Lindsey Drury is a researcher, artist, and educator. She lives in Berlin where she works on performance history and digital research methods as a postdoc within the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective”. Her research has been funded by an Erasmus Mundus Fellowship, the German Academic Exchange Service / Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FUBright), and with a Graduate Research Fellowship (University of Utah). Her artistic practice has been supported by the Queens Art Fund, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and through residencies at Pioneer Works, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Gibney Dance, and Cora Dance in New York City. Drury’s performance works have been called “performance from an unknown civilization” (Hyperallergic), “compelling new performance” (Huffington Post), and as “staging the death of patriarchal modernism” (PAJ, MIT Press).
Current Position
Postdoctoral Researcher & Research Area Coordinator (2019- )
EXC Temporal Communities, Freie Universität Berlin.
Research Area 5, “Building Digital Communities”
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Anita Traninger
Education
PhD Erasmus Mundus Consortium PhD Program, 2015-2019
“Text and Event in Early Modern Europe”, held at at Geschichts- u.Kulturwiss, Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Kent at Canterbury.
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Claudia Jarzebowski and Dr. Freya Vass.
MA Liberal Studies, CUNY Graduate Center, 2013-2015
Supervisor: Dr. Tanya Pollard
MFA studies in Modern Dance, University of Utah, 2005-2008
Supervisors: Stephen Koester and Jon Scoville
BA Interdisciplinary Arts, Western Washington University, 1999-2004
University and Community Teaching
Guest Lecture, Dance History Course, Western Washington University Dance Program 2021
Guest Lecture, Art Studio MFA program, University of Kentucky, 2021
Practice & Theory Workshop Instructor, croxhapox & Astrid Collectief, CAT Cologne 2019 – 2020
Guest Lecture, Seminar Haine de la Danse Université Paris Sorbonne, 2019
Guest Lecture, Seminar History of Imagination. L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2019
Performance Art Instructor, Transcultural Art Lab, Jubi Juist, 2017
Workshop & Technique Instructor, Performática Festival, Universidad de las Americas 2012 – 2014
Thesis Coordinator and Teaching Assistant, Hollins University MFA Program, 2011
Instructor, Introduction to Dance. University of Utah, 2005 – 2007
Teaching Assistant, Western Washington University, 2003
Theses and Dissertations
“Three Imagined Dances: the Somatics of Early Modern Textual Mediation”, July 2019
PhD dissertation, University of Kent, Freie Universität Berlin.
“The Inconstancy of Bodies: Yvonne Meier’s Works, 1985-2012”, September 2015
MA Thesis. Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Book Projects
Forthcoming, est. 2023. Passage of a Paper Body
Forthcoming 2023. A Book in the Interface (working title), with Nina Tolksdorf and Elvia Vasconcelos, eds. (Open Access and Online).
2017. Matters of Act: A Journal of Ideas, co-editor with No Collective (Brooklyn: Already Not Yet Press)
Book Chapters
Forthcoming 2023. “Imitation of Faith: Paracelsus’ Theory of Performance and Imagination”
Le Corps et les Pouvoirs de l’Imagination, Elizabeth Claire, Beatrice Delaurenti, Roberto Poma, and Koen Vermeir, eds. (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique).
Forthcoming 2021. “When is a House? In Seven Figures”
Institution is a Verb: A Panoply Performance Lab Compilation, Esther Neff, Ayana Evans, Tsedaye Makonnen, Elizabeth Lamb, eds. (New York: The Operating System)
2014. “Ellen C. Covito’s Performer Pedagogy.”
Ellen C. Covito: Works After Weather, No Collective, eds. (New York: Already Not Yet Press)
Articles
Forthcoming 2023. “Origin Stories: The Matachines and Colonial-Historical Polemics” Postmedieval, special issue guest edited by Kathryn Dickason (Peer reviewed)
Forthcoming April 2022 “What’s in a Name? Somatics and the Historical Revisionism of Thomas Hanna” Dance Research Journal.
March 2022. “The Blurred Bodies of Matachines: Warburg’s Notes on a Colonial New Mexican Dance Drama” In Lightning Symbol and Snake Dance: Aby Warburg and Pueblo Art, Uwe Fleckner and Christine Chavez, eds. Berlin: Hatje Cantz.
September 2021. “The Double-Life of ‘Pagan Dance’: Indigenous Rituality, Early Modern Dance and the Language of US Newspapers” European Journal of Theatre and Performance, No. 03. Essays Section, “Language and Performance: Moving across Discourses and Practices in a Globalised World”, Małgorzata Sugiera, Karel Vanhaesebrouck, and Timmy De Laet, eds. (Peer reviewed).
2017. with Dee Ali, “The Judson Dancers”. Matters of Act: A Journal of Ideas,Drury & No Collective, eds. (Brooklyn: Already Not Yet Press)
2014. “Mobilizing the Ineffable: Yvonne Meier” Learning to Love Dance More: A Performance Journal. Volume 8, Displacement (Summer 2014), 8-12.
2012. “Interview with Yvonne Meier” Learning to Love Dance More: A Performance Journal. Volume 5, Back to School (Fall 2012).
2011. “Emergence: Watching and being early-career artists in New York City dance” Critical Correspondence, Movement Research (NYC).
Academic Presentations
“‘We’re not Pagan’: Indigenous Discourses on Dance and Religion in US newspapers around the turn of the turn of the 20th century”, October 2021
As a part of a panel series organized with Alexander Schwann and Kathryn Dickason titled Radical Religion for the Dance Studies Association Conference, Rutgers University.
“What is the Digital Doing?”, November 2020
Introductory session for the What is the Digital Doing? workshop organized with Nina Tolksdorf
“Vulnerability for Open Science”, May 2020
Freie Universität Open Science Working Group, “Digital Humanities and Open Science”
“A Cosmic Dance of Miraculous Forgery: the St Vitus dance, imagination, and the sidereal body”, July 2019
European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, Amsterdam
“Immersed in reading / reading as immersion” , January 2019
Bodies of Design Somaesthetics Conference, Florida
“Paracelsus and the Veitstanz in Four Parts”, January 2019
Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
“Amnesia of Acts: toward a history of physical practice”, August 2018
Nordic Summer University, Fårö.
“Ennobling the Body at War: Anti-Dance Treatises on the Lineage of Phyrric Dance“, July 2018
Dance Studies Association 2018 Conference, Malta.
“Passing Time, Pastimes and Past Times: in Two Arrested Dances of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and Tramutatione Metallica Sogni Tre”, September 2017
Shape of Return conference, the Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Berlin
We Added Nothing of Our Own:’ the ethics of two women publishers in mid-16th century Paris”, April 2017
Othello’s Island 5th Annual Conference
“What is Walking and How to Do It: Textual Estrangement and Experiential Anatomy in the Work of John Weaver“, April 2016
Oxford Annual Dance Symposium
“Disease Knows No Borders: St. Vitus Dance and the Ambiguity of Infection”, March 2016
Early English Drama & Performance network symposium
“Implicit and Mutually Implicated: Embodiment, Disability, and Dissent in the Works of Yvonne Meier”, April 2014
York University Theatre & Performance Studies Symposium
Co-Organized Academic Conferences and Workshops
Depth of Field: Decolonial Praxis in Artistic Research, Berlin, November 2021 (forthcoming)
Körper in Gemeinschaft (Body in Community) Berlin, November 2021 (forthcoming)
25th Digital Research in Humanities and Arts Conference, Berlin September 2021
What is the Digital Doing? A Workshop in the Interface Berlin, November 2020
Begin with an Object: Matters of Representation, Canterbury, October 2017
Curatorial Projects
Zugetextet – Literatur als intermediale Praxis, Humboldt Labor, Berlin, 2021
Chloë Bass: This is a Film, Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin January 2019
Matters of Act in 4 Acts Berlin & Cyprus, March — April 2017 Already Not Yet Press
Post-Dance Series, Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, Brooklyn, 2012
Selected Performance Works
When is a House? Berlin, 2017-present
Isomorph Droste, Pioneer Works, New York, 2019
We, Body of the People, Center for Art and Urbanistics, Berlin, 2018
Atelierhaus Droste, the old Australian Embassy of East Berlin, 2018
Real Virtual IKEA, Portland Media Group & Xhurch, Portland, Oregon, December 2015
House Music, Berlin and Helsinki, December 2014 — June 2015
Aftermath, Groundwork Festival, Brooklyn, November 2014
Vesna’s Fall New York City, North Carolina, Puebla (Mexico), 2012 — 2014
Any Size Mirror is a Dictator, Momenta Art, Issue Project Room, Flux Factory, Firehouse Space, and Chashama, New York City, 2012 — 2014
Run Little Girl, Cunningham Studio, New York City, 2012
I am my Shitty Little Box, St. Mark’s Church, New York City, 2011
Selected Works Performed
Immaculate Conception by No Collective and Ensemble Mise-En, Brooklyn, January 2016
An Evening of Works by Ellen C. Covito, 18-m Salon, Berlin, November 2014
If I Tell Myself… created by Diana Crum, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, September, 2012
Performance Installation by Megan Byrne, Brooklyn Museum’s GO, Brooklyn, September, 2012
Scores of Yvonne Meier, duet with Arturo Vidich, New Museum, NYC, July 2012″
The Works of Ellen C. Covito presented by No Collective, Vaudeville Park, NYC, May 2012
Scores of Yvonne Meier, American Dance Festival, duet with Jesse Zarritt, Durham, July 2011
H to Oh by Pele Bausch Chocolate Factory, NY, November 2010
Mapa/Corpo by La Pocha Nostra. Pickle Company Arts Space, Salt Lake City, March, 2007
Beseeching on You Own Behalf by Cynthia Oliver, University of Utah Salt Lake City, November, 2006
Residencies
Pioneer Works Tech Resident Artist Brooklyn, NY, January 2019 — March 2019
Cora Dance Resident Artist Redhook, Brooklyn, April 2021 — April 2021
Brooklyn Arts Exchange Upstart Program Brooklyn, 2010 — 2011
Momenta Art Resident Brooklyn, September 2012 — November 2012
Gibney Dance Resident Artist New York City, 2011 — 2012
Awards & Grants
Artist Grant, Queens Art Fund, 2019
Research/Mobility Funding, FU/DAAD/Bundesministerium, 2018-2019
Erasmus Mundus Fellowship, Sept 2015 – August 2018
Travel Grant, Nordic Summer University, July – August 2018
Artist Grant, Queens Council on the Arts, January 2014 – May 2015
Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Utah, August 2006 – August 2007
Monica Gutchow Dance Scholarship, Western Washington University, 2004
Service
Diversity Arbeitsgruppe at EXC 2020: “Temporal Communities”, member, 2020-present
Association for Performance Art – Berlin, board member, 2019-present
The Woods Cooperative (artist-run rehearsal space), co-founder and central organizer, 2011-2015
No Wave Performance Task Force (feminist arts activism project), co-organizer, 2012-2015
Reviews and Press
September 2021. “Polyphonie und Widerstand” campus.leben
October 2020. ”From the Stage into Research” Research in Germany
May 2016. Covito, Ellen C. “The End of Choreography as We Know It.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. Volume 38 Issue 2, p.41-49
June 2015. Eikman, Cody. “Exchange Mechanism.” Performance Club.
September 2014. Nichols, James. “Any Size Mirror is a Dictator Dance-Opera Running in Brooklyn.” The Huffington Post.
October 2014. Cata, Li. “Closing Today: Holy Roughness// Acceptable Objectives for Watching This Opera.” Posture Magazine.
October 2014. Barnacle, Jay. “This Opera Doesn’t Need You,” Hyperallergic.
July 2013. Vartanian, Hrag. “Choreographing a Discussion About Labor, Feminism, and Performance.” Hyperallergic.
Languages
English (native), German (B2), French (B2) Latin (reading)
References
By request.
lindsey drury 