravity and the attempt to escape it.” Workshops - The New York Times & Classes available: technique Dance Composition Residencies Choreography Repertory Improvisation Yoga

Within the academic setting, Kelley Donovan is also available to choreograph original student works. Performance History 2017 Changing Skin, The 92nd Street Y, New York, NY May 21 Shifting Earth, Fast Forward Series, Dixon Place, New York City February 21 The Body Becomes The Messenger, Shifting Earth, The Martha Graham Center, NYC January 21-22 2016 The Body Becomes The Messenger, University Settlement, New York City Jan, 8-9 Intergrated Artist Residency Performance Series, The Dance Complex, Cambridge, Ma March 11-12 2014-15 Intergrated Artist Residency program, The Dance Complex, Cambridge, Ma January-August Choreographers Residency, Green St. Studios, Open Rehearsals, Cambridge, Ma November 2012-13 Boston Center for the Arts Dance Residency Program June 2013 Concord Academy Summer Stages Young Dancers Workshop, Dance Faculty, Concord, MA Summer 2012 Third Life Studio Choreographer Series, curated and performed in, Somerville, MA 2012 to present Across the Ages Dance, commissioned work for Intergenerational Dance Project June 1-3 2011 Roger Williams University, Dance Residency, Bristol, RI October Ensemble Warhol, Commissioned, Midway Studios Boston, MA June 10-12 Concord Academy Summer Stages Dance, Choreography Fellowship, Boston ICA Summer 2010 World Music/CrashArts, Commissioned, ICA Boston, MA October 1-2 Roger Williams University, Dance Residency, Bristol, RI October Alvin Ailey Dance Center, Pentacle Showcase January 10 2009 The Hatch, Jennifer Muller Studio, NYC November 21 Dance @ DMAC 10 Choreographers, NYC June 10 &12 Duo Multicultural Art Center, Commission, New York City Ensemble Warhol, commission, Cambridge, MA May 1-3 New York University, DanceNow, NYC April 11 The Merce Cunningham Studio, NYC January 16-17 2008 Green St. Studios, Cambridge, MA June 21 The Dance Complex, Cambridge, MA March 15-16 Institute of Contemporary Art, Barbara Lee Theater, Boston, MA January 21 2007 Joyce SoHo, NYC September 28-29 Dance Freedom at First Church, Cambridge, MA June 27 New England Conservatory, Boston, MA April 26 The Merce Cunningham Studio, NYC January 5-6

2006 Dance Theater Workshop, NYC December 13 El Show de Fernandito, BNN-TV, Boston June 23 UMass Boston, Dorchester, MA May 12-13 CasaNia, Cambridge, MA March 4 2005 World Music/Crash Arts, Commission Cambridge, MA December 9-10 Central Square World's Fair, Cambridge, MA September 25 May Fair, Cambridge, MA May 1 Tufts University, Somerville, MA February 15 Sorenson Theater at Babson College, Wellesley, MA January 28-29