rob list
bio
 
  
Rob List is a performer, choreographer and teacher based in Amsterdam. In the early 80s he toured internationally in the avant-garde theatre and film work of Ping Chong and Meredith Monk, as well as performing his own movement works at La Mama and the Kitchen in New York. From 1985-1990 he was artistic director of the Mime Opleiding in Amsterdam. From1987-1993 he was founder and co-director of the Institute for New Dramaturgy, which presented workshops in interdisciplinary composition by visual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers in eastern and western Europe, as well as conducting research programs in new forms of dramaturgy for dance and mime.

Since 1990 Rob List has continued his solo performance career, creating a unique stage language and movement style in works such as the FIGURE SERIES [90-94], DOUBLE SERIES [95-99], STILL LIFE SERIES [96-00], and FOLLY SERIES [00-03]. These minimal movement pieces are based on subjects and ideas from the visual arts, science and architecture. He has performed these in theaters, galleries and international festivals in Europe and the USA.

Since 2002 Rob List has been working with young dancers, mimes, visual artists and filmmakers in an ever-changing ensemble called OZU, developing live performances which emphasize successive solo movement sequences. STRUIK AND STRUWEEL [02], FOLLY n.3 [03], BOSSCHAGE [04], NESCIO SERIES[ [05-07], and INJERTO/GREFFE [08].

In the past seven years Rob List has developed a workshop form for young choreographers, directors and performance artists called MOVING AND DRAWING. He has taught these throughout Europe and the USA. In the spring of 2007 he was movement advisor to Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker in the making of her solo ‘Keeping Still’.

Rob List has also created a company of young dance teachers who perform an original pantomime program for senior citizens called ‘SPROOKS: Young for Old’ which has entertained thousands of older folks in hundreds of centers throughout the Netherlands since 2005.

Rob List has received a number of awards for his work, including the 1997 VSCD Mime Prize and a 2002 Artists Prize from the City of Amsterdam. He was a 2004 Fulbright Scholar and a former recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Choreographic Fellowship.

In my work I want to create an elementary theater removed of all psychological elements, a performance space which evokes a more basic moment in human communication - one without text, characters, or socially coded gestures - and which affects the audience in an emotional way without their quite being able to identify what is going on. This work is grounded in an active stillness in which the viewer's perceptions are reactivated outside the context of daily life. My work strives not to be a representation of human experience but rather a source of it, more akin to listening to music or looking at painting, but without being merely a formal aesthetic experience. In my performances the human being is an anonymous everyman whose eyes and ears share the same sensations as those of the audience, in a communal and elemental experience.

COMPOSITIONS

on the balcony - group [new york, 2010]
greffe/injerto - group [amsterdam, 2008]
pleiadi - group [amsterdam, 2008]
nescio series 2 - group [amsterdam, 2007]
dths & mdns - duet [amsterdam, 2007]
double mirror dance - solo [amsterdam, 2007]
engrave - solo [amsterdam, 2006]
milk of human kindness - solo [paris, 2006]
nescio series 1 - group [amsterdam, 2006]
the421 - group [sofia, 2004]
bosschage - group [amsterdam, 2004]
feuillée - group [amsterdam, 2003]
struik en struweel - group [amsterdam, 2003]
oosterpark - solo [amsterdam, 2002]
grotto - duet [amsterdam, 2001]
folly - solo [amsterdam, 2000]
trompe l'oeil - solo [amsterdam, 2000]
ter kloon - solo [amsterdam, 1999]
ninety degrees vanitas - solo [amsterdam, 1998]
4glm - solo [marseille, 1997]
natura morta - solo [zurich, 1996]
figure - solo [berlin, 1990]
bitter oleander - trio [amsterdam, 1989]
bodas de sangre - group [amsterdam, 1988]
earthquake in chile - duet [amsterdam, 1986]
new voices party - group [new york, 1985]
console - solo [new york, 1984]
at the falls - group [new york, 1983]
white strand - trio [san francisco, 1983]
men living underwater - solo [chicago, 1982]
after the white hart - group [boulder, 1981]
blues for charles darwin - solo [san francisco, 1979]

PERFORMANCE

1980-2009
[solo and own group:]
Accuse de Reception Paris, La Mama, Kitchen New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Frascati, Shaffy Amsterdam, Harturm Zurich, Friche de la Belle de Mai Marseille, 40mCube Rennes, Beweeging Antwerp, Naropa Institue Colorado, Motion Festival Prague, Transcultural Festivals Plovdiv, Sofia, Varna, Pont Museum Tilburg, etc.
[with Ping Chong:]
Guggenheim Museum New York, Osaka Festival, Mickery Amsterdam, Walker Art Center Minnesota, CRT Milan, Nancy Theater Festival, Maison de la Culture Neuilly, Simon Frazier University Vancouver, La Mama, Kitchen, DTW New York, etc.
[with Meredith Monk:]
PBS/ZDF film "Ellis Island"
[with Ellen Fisher:]
PS122, Limbo Lounge, 8BC New York, etc.

1974-1979
[with Kite Tails:]
Denver Museum of Art, Edinburgh Festival, London Mime Festival, University of San Francisco, Aspen Institute, Iowa State University, Brigham Young University, etc.
[with Tandy Beal Dance Company:]
various colleges and universities in western USA.

TEACHING

2005
founder/director studio OZU Amsterdam

1990-1998
founder/director Institute for New Dramaturgy Amsterdam

1985-1991
artistic director Theaterschool Amsterdam

1987-1990
founder/director Zomeracademie Amsterdam

1975-1981
Faculty Naropa Institute Colorado, Cabrillo College California

1975-2004
workshops
Faculty New Bulgarian University Sofia, University of Plovdiv, Art Institute of Chicago, Rotterdam Dance Academy, University of Hawaii, University of California at Berkeley/Santa Cruz/La Jolla, Rochester Mime Workshop, New Bulgarian University, Arizona State University, San Jose State University, School for New Dance Development Amsterdam, Varna Theater Festival, DasArts Amsterdam, etc.

AWARDS, GRANTS

Fulbright Scholar 2004
Amsterdam Kunstprijs 2002 [retrospective Solos 1990-2000]
National VSCD Mime Prijs 1997
AFK Aanmoedigingsprijs Mime 1995 [Mud Club]
Best Actor Villager New York, 1982
Artist-in-Residence Triangle France Marseille, 1997
Artist-in-Residence University of Nebraska 1979
National Endowment for the Arts Choreographic Fellowship 1984
Netherlands Ministry of Culture Project Grants [2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1987]
Amsterdam Fund for the Arts Project Grants [2001, 1999, 1996, 1993, 1991]
Netherlands Ministry of Culture Structural Subsidy 2005 - 2008

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