Janessa Clark is a BESSIE Award nominated choreographer, dance filmmaker, performer, and installation artist. Her practice combines dance, video, and language to create socially-engaged art for stage, screen, and site-specific environments. Her work nourishes a desire to challenge traditional modes of choreography and spectatorship through co-authorship. Janessa holds an MA in Performance Practices and Research from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and a BFA in Choreography from Arizona State University. Janessa has enjoyed prior residencies through CEC ArtsLink, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Exploring the Metropolis, THE VISIONARY, and Loyola Marymount University. Her work has been presented widely over the past 20 years including at HERE Arts Center, Danspace Project, Barry Art Museum, the American Dance Festival, Bate Dance Festival, and internationally at numerous festivals. Her video-dance project, COMMUNION, a response to the Covid-19 crisis was nominated for a 2021 BESSIE Award for Outstanding Production.
As a performer, Janessa has been fortunate to work with Tino Sehgal, Gibney Dance, Laura Peterson Choreography, and Noemie LaFrance among others, and she has received grants from Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Swedish Arts Council, the Croft Residency, and Harlem Stage. She is on the Theater Arts faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently, Janessa is touring and developing her ongoing Tiny Dances Project, premiering a new dance film A Torch in the Machine, and redirecting her research practice into the possibilities of A.I. for choreographic encounters.
