ABOUT THE COMPANY
︎REPERTORY ︎PERFORMANCE LIST
Multigravitational Aerodance Group, active from 1969 to 1995, extended the language of dance off the ground into the realm of the air. The Group’s founder, Stephanie Evanitsky, began to explore aerial dance while a student at Pratt Institute. She started by making drawings of dancers who floated in the air. As a dancer herself, she embarked on the kinesthetic experiment that she said involved the dancer’s openness “to live in our moments of no absolute floor, let go of our identity and resistance to change, and soar into our own unknown.” In partnership with one another and various minimal sets, the dancers freed themselves of the usual orientation to a floor to create bold new theatrical perspectives in 360-degree paths of motion.
The first public performances of the Multigravitational Aerodance Group took place at the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York City. The Aerodance Group’s emphasis on spatiality and affinity to sculptural forms made galleries and museums ideal performance sites. Major early performances in 1970-1972 took place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum and the Grand Palais in Paris. In 1971 the Group became a resident dance company at The Space for Innovative Development in NYC. The “Space,” at 334 West 36th Street, was a performing arts complex that housed contemporary theater, music and dance groups including The Open Theater and the Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis dance companies who were early mentors of Stephanie Evanitsky. Multigravitational Aerodance Group continued to make dances using aerial movement vocabularies at their subsequent studios in Tribeca at 260 West Broadway and the East Village at the Sirovich Center, 331 East 12th Street. In 1976 the Group premiered “Homage to Picasso” at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, choreographed by Stephanie Evanitsky with a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Group performed throughout NYC, the U.S., Canada, Singapore and across Europe at festivals, universities, civic theaters, hospitals, community centers, parks, piers, museums, discotheques and medieval town squares. From 1979 to 1995 Aerodance continued under the artistic co-direction of Kay Gainer and Barbara Salz.
“They can slide toward each other while suspended in the air as if they were the only magnetic forces in a gravity-free world.” -Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice
Aerodance received grants, awards and assistance from the Jerome Robbins Foundation, the Samuel Rubin Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Citibank, AT&T, Seamen’s Bank for Savings, the Pacific Northwest Aviation Historical Foundation of Boeing Corporation, and the National Endowment for the Arts’ Dance Touring Program as well as the invaluable support of sponsoring institutions.
This archival website is dedicated to the inspiration of Stephanie Evanitsky [1944-2018] and the dedication of the Multigravitational Aerodance Group dancers and collaborators.
This archival website is dedicated to the inspiration of Stephanie Evanitsky [1944-2018] and the dedication of the Multigravitational Aerodance Group dancers and collaborators.
Dancers:
Stephanie
Evanitsky, Diane van Berg, Dan Walsh, Robert Hanig, Suellen Epstein, Linda
Shillito, Arthur-George Hurray, Kay Gainer, Barbara Salz, Donald
Porteous, Bronya Weinberg, Llewelyn Wheeler, Cecily Carsky, Bruce Brownlee,
Carol Fitzgerald, Leti Denny-Brown, Margaret Liston, Darren Chase and the
artistic collaboration of Robert Fiala.
Music/Sound collaborators:
Richard
Lowenberg, Terence Thomas, Richard Cameron, Richard Hayman, Rob Mounsey, William
Harper, Robert Fair, Travis Gering, Richard Weinstock, Robert Fiala, David
Rossiter, Ken Beltrone, Bobby Radcliff.
Lighting Designers:
Anne
Militello, Debra Dumas, Vivien Leone, Vincent Lalomia, Charles Dexter, Ben
Dolphin, Jon Garness.
Rigging Consultants:
Phil
Crowder, Hovey Burgess, Clint Smith, Gabriel Barre, Joshua Perl, Elmer Phelon,
Tom Saban.
Set Design:
Stephanie
Evanitsky, Janet Nolan, Kay Gainer.
Community Projects Collaborators:
Posy Gering, Susan Haviland, Diva Osoria, Jody Beder, Nina
Jaffe, Nina Drooker.
Special Events Collaborator: Karin Bacon
Costume Designers:
Miharu
Lane, Nils Eklund, Suellen Epstein, Frank Cooper, Beth Neumann, Susan
Rosenberg, Adam Yankauskas, Alyson Pou, Sally Young, Annie Hickman.
Photographers: Ken Karp, Hazel Hankin, Waring Abbott, Allen Harding, Jim Biederman, Ric Schreiber, Rob DeMarco, Geoffrey Gove, Sing Cheong Chu, Bill Weinstein, Joel Gordon, Mariette Pathy Allen, Allen Stillman, Barbara Salz, Ellen Rosenthal, Nina Meledandri, S. Mehrens, Robert Haber, Larry Morris, Michael Goldberg, Bob Alexander, Celia Ostrander, Robert Fiala, Bill Zaccardi, Pat Gorman, Peter Raso, Ellen Cooper, Elizabeth La Bar, Charles Dexter, Martha Swope, Steve Speliotis, Scott St. John, Susan Comegys, Johanas Edberg, Penny Ward.
1985 Rutgers University Documentary Director: Peter Troost.
THIS WEBSITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. REPRODUCTION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
© 2025 Multigravitational Aerodance Group