About Apogee Arts
apogee (noun) /ˈapəjē/
the farthest or highest point in the development of something; a climax or culmination
At Apogee Arts (formerly Alison Chase/Performance), our collaborations with artists, arts organizations, and community organizations have pushed our work further and higher than would have been possible alone. In acknowledgement of these collaborators, past and present, we have expanded beyond an individual artist in the company’s name, and we’ve embraced the name Apogee Arts.
Apogee Arts is a multidisciplinary collaborative founded by Alison Chase in 2010. Apogee Arts enlarges the playing field of the performing arts by dissolving the barriers between traditionally separate fields of dance, theater, and film. The bedrock of our practice is cooperative creativity. We bring together accomplished movers, actors, musicians, and visual artists to create new works for audiences in prosceniums and site-specific locales.
Our work is based in Maine but stretches nationally and internationally. We’ve been inspired by a variety of geographical patterns, which has made it possible for our work to jump out of the proscenium box into quarries, warehouses, tents, public spaces, and galleries. Our rich creative network has allowed us to waltz into self-producing, collaborating with non-traditional presenters and cross-disciplinary projects. And we’ve delighted in engaging rural and urban communities in Maine and elsewhere through outreach, workshops, and open rehearsals.
Collaboration is what defines us as an organization. Scroll down to learn about the many people who are part of our legacy, contributing to our work today, and helping create our future.
Alison Chase, Artistic Director
Collaboration is the bedrock of Alison Chase’s creative practice. The illustrious and world-renowned Maine-based choreographer has been expanding the ways that collaboration can amplify and augment how we consume dance and how dance consumes us for many years. As a choreographer, director, teacher and theatrical artist, her work explores emotional terrain through innovative movement, multidimensional storytelling, fusions of film and dance, site-specific works, and museum installations.
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Alison's instinct for collaboration and education led to a position as Choreographer-In-Residence and Assistant Professor of Dance at Dartmouth College in 1970, after she graduated from UCLA with an M.A. in Dance. Her initial class was offered to the all-male undergraduate student body, many of whom were athletes with no dance background. Alison's ability to teach improvisation and collective creativity proved transformational, and from this unexpected setting emerged the origins of Pilobolus Dance Theater, where she was a Founding Artistic Director.
In the 1970s and 80s, her choreographic vision was to challenge how partnering appeared to audiences, urging dancers to bend gender expectations. Often called the "Mother of Invention," Alison created more than 50 works for stage. At Pilobolus, Alison pioneered the development of unorthodox partnering techniques, vaulted into unexplored aerial terrain, and built an eclectic repertoire of choreography ranging from performing as the opening act for the Frank Zappa show, collaborating with the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, to working with a Diné medicine woman. She has choreographed for La Scala Opera, the Geneva Opera, the Ballet du Rhin, and the Fete de l’Humanité.
In 1980, Alison launched the company MOMIX with Moses Pendleton. She taught in the Theater Studies Program at Yale for six years while simultaneously working as Artistic Director and choreographer for Pilobolus Dance Theatre, where she headed the company's educational outreach for fourteen years.
In more recent years, her work has jumped out of the proscenium box to build new audiences for dance by performing in site-specific locations alongside everyday life. She established Apogee Arts in 2010 to more freely pursue her creative vision of bold collaborations with other artists, writers, designers, composers, photographers, filmmakers, dancers, and musicians.
Alison has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980; the 1992 Laurel Award for Life Time Achievement; the 2007 Connecticut Governor's Award; the Scripps Award in 2000; and the CINE Golden Eagle Award in 2002. She was named Performing Arts Fellow for 2009 by the Maine Arts Commission.
Alison and her family live in a close-knit community on the coast of Maine, where Apogee Arts collaborators frequently gather for inspiration and creative development.
Collaborators
Our work has been enriched by a long and continually growing list of collaborators who span the disciplines of dance, music, theater, photography and film, lighting, set design, and more. “I’ve enjoyed a career of wild aesthetic plunges and want to thank all of the collaborators and extraordinary casts who dove off the high dive and made this work possible,” says Artistic Director Alison Chase.
To understand our expansive network of collaborators, explore our Collaborations and Performances.
Key Supporters
We’re indebted to the supporters, advocates, partners, and funders who’ve made it possible to sustain and grow the vision for Apogee Arts over the years. Among many others, this list includes:
National Endowment for the Arts
Onion Foundation
Davis Family Foundation
Maine Community Foundation
Maine Arts Commission
Board of Directors
Sandy Lovell, Chair
Oliver Chase, Treasurer
Alison B. Chase
Anne Trecker
