Wendy Perron

Wendy Perron is a dancer, choreographer turned writer, educator, historian, and curator. A member of the Trisha Brown Company in the 1970s, she choreographed 40+ works for her own group. Wendy has taught dance composition, technique, improvisation, or dance history at Bennington College, Princeton University, Rutgers University, SUNY Purchase, Jacob’s Pillow, and an MFA graduate seminar at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has also taught workshops and lectured internationally. In addition to Dance Magazine, where she was Editor in Chief from 2004 to 2013, she has written for The New York Times, The Village Voice, Dance Index, and journals in Europe and China. As Associate Director of Jacob’s Pillow in the early 1990s, she co-directed the International Improvisation Workshop. Perron returned last summer to curate a major exhibit celebrating archivist Norton Owen’s 50 years at the Pillow. The “Dance Historian Is In” series at the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts has invited her to give lectures on four different subjects. Wesleyan University Press has published both her books: Through the Eyes of a Dancer: Selected Writings (2013) and The Grand Union: Accidental Anarchists of Downtown Dance, 1970–1976 (2020). She currently teaches dance history at The Juilliard School and performs with Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks.