M A R K S C H M I D T
The Unexpected Path to Creative Freedom
An Interview With Southern Finger Lakes Living
SoHa Dance Online Blog
What moves you?
The need to feel vitality, moving dynamically through space-laterally, vertically, in and out of the floor and in the air.
The memory of communal learning experience through dance class with my fellow contemporary dancers in New York.
The need to create in the form of movement improvisation.
My intellectual interest in movement and the body in relationship to itself, others, and space.
Partnering. I Love Partnering. I am addicted to the complex interplay between trust, potential danger, physics, the unknown and sensing.
Mark Schmidt is a performer, choreographer educator, and dance curator who first found solace on the dance floors of New York City’s underground house music and queer club scene in the 1990s. His recent work explores these unique social dance spaces as cultural security zones that simultaneously function as sites of resistance and community building. In addition to studying at The Ailey School, Mark holds a BA with a concentration in Cultural Studies from the New School for Social Research and MFA in Performance and Choreography from SUNY Brockport. As a choreographer, he has presented work at Dixon Place, Kraine Theater, Triskelion Arts, Sia Gallery, Chen Dance Center, Center for Performance Research, and Arts on Site in New York, and the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Bol Theater, and ArtLabJ in Detroit. Past guest artist engagements include: Hofstra University, Nazareth College, SUNY Brockport, Springfield College, the online platform FreeSkewl, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Mark is a cabaret law reform activist and previously served as the Curatorial Committee Vice Chair at Dance Parade Inc. from 2014-2018. Currently he is a performance co-curator for the Southern Finger Lakes Pride Festival held yearly in Corning, NY.
