ABOUT GRISHA

Grisha Coleman, native of New York City, works as a composer, performer and choreographer. She recently joined the faculty as Professor of Movement, Computation and Digital Media in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU). She spent three years as a research fellow/artist-in-residence at Carnegie Mellon University's Studio For Creative Inquiry, and worked for a year as the Course Director for the MA Degree in Contemporary Dance and Performance at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. Coleman is a graduate of the College of Letters at Wesleyan University, with an MFA in Composition and Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts.

Coleman danced as a member of acclaimed dance company Urban Bush Women for four years . Following this, she created the music performance group HOTMOUTH which toured extensively nationally and internationally and was nominated for a 1998 Drama Desk Award for "Most Unique Theatrical Experience".

For the development of her current work, echo::system [www.echo-system.org], Ms. Coleman has worked with a transdisciplinary team of collaborators, conducting residencies at the Banff New Media Institute [Canada], the Beall Center for Art and Technology at UC Irvine [CA], Eyebeam Centre for Art and Technology, and Amherst University among others.

Other recent work includes a commission from the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute for public, site-specific robot in Pittsburgh's Robot 250 Festival. "Reach, Robot" performed as a public sound sculpture, a visual/kinetic installation and a domain for public interaction and participation.

Highlighted awards and honors include: Rockefeller Multi-Arts Production (MAP), The Creative Capital Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, and the New York Foundation Artists' Fellowship (NYFA), Yaddo Artists Residency.

She has worked with varied artists including: Rennie Harris, Oliver Lake, Ntozake Shange, Jonathan Stone, Erik Ehn, Laurie Carlos, Butch Morris, Gherri Allen, Pauline Oliveros, Dr. Ysaye M. Barnwell (Sweet Honey in the Rock), Anne Le Baron, and David Rousseve, as well as filmmakers Julie Dash and Spike Lee.