CYNTHIA STEVENS slips into swamps, streams and forests creating environmental performance and media. Her multidisciplinary work explores the interconnections of dance with original music, somatics and ecology to foster a visceral sense of place. Since 1982 a body of over 60 works reflects her ongoing commitment to experimental choreography and improvisation. Ms. Stevens has created performances in the United States, Europe and New Zealand including commissions for professional dance, opera, and universities.

Cynthia’s work has been presented in Minnesota by the Walker Art Center, Minnesota Dance Alliance, Ordway Theater, FORECAST, the Best Feet Forward Festival, Intermedia Arts and the Composers Forum, among others. National presenters include the Improvisation Festival/NY; New Dance in Eugene, Oregon; and the Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin, CA. Internationally, she has been presented at the Fono Theater in Budapest, Hungary, the Tanz Fabrik Theater in Pottsdam Germany, Unitech in Aukland, New Zealand, and the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands.

A strong interest in environmental performance grows from her education in ecology. Since 1988 she has created site-specific performances for several urban and natural settings including the catwalks, bays and aisles of the Ordway McKnight Theater; on the shores of Lake Superior at Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse State Parks, and on the roof and wall of Intermedia Arts. She was commissioned by the University of Minnesota dance program for a work at the U of M solar/geothermal powered Civil Engineering Building

Ms. Stevens' multi-disciplinary productions cultivate the ground between dance, visual arts, text and original, live music. Since 1986 almost her entire body of work has featured original live, music, frequently interweaving the movement of musicians and dancers. She has collaborated with composers such as Kate Lynch and Annie Enneking, Michelle Kinney, Eric Fawcett, Mary Ellen Childs, Arne Von Dongen, and Carl Witt, as well as composing her own vocal works.

Cynthia has created original poetry, text and lyrics for several of her pieces including Testing Limits, Dream Net, and Up From the Roots. She has created works in collaboration with poet William Reichard such as Site Lines and Leonora's Dream; and Bronx Cheers with composer Michael Kosch.

Ms. Stevens' work has received recognition from the McKnight Choreographer's Fellowship program, through numerous MDA/Jerome Foundation Dancer Pool Grants, an NEA/ Rockefeller Interarts Grant, a FORECAST Public Art grant, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Grants, Minnesota State Arts Board grants and fellowships, and a national artist residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in California. Stevens was named Best Choreographer 2003 by the Twin Cities' City Pages

Cynthia has performed with international artists such as Ann Carlson, Bill T. Jones, Pearl Ubungen, Karen Nelson and Nancy Stark Smith, and several midwestern choreographers and improvisers, as well as in pieces by Hanya Holm and Nancy Hauser with the Nancy Hauser Dance Company.

Cynthia began her training in ballet in 1963, studying and performing with the Ballet des Jeunes of Philadelphia including productions at Lincoln Center in New York City, and with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. In college her interest turned to modern dance, and subsequently to more experimental work with Contact and other improvisational forms, Asian dance (Javanese, Japanese fan dance, butoh), and somatics including intensive study in Body Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and Klein Technique with Barbara Mahler. Influential teachers in modern dance technique and composition include Hanya Holm, Marcia Wardell, Gladys Bailin, Diane Elliot and Claudia Melrose in the Holm/Nikolais tradition, Cathy Ward of the Eric Hawkins Dance Company, and Erin Thompson. Improvisational training has included study with Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Karen Nelson, Andrew Harwood and Kirstie Simson in Contact, Eiko and Koma, Daniel Nagrin and Dana Reitz.

Cynthia’s work has been presented in Minnesota by the Walker Art Center, Minnesota Dance Alliance, Ordway Theater, FORECAST, the Best Feet Forward Festival, Intermedia Arts and the Composers Forum, among others. National presenters include the Improvisation Festival/NY; New Dance in Eugene, Oregon; and the Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin, CA. Internationally, she has been presented at the Fono Theater in Budapest, Hungary, the Tanz Fabrik Theater in Pottsdam Germany, Unitech in Aukland, New Zealand, and the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands.