Bessie Award Winner, Mariana Valencia
A recent Bessie Award winner for Outstanding Breakout Choreographer (2018), Mariana Valencia's work encompasses ethnography, memoir, and observations surrounding cultural and racial identities.
A dance artist based in Brooklyn, New York, Mariana Valencia's work has been presented at Danspace Project, Roulette, the Center for Performance Research, The New Museum, The Women and Performance Journal, Ugly Duckling Presse and AUNTS as well as internationally in Serbia and Macedonia. As a performer, Valencia has worked with Lydia Okrent, Jules Gimbrone, Elizabeth Orr, Kate Brandt, AK Burns, Em Rooney, robbinschilds, Kim Brandt, Fia Backstrom and MPA. Valencia is a Bessie Award recipient for Outstanding Breakout Choreographer (2018), a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award to Artists grant recipient (2018), a Jerome Travel and Study Grant fellow (2014-15), a Yellow House Fund of the Tides Foundation grant recipient (2010-13) and a Movement Research GPS/Global Practice Sharing artist (2016/17). She has held residencies at Chez Bushwick (2013), New York Live Arts Studio Series (2013-14), ISSUE Project Room (2015) and Brooklyn Arts Exchange (2016-18). Nationally, she’s held residencies at Show Box LA and Pieter Pasd in Los Angeles (2014); and at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Oregon (2018). Valencia is a founding member of the No Total reading group and she has been the co-editor of Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence (2016-17). As a teaching artist, Valencia has developed performance composition workshops that look at spatial improvisation and authorship through CLASSCLASSCLASS (2010-11) and the Movement Research Summer MELT program (2017). Valencia holds a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA (2006) with a concentration in dance and ethnography.
