Stephanie Skura

Stephanie Skura, a ‘radical & perpetual innovator’ & Bessie award-winner, is a choreographer, director, performer, teacher & writer. Called “reliably irreverent,” she has toured professionally for over three decades in 15 countries & 33 states

FOR INFORMATION ON CURRENT CLASSES, WORKSHOPS, & TEACHER CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS:

http://opensourceforms.com

Skura directed a New York City-based touring company for 15 years, received seven Choreography Fellowships & five Dance company Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and grants & commissions from many corporations, foundations, government agencies & performing companies worldwide.  Her work has toured at major festivals in Zurich, Vienna, Lisbon, Budapest, Barcelona, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, France & Canada, and at such US venues as the Walker Art Center In Minneapolis, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and in New York City at Roulette, Dance Theater Workshop, the Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, Central Park Summerstage, Danspace Project, and Performance Space 122.

An innovative teacher & mentor, Skura’s worldwide influence on students, teachers, artists, choreographers, and audience members has been a major force in the field of dance and performance. With a deep respect for individual diversity, and a sturdy respect for the subconscious, her work is guided by integration of body/mind/heart, creativity & technique, form & content, art & healing, intellect & intuition.

Now based in the Pacific Northwest, Skura works independently with several companies, artists and institutions. She was one of four Core Faculty & Teacher Trainers at the Skinner Releasing Institute 1994-2006, worked closely with Joan Skinner during that time, & co-created with Joan the SRT Teacher Certification Program. She was on Graduate Faculty at the University of Washington School of Drama Professional Actors Training Program 1998-2003. She’s taught at such places as the American Dance Festival, Florida Dance Festival, European Dance Development Center, Naropa Institute, Movement Research in New York, and in residencies at many colleges and universities around the US. She was a regular guest artist in the Juniata College Theater Program during 2003-16, & helped develop its innovative curriculum.

Skura’s current work, including SurreptitiousPreparations for an Impossible Total Act (2015-18), The Corduroy Prayer (2009), Two Huts (2012), Sacrilege is Needed. Competency is Hell. (2012-13) and Noir Noir Noir (2013), integrates a radically visceral approach to language with dance & theatre.

Skura is creator/director of Open Source Forms (OSF) & OSF Teacher Certification, deeply rooted in & fluidly expanded from Skinner Releasing, investigating SRT’s deep commonalities & cross-fertilizations with the creative process. She holds a BFA & MFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and was Associate Artistic Director of The Gravity Project, an elemental theatre company affiliated with Juniata College 2004-10. Her non-fiction & poetry have appeared in several literary journals, and in Dance Magazine, the Village Voice, Contact Quarterly, and the books Reimaging America: Art & Social Change, the Oxford University Press Handbook of Improvisation in Dance, and in the Triarchy Press upcoming volume about Skinner Releasing, edited by Manny Emslie..

For more information, visit Stephanie’s website: http://www.stephanieskura.com  & opensourceforms.com