Curriculum Vitae

Polly Motley is a dance-maker, performer, collaborator and teacher.  Her long-term study is of the interactive relationships of video and performance. She works with video-artist, Molly Davies, to create large scale environments of multiple projections and light.  Davies mixes live-feed and pre-recorded images to change our perceptions of scale and time.

Motley's work has been presented in New York by the Asia Society, the Baryshnikov Art Center, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, Dance Theatre Workshop, Movement Research, The New York Improvisation Festival, The Jack Tilton Gallery and Zone Chelsea.  It has also been presented at  the Hammer Museum, ICA Boston, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, DIVA/Paris, the Contemporary Arts Museum/ Houston, Colorado Dance Festival, The Indonesian Dance Festival, Morishita Studios/ Tokyo, Ballet Freiburg/ Pretty Ugly, Mouson Turm Frankfurt, the Flynn Theatre/ Burlington,  Bates College Museum of Art, and The Edge Festival/ San Francisco.  Collaborators include: dancers Steve Paxton, David Brick/Headlong, Barbara Dilley, Cori Olinghouse, Stacy Spence, Dana Reitz, Simone Forti, Diane Madden and James Clouser; composers Charles Amirkhanian, Takehisa Kosugi, Fred Frith, Sean Clute and DJ M. Singe; video artist Molly Davies, and poets Anne Carson and Jack Collom.

Motley facilitates others’ performance-making.  She teaches What do you want to do?Where do you want to do it? How long do you want to do it?,  Dance Party!!,  Performance and Media (with Molly Davies) and Technique for What?  She trained extensively in post-modern and modern dance, classical ballet, improvisation, and composition. She studied dance ethnology, body-mind centering, dance therapy, Feldencrais, Alexander, and traditional and experimental vocal techniques.

She was a guest artist at Naropa Institute where she studied dance ethnology with Allegra Fuller Snyder and worked with Barbara Dilley in improvisation, creative process and contemplative dance. She was Associate Director of James Clouser's Space/ Dance/ Theater in Houston, and was Clouser's choreographic assistant for the Houston Ballet Company, the Pittsburgh Ballet, and the Dallas Ballet.

She has recently taught at Middlebury College, Bennington College, University of Vermont and Johnson State College.  She was a faculty member at the University of Houston, Naropa Institute, and Loretto Heights College/ Regis University in Denver. Her duties at the university level have included advising graduate and undergraduate students, choreographing and directing student and faculty concerts, directing graduate and undergraduate creative projects, initiating and evaluating new courses, inter-departmental committee work, recruitment and fund-raising.

She lives in Vermont with video-artist, Molly Davies.

Education
Master of Fine Arts in Choreography, 1992
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado

Bachelor of Science in Religious Education, 1974
University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas

Museum & Gallery Performances

2016
The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
The Glyph, choreographed by Katherine Litz, in the exhibit Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1934-1957

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
The Glyph, choreographed by Katherine Litz, in the exhibit Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1934-1957

Johnson State College, Johnson, VT
Video-Performance residency with Molly Davies

2015
Dia Beacon, Beacon, NY
FLAT,  in Selected Works of Steve Paxton

Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT
In No Time, A retrospective of ideas in the work of Polly Motley 

2014
Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT
Exposed

2013
Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT
She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain

2012

Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT

There Was An Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly, performance and lecture demonstrations

2011  
River Arts Center, Morrisville, VT
Critical State, two week installation/performances using entire Grange Hall

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts/Downstreet Art, North Adams, MA
Drawing From the Body, a performance/installation with video by Molly Davies and sound by Paul Geluso

2010
Diva/Paris 
Go Tell Aunt Rhodie and Dressing 

River Arts Center, Morrisville, VT  

Critical State, two week installation/performances using entire Grange Hall   

Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT

Go Tell Aunt Rhodie 

Alliance for the Visual Arts, Lebanon, NH

Falling Downstairs, with video by Molly Davies

2009

Baryshnikov Art Center, New York, NY

Go Tell Aunt Rhodie

Flynn Center for the Arts, Burlington, VT

Go Tell Aunt Rhodie, with Diane Madden

River Arts, Morrisville, VT

3 works in progress with NYC and Malaysian guest artists

Alliance for the Visual Arts, Lebanon, NH

Go Tell Aunt Rhodie

2008

MassMoCA/ Regional Dance Development Initiative

Go Tell Aunt Rhodie

2007

DIVA/ Paris

Go Tell Aunt Rhodie

Bedford-Stuyvesent Event Center, Bronx, NY

Go Tell Aunt Rhodie

2006 
Asia Society, New York, NY

Traditions, Inventions and Exchange, a collaboration with Mugiyono, Kota Yamazaki, Molly Davies

2005

Zone Chelsea, New York, NY

Drawing From the Body, a performance/installation with video by Molly Davies and sound by DJ M. Singe

2004
Smith College Fine Arts Department, Northampton, MA

Drawing From the Body

2002
The Kitchen, New York, NY

The Mirror of Simple Souls, an intermedia installation with images by Molly Davies, text by Anne Carson and sound by Fred Frith

2001
Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA

Drawing From the Body

2000
Yummi Dance Co., Matsuyama, Japan

The Kitchen, New York, New York

Ballet Freiburg/Pretty Ugly, Freiburg, Germany

SNDD, Amsterdam

1999
MousomTurm, Frankfurt, GR

Drawing From the Body

1998
Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY

Drawing From the Body

1995
The Kitchen, New York, NY

You Can Sing Anytime, multimedia collaboration with Molly Davies and Charles Amirkhanian

1990
Boulder Center for the Arts, Boulder, CO

The Bale Light Stories, with installation/performance with architect, Vaida Daukantas

1989
University of Colorado Art Gallery, Boulder, CO

Ladder, with installation by Vaida Daukantas, video by Janice Tanaka

1988
Spark Gallery, Denver, CO

Articulating the Spark Space, with installation by Vaida Daukantas

1978
Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX

My Fair Lady, performance/installation

Stage Performances

2016
The Yard, Chilmark, MA
Island/Chilmark 2016 with David Brick/Headlong

Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, NYC
Precarious, a 3-hr solo, included in Eiko Atake's platform: A Body in Places

2013
Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, NYC
Video Portrait, collaboration with Molly Davies and Cori Olinghouse

2009
Atlanta, Georgia
Charmed Romantics, quintet for CORE Performance Company

2007
Canaldanse, Paris
Large Open House, with Olivier Besson and Mike Vargas

2004
Danspace Project, NYC
Dancing the Numbers, solo evening

2003
Flynn Theatre, Burlington, VT
Vermont Iconoclasts, with Simone Forti

2002
Indonesian Dance Festival, Jakarta
Field, solo

Ballet Freiburg/ Pretty Ugly, Freiburg, Germany
Director, The Dancer’s Mind

1997
The Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, NYC
evening of new works

Flynn Center for the Arts, Burlington, VT
Apple, with Simone Forti

1995
Indonesian Dance Festival, Jakarta
set by Molly Davies, sound by Charles Amirkhanian

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Lee, MA
Folk Dance; Stand By Your Man

Morishita Studios, Tokyo
Waiting: Walking and Standing

1993
Dance Theater Workshop, NYC
Indigenous Culture, solo evening

Edge Festival San Francisco, San Francisco
Stand By Your Man and Point of Rescue

1992
The University of Colorado, Boulder
DeChirico’s Daughter, with Molly Davies and Takehisa Kosugi

1991
Justus Liebig Universitat, Giessen, Germany
Night of the Senses, directed by Molly Davies

1989
Pepsico Summerfare, SUNY Purchase
Suspect Terrain with Dana Reitz, Steve Paxton, Laurie Booth, Jennifer Tipton, and Hans Peter Kuhn

1986
Loretto Heights College, Denver, Colorado
DUET, The White Dance, Taiko