Meg Stuart

Biography

Stuart received her BFA in dance at New York University in 1986 and continued her training at the dance laboratory Movement Research in New York, studying movement techniques such as Release technique and Contact improvisation. In the 1980s Stuart worked as a dancer with Nina Martin, Lisa Kraus, Federico Restrepo and Marcus Stern, and from 1986 to 1992 she was a member of the Randy Warshaw Dance Company, where she was also assistant to the choreographer.

In 1994 Stuart founded her own company, Damaged Goods, and made Brussels her artistic home. She settled in Europe because she found her work was better financially supported than in New York; she has said, “in Europe there is an idea about developing artists that is not found in America.”

With Damaged Goods, Stuart has created more than twenty productions, ranging from solos to large-scale choreographies and including site-specific creations and installations. Over the years she has initiated and taken part in many improvisation projects, including a commission for the New York Performa biennial. She curated the festival Intimate Strangers (Berlin 2006, Brussels 2008, Toulouse 2011 and Ghent 2011) with performances, concerts, installations and lectures by artists related to Damaged Goods. She has collaborated with many artists, including Pierre Coulibeuf, Philipp Gehmacher, Ann Hamilton, Gary Hill, Benoît Lachambre, Jorge León and Hahn Rowe. Residencies in Schauspielhaus Zürich (2000–04) and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin (2005–10) led to collaborations with theatre directors Stefan Pucher, Christoph Marthaler and Frank Castorf. In 2010 Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods initiated a new collaboration with the Münchner Kammerspiele. Her work has been widely performed internationally and presented at Documenta X (1997) in Kassel, Germany and at Manifesta7 (2008) in Bolzano, Italy.

Work

On the invitation of the Klapstuk festival in Leuven, Belgium, she created her first evening-length piece, Disfigure Study (1991), which launched her choreographic career in Europe.

Stuart is also the author of a book, Are we here yet?, about the company.

Awards

Stuart has received the Mobil Pegasus Award at the Sommertheaterfestival in Hamburg (1994) for No Longer Readymade; the Culture Award of the Catholic University of Leuven (2000); the German theatre prize Der Faust (2006) for her choreography of Replacement; the French Prize of Criticism (2008) for Blessed; a special prize for Maybe Forever at the Bitef Festival in Belgrade (2008); a Bessie Award (2008) for her body of work; a Flemish Culture Award in Performing Arts (2008); the Konrad Wolf Prize for exceptional accomplishments in the arts (2012); and Montreal's Grand Prix de la Danse (2014).