Decades ago when I told my grandmother, a retired vaudevillian and jazz bandleader, that I would pursue Modern Dance, she chortled. I asked her what was so funny and she said, “A modern dancer is just a vaudevillian with an education.”
I have for a number of years been experimenting with movement, text and humor primarily in solo, duet and trio performance works as a way to question, illuminate and observe the human condition in contemporary culture - especially in its female form.
For me dance is an expressive theatrical art. I am as engaged by language, visual images and music as I am by movement. Since improvisation is an essential element in my process, I am tempted to call my work a kind of jazz theater. I can still hear my grandmother laugh.
Ara Fitzgerald is a dance theatre artist, choreographer, improviser and educator who was a member of Daniel Nagrin’s The Workgroup and The Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble where she first worked with composer Wall Matthews. Her work has been produced at venues including Fringe NYC, Dance Theatre Workshop, The 92nd Street Y, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Knitting Factory, The Construction Company, The Yard, The American Dance Guild Festival, The DanceNow Festival, WET, Norte Maar, Triskelion Arts, The Dance Place (Washington, DC), and The Dragon’s Egg, in living room concerts in Los Angeles and New York and The Zen Center of Chicago.
Current repertory includes her collection of solos The Adventures of The Ever Fragmenting Woman (PG35), Words for Music Perhaps, based on the poetry of WB Yeats, created in collaboration with composer Wall Matthews, Pilgrimage choreographed with Clare Byrne and the honor of performing Life of a Flower and Conversation With An Ant by renowned dancer/clown, Lotte Goslar. For theatre she has choreographed on and off Broadway.
A graduate of Connecticut College (BA) and Wesleyan University (MALS), she has taught at Connecticut College, The National Theatre Institute, Trinity Square Conservatory, Rockland Community College,The Hartman Conservatory and served as Director of Dance and Theatre at Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY.
Press
…. a skilled comic actress-dancer… an unusually smooth blend of humor and choreographic deftness.
…. a seamless collaboration of words, music and dance.
Jennifer Dunning, New York Times
…..the work which she and Wall Matthews have based on WB Butler Yeats’ Crazy Jane Poems is outstandingly beautiful.”
Mary Brennan, Glasgow Herald
“Ara Fitzgerald is another transatlantic talent for whom dance, though a crucial element is only the beginning of creativity…. marvelously funny and searingly truthful.
Cordelia Oliver, The Guardian
Ara Fitzgerald can make body language shout and sing.
Lindsay Paterson, The Scotsman
….begins like a vaudeville routine, with showy movements full of hooey hokum and flailing elbows but eventually smoothes into a thoughtful and somewhat sensual exploration of the role of food in the creation of man.
Robert Weinstein, nytheatre.com
“... the evocative medium known as ‘fool’s theatre’ performed by those omni-gifted minimalists the world calls ‘clowns. Fitzgerald touches us while she makes us laugh.”
Kitty Montgomery, The Woodstock Times
“Ara Fitzgerald charmingly brought the late Lotte Goslar signature solo and sweetly comic.. Life of a Flower, to life…. utterly spontaneous and full of pathos, vulnerability and comic subtlety. As a result, we identified with this little flower.”
Pat Catterson, review of The American Dance Guild Festival
Peer Quotes
“Just plain funny is all too rare in dance these days. Ara Fitzgerald's work is not only funny, but also witty, accessible and moving. She's a thread in an all-but-forgotten lineage of female solo performers - Lotte Goslar, Margie Beals, even Whoopi Goldberg - whose every gesture speaks decades of experience.
Marta Renzi, Choreographer and filmmaker
“Ara’s work is brilliant on many levels. It is smart, moving, beautifully structured and always offers a kernel of humor. This is solo work at its best.”
Joanna Mendl Shaw, Choreographer and director of The Equus Projects
"Ara Fitzgerald's work is quirky and profound in the same moment. I find myself laughing with abandon in one section and then quickly brought to a place of exquisite tenderness in the next. Ara is a consummate performer; the space comes alive with her sense of wit, ease and imagination. I absolutely love her work."
Rebecca Stenn, Choreographer, performer, faculty The New School
“In my opinion, Ara Fitzgerald is the rare artist; one who is consistently truthful and profoundly human. It is always a pleasure to watch this performer. She is totally clear in her theatrical endeavors and you never have to scratch your head wondering what she is doing. She let’s you into her world and keeps you there until the last thought is written and carved in your imagination."
Lance Westergard, Choreographer, performer and former Director of Dance Hofstra University
"Ara’s original and unique narrative dance performances are visually beautiful, thought-provoking, emotionally nuanced, and politically aware."
MJ Edwards, Curator/Director, Grand Manan Museum, Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada