Bebe Miller honored at Movement Research Gala 2015
This year, Movement Research honored Bebe Miller, Tere O’Connor, and Moira Brennan in their 2015 Gala for their exceptional contributions to the field. The night at Judson Memorial Church included remarks from the Movement Research board, a dinner by chef Tom McCauley, a dance party, and performances by Daria Fain, Joanna Kotz, Cynthia Hopkins, Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones, Heather Olsen, and Chrysa Parkinson. To view the full program, including special shout outs and congratulations, click here.
Moira Brennan
Moira Brennan is the program director for the MAP Fund at Creative Capital. Under her 12-year leadership, MAP has dramatically increased the number of proposals reviewed annually and expanded the program’s formidable impact on contemporary American performance. Ms. Brennan transitioned MAP from an in-house program at Rockefeller Foundation to an independent fund incorporating multiple stakeholders, including the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Ms. Brennan also designed and administered the Creative Exploration Fund to encourage continued risk-taking among MAP grantees with a record of success, and introduced General Operating grants for structural support to organizations and independent artists. She represents the program throughout the country as a speaker on the complex interplay between creativity, art, power, and money in contemporary culture. Moira sits on the board of Movement Research and Apple Village Arts. A former editor at Ms. magazine, Ms. Brennan has written about arts and social justice for a variety of publications, including American Theater, Ms., and Community Arts Network. She has acted as a consultant for arts programs including Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence and MORE LIFE: Interdisciplinary Studies and Genocide at the California Institute for the Arts. In addition to her work in the arts, Ms. Brennan consults with the Focusing Institute, a New York-based nonprofit, for Focusing in Afghanistan, a Kabul-based program that teaches coping skills to victims of trauma. She is a graduate of New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
Tere O’ Connor
Tere O’Connor is Artistic Director of Tere O’Connor Dance and a Center for Advanced Studies Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has created over 40 works for his company and toured them throughout the US, Europe, South America and Canada. He has created numerous commissioned works for other dance companies, including the Lyon Opera Ballet, White Oak Dance Project and solo works for Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jean Butler. O’Connor received a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, is a 2009 United States Artist Rockefeller Fellow, and a 1993 Guggenheim Fellow among numerous other grants and awards. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project, The MAP Fund, and many others. He has been honored with three New York Dance and Performance “Bessies.” In 2014, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. An articulate and provocative educator, O’Connor has taught at festivals and universities around the globe for 25 years. He is an active participant in the New York dance community, mentoring young artists, teaching, writing, and volunteering in various capacities. His most recent work BLEED, premiered at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival in December 2013 and toured throughout the United States. O’Connor will premiere a new work for 12 dancers at The Kitchen in December 2015.
