Daniel Burkholder
Faculty, Dance
danburk@gwu.edu

Daniel Burkholder is the Director of The PlayGround, an improvisationaly infused movement performance group, and Co-Director of Improv Arts, inc.   His work has been awarded the 2006 Metro DC Dance Award for “Outstanding Group Performance in a Dance Production” and in 2005 a Local Dance Commission Project through The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He has served as a curator of the DC International Improvisation Festival and on the Steering Committee for the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival. From 1992-1998 he was the Co-Director, with Sharon Mansur, of Quiescence, a dance/performance group. His work has been seen at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (WDC), 92nd Street Y (NYC), 848 Community Space (SF), Dance Place (WDC), The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (MD), Context Studios (NYC), Contemporary American Theater Festival (WVA), along with numerous indoor and outdoor spaces. Daniel’s work has been commissioned by CrossCurrents Dance Company, Montgomery College, Community College of Baltimore, Joy of Motion Dance Studios, Maryland Art Place, Dance Place, and Choreographers Collaboration Project. In the spring of 2003 Daniel was a Resident Artist in the Djerassi Artist Residency Program in California.

Daniel is an accomplished festival organizer and teacher of contact improvisation, dance improvisation, somatics and contemporary technique. He has taught at the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival, the Wild Meadows Improvisation Intensive, University of Maryland College Park, American University, George Washington University, Dance Place, CityDance Center at Strathmore, Joy of Motion Dance Studios, Sonoma State University and as guest teacher for Cirque du Soleil. He has organized ‘(c.)ontact (i.)mprovisation : process & performance’ in which he taught with K.J. Holmes and Scott Wells and ‘(c.)ontact (i.)mprovisation : playing with sound’ in which he taught with Nancy Stark Smith and Mike Vargas. He also co-organized the ‘INside/OUTside Improv Festival’ at Glen Echo Park. 

In addition to performing in his own work Daniel has performed with numerous artists in Washington, DC, San Francisco & New York City. While living in San Francisco, Daniel worked with Scott Wells & Dancers and performed in Angus Belbernie's “A Thousand Grey Birds”. Daniel has also performed with Jess Curtis & Stephanie Maher, Lesa McLaughlin & Dancers, Beth Davis in Good Company, Carla & Company, Alvin Mayes, Sharon Mansur, Rachel Shaw and other independent choreographers. Daniel has performed improvisationaly with Nancy Stark Smith, K.J. Holmes, Katie Duck, Scott Wells, Sharon Mansur and other fellow performers. Daniel also served as the D.C./Local Dancers’ Rehearsal Director for the Washington Performing Arts Society presentation of White Oak Dance Project’s “Past Forward” program.

Daniel has studied with numerous teachers including his mentor Viola Farber, Bill T. Jones, K.J. Holmes, Peggy Hackney, Carol Swann, Martha Eddy, Deborah Riley, Jerry Pearson, Pat Catterson and in an intensive with Twyla Tharp. He has studied modern dance, contact improvisation, dance improvisation, The Feldenkrais Method and choreography. Daniel’s studies have also included Laban Movement Theory, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Body-Mind Centering, Yoga, Ballet, Jazz, Tap & Break Dancing.

Daniel graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, American University, Moving On Center / School for Participatory Arts and is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitionercm.