norasgibson@gmail.com
Artist Statement
My first language is dance, and it is through this perspective of movement, space, and time that I consider everything. In letting go of fixed ideas about the body, I can escape the solidity of flesh, and defy forces of time and gravity. I use digital means such as visual programming, scanners, and sensors to make these departures. I am interested in making experiences where we can forget ourselves, experience flow, connectedness, joyfulness, transcendence, lose our sense of time, and find ease, repose, or well-being. The experiences I create span choreographic performance and video installation. The research that feeds my work draws from writings about consciousness, neuroscientific study, and meditation practice. What these areas have in common for me are that each involves constant reconsideration of the relation of body and mind, the role of movement in life, and what it’s like to be.
Biography
Gibson trained in ballet at Baltimore School for the Arts under Sylvester Campbell of the Dutch National Ballet, Chautauqua, and NCSA, and earned a BFA from Tisch, at NYU. She danced for the Ellicott City Ballet Guild, PATH Dance Company, ClancyWorks Dance, and Andrew Marcus Dance. Gibson worked from 2010-2013 with Lucinda Childs to perform various iconic 70s works as part of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage's Virtual Reconstruction project. As a choreographer, Gibson has been invited as a resident artist in the US and abroad, including the nEW Festival in Philadelphia (2009-10), the CEC New Edge Residency (2009-10), the Ellen Forman Memorial Award (2011), the PHL/Poland Artist Exchange Residency (2012), the Choreographers on Campus Residency, funded through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2014), Diepenheim Werkplaats (2016), Kaatsbaan (2017), and The Dance Visions Residency (2018).
As the director of Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet, a contemporary ballet company based in Philadelphia for a decade, Gibson's choreography was presented by New Dance Alliance at Joyce SOHO, at Dance Place in Washington DC, Philadelphia Dance Projects, The Williams Center for the Arts, and by the Franklin Institute, one of the oldest and most prestigious science and technology museums in the US. Her work has received consistent critical acclaim, heralded by the Philadelphia Inquirer as "the most authoritative work in Philadelphia. . ." Gibson’s innovative approach to ballet garnered her an invitation to speak to an audience of programmers and visual artists at the Touchdesigner summit at MUTEK in Montreal in 2018 about the making of her dome ballet, MANDALA.
Gibson's choreographic work has been commissioned regularly by universities such as Bryn Mawr College, Georgian Court University, Alma College, and University of the Arts.
Gibson is also a devoted teacher, and has taught ballet, pointe, physical theater, and composition in the US and abroad, including Temple University, University of the Arts, the Zawirowania Festival, and many other institutions. Her work as a ballet teacher at Temple University garnered her the Outstanding Teaching award in 2018. She has also taught ballet and pointe classes privately at the Philadelphia Studio ballet for ages 8-18, and served as ballet mistress to Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers.
Gibson’s digital work has been featured by Ars Electronica's Online Global Gallery, Contemporary & Digital Art Fair ("CADAF") (NYC), Lightbox (NYC), and Urban Screens Production (AUS). Gibson was a founding member of Philly AV, a digital artist collective that has performed at The Rotunda, Vox Populi Gallery. and were recipients of the 2019 Project Stream Grant. Gibson is currently pursuing her masters degree at Concordia University in Montreal in the area of Intermedia, in order to further develop her work in cross-disciplinary research-creation as between choreography, digital media, STEM fields, and academia. She is a student-member of Hexagram, and an affiliate member of LeParc, within the Milieux Institute.
CV
Selected Teaching Experience
Present TA for Intermedia 332 Performance Practices and Performative Video
2013 - 2021 Ballet instructor; Instructor for devised physical theater, Temple University (*recipient of Outstanding Teaching award 2018)
2017 - 2021 Ballet instructor at Philadelphia Studio Ballet
2018-2019 Ballet instructor, Georgian Court University
2019 Ballet mistress for Yun-Yang Lin/Dancers company of Philadelphia
2013 Ballet instructor, University of the Arts
2012 Composition workshop at the Zawirowania Festival, Warsaw, Poland
2009-11 seasonally, Ballet instructor at the nEW Festival, Philadelphia, PA
Choreographic Repertoire
Ballet for humans and sensors (2020) Interactive Visualsl/Dance co-presented by Vox Populi Gallery and Philly AV; to be presented at the Performance Garage Gala April 2020 (cancelled due to Pandemic)
Dances by Brainwaves (2020) Multimedia Interactive Installation for dance, brainwaves, visuals, and movement-reactive sound presented by The MAAS Building Residency
Mandala (2019) Digital Ballet for Dome presented by Franklin Institute/ Philadelphia Science Festival/ Fels Planetarium. Made in collaboration with Jason Haggerty (AUS) with support by the Philadelphia Cultural Fund Project Stream grant for multimedia work
HUMAN (2018) Full-evening ballet premiering featuring original digital scenography, supported through the Dance Visions Residency award
Neural Lace (2017) Ballet Commissioned by University of the Arts
N o t h i n g T h a t I s N o t T h e r e (2017) Full evening ballet presented in partnership and support from The Franklin Institute and Drexel Department of Physics, Materials Lab; residency & workshop performance to be presented by Kaatsbaan, with support through the Kaatsbaan Upstream, Choreographic Residency
A Mind of Winter (2016) Ballet Commissioned by University of the Arts
Ephemeral (2016) Full-Evening ballet made with support from The Netherlands America Foundation and the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Choreographic grant recipient
Dark White (Dance for Camera)(2015) Film presented by Triskellion Arts Dance Film Lab Festival
2^57,885,161 - 1 (2014-15) ½ evening ballet commissioned with support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Choreographers on Campus Initiative (Philadelphia premiere: February 2015; re-presented in 2016 by The Williams Center for the Arts)
Temporal Objects (2014) Quintet presented by Philadelphia Dance Projects
Simple Restrictions (2014) Quartet presented by Bryn Mawr College and the Come Together Festival
Divergent Iteration (2013-14) Duet commissioned by Bryn Mawr College
Antarctica Preview Choreographic Video (dance for opera) (2013) presented by Fidget Space
Trinity (2011) Trio performed at The Painted Bride, Philadelphia, funded in part by New Stages for Dance, and presented by Appel Arts, NJ, in 2013
Corollary to Fugue in G Minor (2013) Duet Presented by Koresh Dance Company and Performance Garage, developed through support by the Dance/USA Philadelphia Poland Artist Exchange, Residency
Fugue I Choreographic Dance for Camera (2012) Presented by Mascher Space, Philadelphia
Three Four Twelve (2012) Ensemble ballet commissioned & presented by Drexel University, Philadelphia, with support by the Ellen Foreman Memorial Award for choreography.
Vested Souls (2010) Full evening ballet Co-presented by Dance Place, Washington D.C. in 2012, and presented by the CEC in Philadelphia in 2010 through funding from Dance Advance, a program of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.
Etude (2009) Ballet presented by the nEW Festival in Philadelphia in 2009, though support by the nEW Festival Residency, and by Joyce SOHO, in NYC in 2010.
Other Artistic Presentations/Awards/Residencies
Elspeth McConnell Award Recipient (2022-23) Research-Creation project in dance and neuroscience hosted by Convergence Initiative, an organization dedicated to collaborative research and artistic projects between artists and neuroscientists.
Laboratoire Publique (September 2022) Team leader for a research-creation conference produced by Hexagram Network.
Brain Canada AGM Conference (June 2022) Presenting artist: "We are all energy beings" a collaborative VR work. Toronto, CA
Art-Sci Symposium (2022) Presenting artist "We are all energy beings" a collaborative VR work. Event produced through Convergence Initiative and Native Immigrant Gallery, Montreal, CA
Laboratory Spokane (2021) Resident Artist to create movement/kinetic installation for gallery exhibition (CANCELED due to pandemic/funding)
MERGE (2021) Outdoor billboard installation presented by Urbain Screens Production, AUS
MERGE (2020) Online audio-reactive performance presented by VJ Open Lab Berlin
NGV265 (2020) Immersive audio-reactive installation presented by Lightbox, NYC
Waterfall (2020) Audio-reactive installation, 500 Broadway, NYC, presented by Contemporary & Digital Art Fair (CADAF), Digital Art Month, NYC
Aria (2020) Kinetic Painting presented by Ars Electronica, Global Online Gallery
Selected Audio-Reactive Works (2020) Virtual Performance presented by NKB Presents: Creative Code Virtual Art Showcase, Feat. We Are Tundra & Intus
Audio-Reactive Vivaldi Concerto (2020) Vox Populi presents: Minute Fest, Virtual Performance
Glass No. 5 (2020) Audio-reactive visuals presented by Cherry Street Pier, commissioned by Bismuth Quartet (postponed indefinitely, COVID)
Dark Energy (2019) Audio-Visual Performance presented by Fidget Space (2019) and The Rotunda (2019) made in collaboration with Dave Buschemeyer (music)
Mandala (2018) Guest speaker at the Touchdesigner Summit during MUTEK, Montreal about the making of Mandala
What the press is saying about Gibson’s work:
“...Stunning” “If there was any amount of polished performance in the room that evening, it was the opening ballet with interactive visuals and choreography by Nora Gibson.” (Leslie Bush, thINKingDance)
HUMAN explores artificial intelligence and technology’s complication of objectivity and otherness. It is a posthuman dance that uses the language of classical ballet to imagine new vistas, drawing on the strengths of its dancers, choreography, score, and staging. . . Gibson’s creative staging served HUMAN’s theme of the tensions between natural and unnatural, human and artificial. (Melissa Strong, Broad Street Review) 2018
. . What is ballet in the 21st century? This question is central to the mission of Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet (NGCB). If you love dance, you may have considered the same question. Is the timeless beauty of classical ballet incapable of expressing the experience of living in today’s hyperconnected world? I thought so — until I saw the premiere of NGCB’s HUMAN.
(Melissa Strong, Broad Street Review) 2018
A mash-up of data-driven inquiry and aesthetic exploration, N o t h i n g T h a t I s N o t T h e r e is a science experiment in the guise of a ballet performance – as well as vice versa. . . . The abstract beauty of [this ballet] makes it a fitting piece for a science festival. The viewer must be curious and alert to what’s happening, but at the same time open about its sense and significance. It’s a dance I’d like to see again in order to investigate its underlying principles further. (Jane Fries, The Dance Journal) 2017
"...Ephemeral, her smartest, most accomplished work to date. She is truly someone to watch, a choreographer who shows a new and strangely poetic direction, a dreamer, a philosopher, a seer." (Merilyn Jackson, critic for Philadelphia Inquirer, on FB) 2016
"The polyrhythmic visuals and music mix in synchronicity, unraveling though time and space like glaciers gliding toward each other over millennia." ThINKing Dance, Zornitsa Stoyanova 2016
"poetically charged atmosphere " (Philly.com)
"[F]resh, postmodern ballet" (Philly.com)
"The precision and control in this piece is fascinating, disturbing and finally
spellbinding." (The Dance Journal)
"devotion to technique, razor-sharp dancing, and a laserlike vision of each
work's arc." (Philly.com)
"Gibson. . . is a serious choreographer who braces her works with the formalism of her ballet
training, then isolates those movement phrases into still frames." (Philly.com)
"severely focused intellectual beauty" (Philly.com)
"[T]he most authoritative work in Philadelphia this year." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Listed under Broad Street Review's "Critic's Choice: Dance Highlights" for 2010 and 2011
"innovative choreography and vividly met intent" (Philly.com)
"unrelentingly dynamic movement." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Gibson . . . takes tedium . . .to the brink." (The Washington Post)
". . . exceptionally clean . . ." (The Washington Post)
"spellbinding" (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Gibson’s design of space . . . enlivens the composition; moments of explosive spatial shift punctuate the repetition." TheDanceJournal
"a kaleidoscopic collage of movement" The Triangle.org, 1.28.11
Artist Statement
My first language is dance, and it is through this perspective of movement, space, and time that I consider everything. In letting go of fixed ideas about the body, I can escape the solidity of flesh, and defy forces of time and gravity. I use digital means such as visual programming, scanners, and sensors to make these departures. I am interested in making experiences where we can forget ourselves, experience flow, connectedness, joyfulness, transcendence, lose our sense of time, and find ease, repose, or well-being. The experiences I create span choreographic performance and video installation. The research that feeds my work draws from writings about consciousness, neuroscientific study, and meditation practice. What these areas have in common for me are that each involves constant reconsideration of the relation of body and mind, the role of movement in life, and what it’s like to be.
Biography
Gibson trained in ballet at Baltimore School for the Arts under Sylvester Campbell of the Dutch National Ballet, Chautauqua, and NCSA, and earned a BFA from Tisch, at NYU. She danced for the Ellicott City Ballet Guild, PATH Dance Company, ClancyWorks Dance, and Andrew Marcus Dance. Gibson worked from 2010-2013 with Lucinda Childs to perform various iconic 70s works as part of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage's Virtual Reconstruction project. As a choreographer, Gibson has been invited as a resident artist in the US and abroad, including the nEW Festival in Philadelphia (2009-10), the CEC New Edge Residency (2009-10), the Ellen Forman Memorial Award (2011), the PHL/Poland Artist Exchange Residency (2012), the Choreographers on Campus Residency, funded through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2014), Diepenheim Werkplaats (2016), Kaatsbaan (2017), and The Dance Visions Residency (2018).
As the director of Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet, a contemporary ballet company based in Philadelphia for a decade, Gibson's choreography was presented by New Dance Alliance at Joyce SOHO, at Dance Place in Washington DC, Philadelphia Dance Projects, The Williams Center for the Arts, and by the Franklin Institute, one of the oldest and most prestigious science and technology museums in the US. Her work has received consistent critical acclaim, heralded by the Philadelphia Inquirer as "the most authoritative work in Philadelphia. . ." Gibson’s innovative approach to ballet garnered her an invitation to speak to an audience of programmers and visual artists at the Touchdesigner summit at MUTEK in Montreal in 2018 about the making of her dome ballet, MANDALA.
Gibson's choreographic work has been commissioned regularly by universities such as Bryn Mawr College, Georgian Court University, Alma College, and University of the Arts.
Gibson is also a devoted teacher, and has taught ballet, pointe, physical theater, and composition in the US and abroad, including Temple University, University of the Arts, the Zawirowania Festival, and many other institutions. Her work as a ballet teacher at Temple University garnered her the Outstanding Teaching award in 2018. She has also taught ballet and pointe classes privately at the Philadelphia Studio ballet for ages 8-18, and served as ballet mistress to Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers.
Gibson’s digital work has been featured by Ars Electronica's Online Global Gallery, Contemporary & Digital Art Fair ("CADAF") (NYC), Lightbox (NYC), and Urban Screens Production (AUS). Gibson was a founding member of Philly AV, a digital artist collective that has performed at The Rotunda, Vox Populi Gallery. and were recipients of the 2019 Project Stream Grant. Gibson is currently pursuing her masters degree at Concordia University in Montreal in the area of Intermedia, in order to further develop her work in cross-disciplinary research-creation as between choreography, digital media, STEM fields, and academia. She is a student-member of Hexagram, and an affiliate member of LeParc, within the Milieux Institute.
CV
Selected Teaching Experience
Present TA for Intermedia 332 Performance Practices and Performative Video
2013 - 2021 Ballet instructor; Instructor for devised physical theater, Temple University (*recipient of Outstanding Teaching award 2018)
2017 - 2021 Ballet instructor at Philadelphia Studio Ballet
2018-2019 Ballet instructor, Georgian Court University
2019 Ballet mistress for Yun-Yang Lin/Dancers company of Philadelphia
2013 Ballet instructor, University of the Arts
2012 Composition workshop at the Zawirowania Festival, Warsaw, Poland
2009-11 seasonally, Ballet instructor at the nEW Festival, Philadelphia, PA
Choreographic Repertoire
Ballet for humans and sensors (2020) Interactive Visualsl/Dance co-presented by Vox Populi Gallery and Philly AV; to be presented at the Performance Garage Gala April 2020 (cancelled due to Pandemic)
Dances by Brainwaves (2020) Multimedia Interactive Installation for dance, brainwaves, visuals, and movement-reactive sound presented by The MAAS Building Residency
Mandala (2019) Digital Ballet for Dome presented by Franklin Institute/ Philadelphia Science Festival/ Fels Planetarium. Made in collaboration with Jason Haggerty (AUS) with support by the Philadelphia Cultural Fund Project Stream grant for multimedia work
HUMAN (2018) Full-evening ballet premiering featuring original digital scenography, supported through the Dance Visions Residency award
Neural Lace (2017) Ballet Commissioned by University of the Arts
N o t h i n g T h a t I s N o t T h e r e (2017) Full evening ballet presented in partnership and support from The Franklin Institute and Drexel Department of Physics, Materials Lab; residency & workshop performance to be presented by Kaatsbaan, with support through the Kaatsbaan Upstream, Choreographic Residency
A Mind of Winter (2016) Ballet Commissioned by University of the Arts
Ephemeral (2016) Full-Evening ballet made with support from The Netherlands America Foundation and the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, Choreographic grant recipient
Dark White (Dance for Camera)(2015) Film presented by Triskellion Arts Dance Film Lab Festival
2^57,885,161 - 1 (2014-15) ½ evening ballet commissioned with support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Choreographers on Campus Initiative (Philadelphia premiere: February 2015; re-presented in 2016 by The Williams Center for the Arts)
Temporal Objects (2014) Quintet presented by Philadelphia Dance Projects
Simple Restrictions (2014) Quartet presented by Bryn Mawr College and the Come Together Festival
Divergent Iteration (2013-14) Duet commissioned by Bryn Mawr College
Antarctica Preview Choreographic Video (dance for opera) (2013) presented by Fidget Space
Trinity (2011) Trio performed at The Painted Bride, Philadelphia, funded in part by New Stages for Dance, and presented by Appel Arts, NJ, in 2013
Corollary to Fugue in G Minor (2013) Duet Presented by Koresh Dance Company and Performance Garage, developed through support by the Dance/USA Philadelphia Poland Artist Exchange, Residency
Fugue I Choreographic Dance for Camera (2012) Presented by Mascher Space, Philadelphia
Three Four Twelve (2012) Ensemble ballet commissioned & presented by Drexel University, Philadelphia, with support by the Ellen Foreman Memorial Award for choreography.
Vested Souls (2010) Full evening ballet Co-presented by Dance Place, Washington D.C. in 2012, and presented by the CEC in Philadelphia in 2010 through funding from Dance Advance, a program of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.
Etude (2009) Ballet presented by the nEW Festival in Philadelphia in 2009, though support by the nEW Festival Residency, and by Joyce SOHO, in NYC in 2010.
Other Artistic Presentations/Awards/Residencies
Elspeth McConnell Award Recipient (2022-23) Research-Creation project in dance and neuroscience hosted by Convergence Initiative, an organization dedicated to collaborative research and artistic projects between artists and neuroscientists.
Laboratoire Publique (September 2022) Team leader for a research-creation conference produced by Hexagram Network.
Brain Canada AGM Conference (June 2022) Presenting artist: "We are all energy beings" a collaborative VR work. Toronto, CA
Art-Sci Symposium (2022) Presenting artist "We are all energy beings" a collaborative VR work. Event produced through Convergence Initiative and Native Immigrant Gallery, Montreal, CA
Laboratory Spokane (2021) Resident Artist to create movement/kinetic installation for gallery exhibition (CANCELED due to pandemic/funding)
MERGE (2021) Outdoor billboard installation presented by Urbain Screens Production, AUS
MERGE (2020) Online audio-reactive performance presented by VJ Open Lab Berlin
NGV265 (2020) Immersive audio-reactive installation presented by Lightbox, NYC
Waterfall (2020) Audio-reactive installation, 500 Broadway, NYC, presented by Contemporary & Digital Art Fair (CADAF), Digital Art Month, NYC
Aria (2020) Kinetic Painting presented by Ars Electronica, Global Online Gallery
Selected Audio-Reactive Works (2020) Virtual Performance presented by NKB Presents: Creative Code Virtual Art Showcase, Feat. We Are Tundra & Intus
Audio-Reactive Vivaldi Concerto (2020) Vox Populi presents: Minute Fest, Virtual Performance
Glass No. 5 (2020) Audio-reactive visuals presented by Cherry Street Pier, commissioned by Bismuth Quartet (postponed indefinitely, COVID)
Dark Energy (2019) Audio-Visual Performance presented by Fidget Space (2019) and The Rotunda (2019) made in collaboration with Dave Buschemeyer (music)
Mandala (2018) Guest speaker at the Touchdesigner Summit during MUTEK, Montreal about the making of Mandala
What the press is saying about Gibson’s work:
“...Stunning” “If there was any amount of polished performance in the room that evening, it was the opening ballet with interactive visuals and choreography by Nora Gibson.” (Leslie Bush, thINKingDance)
HUMAN explores artificial intelligence and technology’s complication of objectivity and otherness. It is a posthuman dance that uses the language of classical ballet to imagine new vistas, drawing on the strengths of its dancers, choreography, score, and staging. . . Gibson’s creative staging served HUMAN’s theme of the tensions between natural and unnatural, human and artificial. (Melissa Strong, Broad Street Review) 2018
. . What is ballet in the 21st century? This question is central to the mission of Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet (NGCB). If you love dance, you may have considered the same question. Is the timeless beauty of classical ballet incapable of expressing the experience of living in today’s hyperconnected world? I thought so — until I saw the premiere of NGCB’s HUMAN.
(Melissa Strong, Broad Street Review) 2018
A mash-up of data-driven inquiry and aesthetic exploration, N o t h i n g T h a t I s N o t T h e r e is a science experiment in the guise of a ballet performance – as well as vice versa. . . . The abstract beauty of [this ballet] makes it a fitting piece for a science festival. The viewer must be curious and alert to what’s happening, but at the same time open about its sense and significance. It’s a dance I’d like to see again in order to investigate its underlying principles further. (Jane Fries, The Dance Journal) 2017
"...Ephemeral, her smartest, most accomplished work to date. She is truly someone to watch, a choreographer who shows a new and strangely poetic direction, a dreamer, a philosopher, a seer." (Merilyn Jackson, critic for Philadelphia Inquirer, on FB) 2016
"The polyrhythmic visuals and music mix in synchronicity, unraveling though time and space like glaciers gliding toward each other over millennia." ThINKing Dance, Zornitsa Stoyanova 2016
"poetically charged atmosphere " (Philly.com)
"[F]resh, postmodern ballet" (Philly.com)
"The precision and control in this piece is fascinating, disturbing and finally
spellbinding." (The Dance Journal)
"devotion to technique, razor-sharp dancing, and a laserlike vision of each
work's arc." (Philly.com)
"Gibson. . . is a serious choreographer who braces her works with the formalism of her ballet
training, then isolates those movement phrases into still frames." (Philly.com)
"severely focused intellectual beauty" (Philly.com)
"[T]he most authoritative work in Philadelphia this year." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Listed under Broad Street Review's "Critic's Choice: Dance Highlights" for 2010 and 2011
"innovative choreography and vividly met intent" (Philly.com)
"unrelentingly dynamic movement." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Gibson . . . takes tedium . . .to the brink." (The Washington Post)
". . . exceptionally clean . . ." (The Washington Post)
"spellbinding" (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Gibson’s design of space . . . enlivens the composition; moments of explosive spatial shift punctuate the repetition." TheDanceJournal
"a kaleidoscopic collage of movement" The Triangle.org, 1.28.11
professional certifications
