Are you an artist, arts organization or venue?

artist

What town do you live in?

East Longmeadow

In which disciplines do you work or exhibit?

Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Dance, Words

Artist Statement/Bio

As a dancer/choreographer for many years, I was fascinated by the relationships of shapes, images and forms, and how their constantly shifting connections and juxtapositions in the performance arena transformed perceptions of space and content. The same pleasures intrigue me now in my visual art.
Working with a variety of materials and diverse media in a narrative visual context, I draw, paint, and construct collage and assemblage on assorted surfaces, including paper, canvas, wood, stones, and/or digital techniques in a multilayered format. One idea, act, or image leads to another, allowing accident and chance to surface the revelations of fantasy, the intimate disclosures of memory, and the evocative power of symbol, metaphor and imagery. Though I rarely know at the beginning what a work will be about, as it unfolds it seems to tell me where it wants to go. I see the making of art as a fundamentally human activity, not separate from the rest of life but intrinsic to the totality of one's being.
FRANCES ALENIKOFF, choreographer, dancer, writer, and multimedia artist, has created over 90 dance theater works, into many of which she incorporated her own text, tape collages, films and artwork, plus collaborations with poets, musicians, filmakers, and visual artists. She has toured extensively nationally and internationally (both as soloist and with her own company), taught workshops in movement, media and improvisational dance theater at numerous universities, has choreographed on Broadway (Josephine Baker Show} and off Broadway (for Joseph Papp at the NY Public Theater), was guest choreographer for the 10th annual Hong Kong Arts Festival, followed by a five month residency with the Modern Dance Theater of Hong Kong, and has performed widely on the New York concert stage.
Writer, Visual Artist: staff dance reviewer for Dance News (1970-1982), and Craft Horizons Magazine, for which she wrote a column called Performance from 1971-1974. Her writings have also been published in Dance Scope, Dance Life in New York,, Vort, South China Morning Post and Dan`s Papers E.H . Her essays, poetry and drawings have been published in Ear Magazine, Shantih (the literature of Soho), Assembling Press, and Movement Research Journal.
Her artworks: including collages, drawings, mixed media works and paintings on stones, have been included in gallery and museum shows in Los Angeles, NYC, and on the East End of Long Island. and she designed and executed stage sets (panels of original drawings) for the production of Scratch by director William Korff at the Walden Theater N.Y. Her solo Re-Membering was Choreographer's Choice Dance Pick in the Village Voice's "Best of Dance'96"and she is currently working on a book of drawings, poetry and writings on the creative process in art and life and the web that connects them.

Website

http://www.skytime.org/artists/Francis/Francis.htm