Alexx Shilling, Artistic Director / Choreographer / Filmmaker
Alexx Shilling is fully committed to the infinite investigation of movement and its potential to uncover alternative narratives and allow us to remember. Her original choreography and experimental films have been presented nationally and internationally, through residencies at the Millay Colony, PAM and Ebenbökhaus / Jewish Museum in Munich, and with generous support from institutions including Dance Films Association, Asylum Arts, Yiddishkayt, Center for Cultural Innovation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, CHIME (with mentor Bob Een) and most recently the California Arts Council both as Artistic Director of alexx makes dances and ann and alexx make dances (2004-2010).
Since relocating to Los Angeles in 2010, she has created projects in museum spaces, warehouse lofts, city parks, alleyways, bathrooms, private houses, artistic and academic institutions, adapting and transposing dances for unique encounters with audiences.
Shilling’s interdisciplinary research follows three unique strands: site-located performances that question the potential for transformation, the intersection between the fleeting immediacy of live dance and the preservation of still and moving images on film, and works that steal from artistic heroes as a way of paying tribute while simultaneously constructing new paradigms.
Shilling co-founded and co-curated the popular solo performance series Hi, Solo at Pieter and is a member of the Los Angeles-based practice-as-research initiative practice makes practice. During her twelve years in New York, she co-founded/co-curated the Body Blend series at Dixon Place with Sara Juli, founded and directed Radiant Pilates Studio and The Radiant Movement, an experimental movement laboratory in Long Island City. She holds an M.F.A. in dance from UCLA’s Department of World Arts & Culture/Dance and a Bachelor’s degree in dance from Skidmore College. Currently, she is the Pilates Specialist at Loyola Marymount University’s Dance Department and will complete her teaching certificate in Open Source Forms in 2019.
As a performer, Shilling has been working with Victoria Marks since 2010 and has performed with many independent choreographers in New York and Los Angeles including Laurel Jenkins, Richard Rivera/PHYSUAL (2002-present), Alan Danielson, Ariane Anthony, Nickels Sunshine, Kevin Williamson, Ros Warby, Sarah Leddy, Lynn Neuman, Alison D’Amato, Rebecca Pappas and Kristen Smiarowski. She continues to create with longtime collaborators Mimi Yin, Janusz Jaworski, Alberto Denis, Alethea Pace and Latin alternative folk band Cuñao.
