BIOGRAPHY
Stephen Petronio
Artistic Director/Choreographer of the Stephen Petronio Company. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and received a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., where he began dancing in 1974. Initially inspired by the dancing of Rudolf Nureyev and Steve Paxton, Petronio was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Company (1979 to 1986). He founded Stephen Petronio Company in 1984 and has gone on to build a unique and powerful language of movement in collaboration with some of the finest contemporary innovators in the fields of music, visual arts and fashion including Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Rufus Wainwright, Son Lux, Nico Muhly, Cindy Sherman, Donald Baechler, Benjamin Cho, Imitation of Christ, Tony Cohen and Rachel Roy. Petronio recently completed two new works in collaboration with composer Ryan Lott (aka SON LUX) - Tragic Love for Ballet-de-Lorraine and By Singing Light, for the National Dance Company of Wales. He is currently working on a memoir with the working title Notes from A Life in Motion.