Loni Landon Dance Project

is committed to collaboration and innovation in contemporary dance through music, technology, and dance  collaborations. Through the exploration of themes of intimacy, (dis)connection, self-reflection, gender politics, and personal memory, our work invites narratives that draw upon the dancers' creative choices, individuality and artistic integrity within the process and performance. We strive to contribute to the personal spectrum of human emotion and challenge performers to reveal their true selves beyond their performance persona.

Loni Landon is a Dancer, Choreographer, and Movement Consultant based in New York City. In addition to creating dances for her own collective Loni Landon Dance Project, her work is commissioned by Dance Companies and Film Directors across the country. Born and raised in New York City, Landon received her BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School. While a student at LaGUardia High School of Performing Arts, Landon was AN NFAA Young Arts Modern Dance Winner. After Juilliard, Landon performed with Aszure Barton and Artists, Ballet Theater Munich, Tanz Munich Theater, and The Metropolitan Opera.

Landon is a Princess Grace Choreography Fellowship Winner And A NYFA Finalist in CHOREOGRAPHY. As a sought after choreographer, her work has been commissioned by Keigwin and Company, BODYTRAFFIC, James Sewell Ballet, Whim Whim, LEVY DANCE, The Juilliard School, American Dance Institute, Northwest Dance Project, Groundworks Dance Company, Hubbard Street, BalletX, Ballet Austin, SUNY Purchase, NYU, Boston Conservatory, and Marymount Manhattan College. Her company has performed at The Joyce Theater, Pulse Art Fair, Jacob's Pillow, Insitu Dance Festival, southampton Arts Center, Odc, Greenwood Cemetery, Bryant Park, Beach Sessions in Rockaway Beach and Guggenheim Works and Process Series.

She has won numerous awards including 1st Prize Winner of Ballet Austin’s New American Talent Competition, Northwest Dance Project’s “Pretty Creatives’” Choreographic Competition, Next Commission from CITY DANCE Ensemble, Finalist in the International Solo Tanz Theater Competition in Stuttgart, Germany, Finalist in the Hannover International Choreography Competition and an Emerging Choreographer at Springboard Danse Montreal. Her collaboration “Tapis Magique”with MIT technologist, Irmandy wickaksono, won the innovation award at SXSW.

LONi choreographed the feature film “Saturday Church,” Directed by Damon Cardasis, which premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival and Produced ”Movement at the Still point,” - an ode to Dance with photographer mark mann, PUBLISHED by rizzoli books.

Landon was a participant in the New Movement Residency at USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation New Directions Choreography Lab made possible through the generous support of the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Other residencies include ITE, NYU, CUNY Dance Initiative, Kaatsbaan, YoungArts, And Stephen Petronio’s new residency center, Crow’s Nest, in collaboration with Dance Lab NY, and Dancers Responding to Aids. She has been adjunct faculty at NYU, Barnard, SUNY Purchase and Princeton University.

Landon is passionate about Entrepreneurship in the Arts and has co-founded THE PLAYGROUND, an initiative designed to give emerging choreographers a place to experiment while allowing professional dancers to participate affordably. The Playground was recognized by Dance Magazine as a 25 To Watch. As well as four/four presents, a platform that commissions and presents collaborations between dancers and musicians. Loni earned her MFA from The university of the Arts.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Working as an interdisciplinary artist that focuses on dance, performance, film, curation, education  and production, I am passionate about collaboration- working together through the expansive act  of gathering individuals or groups through creativity and art making.  I am drawn to  the unknown and savor the generative process of discovery using direction, pathway, dialogue, reaction, autonomy, emotional landscape, CHOICE-MAKING, rigor, abstraction to bring dance into a form. I have a deep desire to create dance that can unfold and shift throughout my lifetime, reaching a wide audience without exclusivity.  I’m intrigued by the potential of finding new possibilities THAT profoundly CREATE spaces of  opening.

My movement stems from a classical background influenced by improvisation which is a nuanced approach that is full of intention, sensorial investigations, and the PUSH-PULL between the internal body and the external experience.

Inspired by an upbringing in an urban environment, there is an intuitive fuel to keep moving, a driving tempo, an abundance of sensory stimulation, and an innate sense of direction and purpose. Learning to navigate a city has honed my instincts and resourcefulness, guiding me throughout my career. The diversity of experiences that comes with city life has also instilled in me a deep appreciation for individuality and a desire to work inclusively with people from all walks of life. It is this very diversity that inspires my work and fuels my passion for creating art that celebrates and honors the uniqueness of each individual. The experience of spending most of my life riding the subway has been a major influence shaping my choreographic style. The sounds and vibrations of the train, the stares of strangers, and the unexpected situations have all left lasting impressions on me. Observing the expressions and idiosyncrasies of people on their daily commutes has led to unexpected choreography, random acts of unison, canon,  group formations, cause and effect — all unfolding in real-time. 

I investigate the micro and macro scope, transitioning seamlessly between intimate nuanced movements and the architecture of working with multiple artists in space. Rooted in systems of intertwined tensions, releases, crisp yet feathery attacks, and highly physical, rearrange, and deconstruct: always arriving, never at rest. The work aims towards images THAT linger in the viewer’s mind. Recurring themes of intimacy, disconnection, self-reflection, gender politics, and personal memory invite narratives that draw upon the dancers’ choice within process and performance  and hope towards an artistic integrity  unveiling the humanity behind the performance persona to become revealed. 

What do hands look like when they argue? How do arms reach for someone they cannot touch? I ask these thematic questions and begin. Then, my work becomes an obsession WITH movement details: the definite clarity between the isolation of a finger versus a wrist; a simple gesture starting as a raindrop and turning into a tsunami. I use setting to visualize group formations so that the performance unfolds like a Rube Goldberg machine, further divulging the narrative. Drawing upon the dancers’ prowess, I encourage dialogue in a thought-driven process. I give space for collaborators to find their own voice and to expand on their choices within the work.

I care deeply about the people I work with making it a priority of creating a safe space for all to be heard. I am influenced by holistic spaces where dancers can reveal their narratives, energies in a symbiotic exchange.  Emphasis on process over product encourages dialogue and movement investigation with collaborators. My practice reveals visceral reactions, finding the dynamics of something unexpected, like a moment of stillness or how to unlearn the choreography, to reveal the imperfections. I am meticulous about guiding dancers, through one movement at a time, slowly crafting each individual guttural reaction while maintaining the magnetism of the whole. Playing with the dynamics of time, I am interested in how a solitary, supplicatory gesture can continue to change in innumerable ways or  without adding many steps, how a phrase can continue to shift using choreographic tools such as accumulation, variation, repetition, pauses, tempo changes, to reveal multi layers. I use abstractions of iconography within a narrative so that images linger in the mind of the viewer.