For half a century, Christina Svane has been creating performances with the idea that we have congregated in darkness to dream together, stretch our imaginations, and feel moved to renew our faith in the higher nature of the human race.
Primarily a dancer, Christina often incorporates her - or others' - poetry, songs, and visual imagery into the moving tableaux she has called "dreamscapes." This exploration has now evolved into a full-scale musical (in progress.)
Originally from San Francisco, Christina studied modern dance and improvisation with the innovative dancer Ann Woodhead, before receiving a scholarship to Bennington College. She was fortunate to have Steve Paxton as a dance teacher, who became her prime mentor in the conceptual aspects of performance, and introduced her to his newly created form, Contact Improvisation, which grew into a global network she became a member of.
At Bennington, she also studied with Lisa Nelson, who introduced her to the new medium of video as another live performance element to be explored. In 1978 in NYC, their full-length performance, "Crow's Feet," introduced video monitors for the first time as portable extensions of the moving body, displaying imagery like windows into the dancers' sensations and psyches.
After graduation from Bennington, Christina was invited by Paxton and Nelson to join Freelance, a performance collective with Daniel Lepkoff and Nancy Stark Smith. Their tour of Europe in 1981 eventually led to Christina teaching at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam from 1986-1988.
