Whether it is a fantastic doll's world, as in "Low Altitude" or Spring in a New England town early in the 20th century, as in "Why Imagine Golden Birds?," each of Ariane Anthony's pieces establishes a poetic landscape in which human characters struggle, ponder, love, dream, and "speak" in a language of movement that fancifully integrates classical, gestural, and comedic elements. At the heart of Anthony's creative process is a belief in the wisdom of the unconscious. She develops the material and the structure of a piece by following instinctive rather than rational impulses. The resulting compositions invite the viewer to engage in the kind of imaginative play that went into the work's construction.
Ariane Anthony has choreographed and directed over thirty original works of dance-theater, both independently and under the auspices of Ariane Anthony & Company, a performing group she co-founded with her collaborators in 1999. Ms. Anthony studied ballet as a professional trainee at the Joffrey Ballet School from 1983 to 1989, and began her choreographic training with Claire Mallardi at Harvard University where she earned a B.A. in Anthropology with a focus on human and animal communication. Anthony continued her dance training as a scholarship student at The Merce Cunningham and Mary Anthony Studios, and performed and toured internationally with Cornfield Dance, Mary Anthony Dance Theatre, Tina Croll, Maureen Fleming, Bryan Hayes, Christopher Caines, and Carolyn Lord. Ms. Anthony studies and teaches commedia dell'arte mask and clown performing techniques. She is on the faculty of the New York Mask and Clown Workshop, is an adjunct dance professor at Ramapo College in New Jersey, and has taught theater, dance, choreography, and repertory at Harvard University, Bowdoin College in Maine, and Delta State University in Mississippi. Since 1996 she has been an affiliate of The Construction Company which brought her work to Belgium in 1998 and has facilitated many rewarding collaborations with composers including Carolyn Lord, Patrick Grant, and John Stone.