still from MANDALA, multimedia work created for the dome in collaboration with jason haggerty (2019)
“...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
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
Photo credit above: Bill Hebert