Join "Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey and special guest Anna Sperber
In this episode of "Dance Talk” ® , host Joanne Carey interviews choreographer Anna Sperber, who shares her journey into the world of dance, her education, and her artistic identity. They discuss her upcoming piece 'Beacons' at the American Dance Festival, the role of the audience in dance, and the creative process behind choreography.
Sperber reflects on the influence of motherhood and Martha Graham on her work, the importance of somatics, and her initiative 'Class, Class, Class' aimed at fostering new teaching talent. The conversation culminates in her thoughts on receiving the Bessie Award and her excitement about returning to ADF.
Anna Sperber is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and performer. Her work has been described by The New York Times as “immediately compelling” and “wonderfully strange” with “moments of theatrical magic.” Her performances are rooted in the poetic potency of choreography and its potential for perceptual transformation, embodying a tension between formality and chaotic wildness.
Sperber received a 2022 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” award for Outstanding Choreographer / Creator for Bow Echo (2021). Her work has been presented and commissioned by The Kitchen, The Joyce Theater UNLEASHED Series, The Chocolate Factory, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Roulette, Gibney Dance, and Dance Theater Workshop in New York City, as well as by the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC. Sperber has received fellowships and residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Bogliasco Foundation in Bogliasco Italy, the Marble House Project, as a Schonberg Fellow at Dance The Yard, Dance Initiative in Carbondale Colorado, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance DiP (Dance in Process), Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Movement Research. Her work has been supported by New Music USA Live Music for Dance, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, and Brooklyn Arts Council, Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation, and a 2025 NYSCA Grant to Individual Artists.
Sperber has collaborated extensively with esteemed experimental composers and live musicians as well as visual designers in New York City. These interdisciplinary collaborations are crucial to the integration of visual and sonic landscapes with the moving body in her work. As a performer, she has worked with many New York-based choreographers including luciana achugar and Juliette Mapp.
Sperber was a co-founder of classclassclass, designed to nurture new dance teachers while offering reduced class rates, and has taught as a guest artist at American Dance Festival, Movement Research, Freeskewl, Gibney Dance, Hunter College, George Washington University, and Wayne State University. Sperber founded and ran BRAZIL, a studio and intimate performance space in Bushwick, Brooklyn from 2004 to 2014 and Sunset Space from 2019-2020.
More about Anna
See the performance at American Dance Festival
https://americandancefestival.org/event/anna-sperber/2025-06-25/
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“Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey
"Where the Dance World Connects, the Conversations Inspire, and Where We Are Keeping Them Real."
