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contact name: Gerry Girouard
phone: 612-871-3025
email: gerrygirouard@hotmail.com

mailing address:
2500 Blaisdell Avenue Apt.#411
Minneapolis MN 55404

My choreography is distinguished by a rigorous acrobatic style, which creates stunning optical illusions in motion and utilizes a sculptural style tempered with emotional content. As a result, my choreography presents messages about the human condition through unconventional movement, intended to provoke audiences on a visceral rather than a cerebral level. I have used technology to add to the viewer's experience of perspective, provoke associations of memory and metaphor and transform spacial dimensions by the projection of video images on see-through scrims, Plexiglas walls, and the dancers’ bodies themselves.

The various movement forms I have studied and synthesized continue to shape my choreography to this day. These comprise the German expressionist modern dance of Mary Wigman from my mentor Nancy Hauser, the vigor and physicality of gymnastics, and the acrobatic and combative improvisation of capoeira the rhythmic, Afro-Brazilian martial art form and the predecessor to break dancing. I extensively use acrobatics and optical illusions as a vehicle to express my dance ideas and I am now embracing the Argentine tango and coming to comprehend its nuances. I am attracted to the Argentine tango for its sophisticated rhythms, dramatic style and dialogical partnering.

Jerome Foundation:
Fellowship Grants
1997, 1999, 2002, 2005

Minnesota Dance Alliance Grants:
Study Stipend - 1989
Dancer Pool - 1990,1994,1995, 1997, 1999

Minnesota State Arts Board:
Choreographic Fellowships
1991, 1994, 2000, 2005

McKnight Choreographic Fellowship
1992

PRESENTERS
Walker Art Center:
Extended Play Series
1993

Red Eye Collaboration:
2000, 2002, 2004

Intermedia Arts
1997

2004
The Cult of Dorian Gray - A multimedia performance of dance, music and video. Producer and choreographer

2000
Gravity Games - Interavtive dance and video, choreographer, dancer and co-producer

1997
Songs for the Body Electric - Interactive music and video and dance using the Very Nervous System (a computer/video canera traching system to allow the dancer to play the music with their bodies in real time). Choreographer, dancer producer.

1994
OFF THE WALL !!! - Choreographer, dancer, producer.

1993
Earth, Air, Water, Fire - part of the Walker Art Center's Extended Play Series.

1992
In the Shadows of the Diamond Realm - Choreographer, dancer, producer.

1982-1990
Various performances as a company member with the Nancy Hauser Dance Company. This includes a tour of Hawaii, Taiwan, and Japan in 1990.

Country of Citizenship:
United States

Ethnicity:
Canadian-American

Birth Place:
San Fransico

Birth Date:
August 1, 1961

Gender:
Male

Active Place:
Twin Cities

Minnesota County:
Hennepin

Choreographer

 

CHOREOGRAPHIC