Ara Fitzgerald

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.