David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group

Biography

As artistic director of Advanced Beginner Group, Neumann’s work has been presented in New York at PS 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Central Park SummerStage (where he collaborated with John Giorno), Celebrate Brooklyn and Symphony Space (where he collaborated with Laurie Anderson), The Whitney at Altria and most recently at The Kitchen. David Neumann and Advanced Beginner Group have received four Bessie Awards, several grants including Creative Capital, BUILD and MAP funds. Neumann was most recently awarded a 2011 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award for Dance.

Neumann is currently a professor of Theater at Sarah Lawrence College and a guest lecturer in acting at the Yale School of Drama. 

Artist Statement

David Neumann/ advanced beginner group believes in making multi-disciplinary dances from scratch bringing to gesture, word and proximity a delighted embrace of our contradictory lives. Neumann utilizes experimental dance-making approaches with a humorous outlook and an inclusive layering of disciplines to create complex, thought-provoking dance works that push the form. Neumann’s explorations challenge his assumptions on ‘how to make a dance’ giving each work a distinct geography with which the viewers can examine their own assumptions. These approaches are born of the belief that there is always something more to think and feel, always another mind to engage in surprising ways, always a valuable effort in trying to bend the habitual gestures around new shapes.