The Kent Dance Ensemble, under the artistic direction of Catherine Meredith, welcomes professional dancer and choreographer Lisa Viola to Kent State as a guest artist Feb. 6-10, 2023. During her residency, Lisa Viola will collaborate with the members of the Kent Dance Ensemble on a work that will appear in the March 24-25, 2023 Kent Dance Ensemble concert.
Lisa Viola was born in 1963 in San Fransisco and moved to Honolulu when she was four. She showed talent in ballet classes from a young age and when she was 15, her mother took her to New York for a summer workshop at the School of American Ballet. In 1986, she saw her first Paul Taylor performance and began her interest in modern dance. Lisa Viola was a principal dancer from 1992-2008 with the world-renowned Paul Taylor Dance Company. She is in residence this week teaching the Taylor style (modern) to our dance majors and minors as well as staging excerpts from Paul Taylor's critically acclaimed, Esplanade and an excerpt from Polaris for the Kent Dance Ensemble.
More information about the Kent Dance Ensemble Concert
Images: (Left and Right) Paul Taylor Dance Company, Lines of Loss, photographed by Tom Caravaglia; (Middle) Lisa Viola photographed by Lois Greenfield