Seán Curran at RWU for week-long residency

Seán Curran's career in the arts spans 35 years, beginning with traditional Irish step dancing as a child in Boston. He is known for his performance work with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, for which he was honored with a “Bessie” award for his role in Secret Pastures, and as an original New York City cast member of STOMP! 

Curran’s 30 dance works for his professional ensemble Seán Curran Company are characterized by collaborations across genres and have toured to over 100 venues in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The company recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with a season as part of the BAM 2018 Next Wave Festival featuring live music by the Grammy award-winning ensemble, Third Coast Percussion.

A sought-after choreographer and director for opera and theatre, notable commercial projects for Curran include Salome (Opera Theatre of St. Louis, San Francisco Opera, Opera Montreal, San Diego Opera); Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream for The Shakespeare Theater; An American Soldier, 27, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, Shalimar the Clown, Ariadne on Naxos, Nixon in China, Daughter of the Regiment, and Champion at Opera Theater of St. Louis; NYC Opera productions of L'Etoile, Alcina, Turandot, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Capriccio, and Acis and Galetea; Shakespeare in the Park's As You Like It; the Metropolitan Opera's Romeo and Juliette; Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream for The Shakespeare Theater; and Broadway’s James Joyce's The Dead, Cymbeline, and The Rivals at Lincoln Center Theater.

A graduate and faculty member of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Curran is currently an Arts Professor and Chair of the Department of Dance. He has over 25 years of teaching experience in modern technique, improvisation, body percussion and composition as a visiting artist at the American Dance Festival, Harvard Summer Dance Center, Bates Dance Festival, Boston's Conservatory of Music, and countless U.S. university dance departments and private studios. Curran has created works for The Wooden Floor, The Limon Dance Company, Trinity Irish Dance Company, ABT II, Denmark's Upper Cut Company, Sweden's Skänes Dance Theater, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Ririe Woodbury Dance Theater, and Dance Alloy.

Irish American Magazine selected Curran as one of its "Top 100” in 2002 and he has been awarded several Choreographer's Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He has performed his solo evening of dances at venues throughout the United States as well as at Sweden's Danstation Theatre and France's EXIT Festival.

Happiest when making new work, Curran hopes to continue to be an ambassador for the art of dance by building and educating the dance audiences of tomorrow.

 Evan Copeland hails from central Pennsylvania and moved to NYC in 2003. He received his BFA from Tisch School of the Arts where he is now an adjunct professor. He performed in Punchdrunk's Sleep No More NYC and is currently working with Martha Clarke and Bobbi Jene Smith. He has worked predominantly with Shen Wei Dance Arts and The Seán Curran Company and recently danced with Opera Lafayette, Houston Grand Opera and Santa Fe Opera. He is a performer, teacher, creator, tap dancer, coach and personal trainer residing in Brooklyn.

Visit seancurrancompany.com for more information about Seán Curran and his dance company.