ABOUT THE LECTURE-DEMONSTRATION

Spanning a 50-year career as dancer/choreographer, video artist and more recently, as painter, Sparling's lecture-demonstration for video reveals his passion and process for making screendances. His videos incorporate and fuse together his own danced improvisations with greenscreen/keying editing effects, music, painting, costumes, film and theater. He accompanies his talk with a stream of still and moving images that colorfully and thoroughly  illustrate and embody his ideas. 

ABOUT PETER SPARLING

Peter Sparling is Rudolf Arnheim Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Dance and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus at University of Michigan. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and The Juilliard School, Sparling was a member of the José Limón Dance Company and principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. He directed Michigan’s own Peter Sparling Dance Company from 1993-2008 and was recognized with the 1998 Governor’s Michigan Artist Award. He is a lecturer, published poet and essayist. His dances for video have been selected for numerous international festivals, including the 2007& 2020 New York Dance on Camera Festivals, the American Dance Festival Dance Film & Video Festival (2008, 2019, 2020), Lisbon’s InShadow Festival (2010, 2020), DANCE:FILMS Glasgow and Ann Arbor Film Festival (2017, 2020).  His video, "Winterreise", will be premiered with live musical performance at Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in June 2021. Sparling has presented solo shows of his paintings at Gallery 22 North in partnership with Equality Michigan and at Benton Harbor OutCenter. His paintings have been selected for group shows at Ann Arbor Art Center’s ART NOW 2019 and at Buckham Gallery, Flint.