A choreographer, video artist, curator, and lecturer in interdisciplinary dance and media composition, Moss directs a project-based company called Gametophyte Inc. A longtime New Yorker, he has had a wide range of dance training, including a short period working directly with Martha Graham, touring with the Louis Falco Dance Company, and performing in the Paris company of Broadway’s revival of West Side Story, all in the early 1980s. Notably, he also danced for 10 years (1983-93) with the postmodern choreographer David Gordon in his Pick-up Performance Company. These experiences manifest indirectly through his own work and its use of transcultural, multimedia performance collaborations that often incorporate audience participation. Moss’s performance works have been commissioned by the New York Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, P.S.1, Seoul International Dance Festival, Yerba Buena Art Center, and The Kitchen, among others. His works have been acknowledged by a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography; the Doris Duke Impact Award in Theatre; a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Artists Grant; plus fellowships in both choreography and multidisciplinary works from the New York Foundation for the Arts. A New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award was given for his work Spooky action at a distance. Moss was curator of dance and performance at The Kitchen from 1999-2004 and a curatorial advisor until 2009. He has lectured internationally, including at Tokyo University of the Arts, Kookmin University in Seoul, and Harvard University in the department of Visual and Environmental Studies, for which he received a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. Recently, Moss was a member of the resident faculty at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; on the dance faculty at Princeton University; and co-taught the video and performance composition course Bodies, Spaces, Intimacy and Power in the Age of Covid Isolation in the Painting Department at Rhode Island School of Design. During the 2021-22 academic year, he will join the department of Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is also honored to serve on the board of directors of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. SLC, 2017–
Undergraduate Courses 2022-2023
Dance
Live Time-Based Art
Component—Year
In this class, graduates and upper-class undergraduates with a special interest and experience in the creation of time-based artworks that include live performance will design and direct individual projects. Students and faculty will meet weekly to view works-in-progress and discuss relevant artistic and practical problems, both in class on Tuesday evenings and in conferences taking place on Thursday afternoons. Attributes of the work across multiple disciplines of artistic endeavor will be discussed as integral and interdependent elements in the work. Participation in mentored, critical-response feedback sessions with your peers is a key aspect of the course. The engagement with the medium of time in live performance, the constraints of presentation of the works both in works-in-progress and in a shared program of events, and the need to respect the classroom and presentation space of the dance studio will be the constraints imposed on the students’ artistic proposals. Students working within any number of live performance traditions are as welcome in this course as those seeking to transgress orthodox conventions. While all of the works will engage in some way with embodied action, student proposals need not fall neatly into a traditional notion of what constitutes dance. The cultivation of open discourse across traditional disciplinary artistic boundaries, both in the process of developing the works and in the context of presentation to the public, is a central goal of the course. The faculty members leading this course have roots in dance practice but also have practiced expansive definitions of dance within their own creative work. This course will culminate in performances of the works toward the end of the semester in a shared program with all enrolled students and within the context of winter and spring time-based art events. Performances of the works will take place in the Bessie Schönberg Dance Theatre or elsewhere on campus in the case of site-specific work.
Faculty
Graduate Courses 2022-2023
MFA Dance
Live Time-Based Art
Component—Year
In this class, graduates and upper-class undergraduates with a special interest and experience in the creation of time-based artworks that include live performance will design and direct individual projects. Students and faculty will meet weekly to view works-in-progress and discuss relevant artistic and practical problems, both in class on Tuesday evenings and in conferences taking place on Thursday afternoons. Attributes of the work across multiple disciplines of artistic endeavor will be discussed as integral and interdependent elements in the work. Participation in mentored, critical-response feedback sessions with your peers is a key aspect of the course. The engagement with the medium of time in live performance, the constraints of presentation of the works both in works-in-progress and in a shared program of events, and the need to respect the classroom and presentation space of the dance studio will be the constraints imposed on the students’ artistic proposals. Students working within any number of live performance traditions are as welcome in this course as those seeking to transgress orthodox conventions. While all of the works will engage in some way with embodied action, student proposals need not fall neatly into a traditional notion of what constitutes dance. The cultivation of open discourse across traditional disciplinary artistic boundaries, both in the process of developing the works and in the context of presentation to the public, is a central goal of the course. The faculty members leading this course have roots in dance practice but also have practiced expansive definitions of dance within their own creative work. This course will culminate in performances of the works toward the end of the semester in a shared program with all enrolled students and within the context of winter and spring time-based art events. Performances of the works will take place in the Bessie Schönberg Dance Theatre or elsewhere on campus in the case of site-specific work.
Faculty
Previous Courses
MFA Dance
Dance Making
Component—Year
In this class, graduates and upperclass undergraduates with a special interest and experience in dance composition will design and direct individual choreographic projects. Students and faculty will meet weekly to view works-in-progress and, in conferences taking place the following afternoon, discuss relevant artistic and practical problems. Music, costumes, lighting, and other elements will be discussed as integral and interdependent elements in the choreographic work. This will culminate in performances of the works toward the end of the semester in the Winter Performance and Spring Performance programs. Performances will take place in the Bessie Schönberg Dance Theatre or elsewhere on campus in the case of site-specific work.
Faculty
Rotating Guest Artist Lab
Graduate Seminar—Fall and Spring
This course is an experimental laboratory that aims to expose students to a diverse set of current voices and approaches to contemporary dance making. Each guest artist will lead a module of between three and seven class sessions. These mini-workshops will introduce students to that artist and to his/her creative process. Guests will represent emergent, as well as established, practices.
Faculty
- Dean Moss
- Abby Zbikowski
- Netta Yerushalmy
- Sarah Michelson
- David Thomson
Dance
Live Time-Based Art
Component—Year
In this class, graduates and upper-class undergraduates with a special interest and experience in the creation of time-based artworks that include live performance will design and direct individual projects. Students and faculty will meet weekly to view works-in-progress and discuss relevant artistic and practical problems, both in class on Tuesday evenings and in conferences taking place on Thursday afternoons. Attributes of the work across multiple disciplines of artistic endeavor will be discussed as integral and interdependent elements in the work. Participation in mentored, critical-response feedback sessions with your peers is a key aspect of the course. The engagement with the medium of time in live performance, the constraints of presentation of the works both in works-in-progress and in a shared program of events, and the need to respect the classroom and presentation space of the dance studio will be the constraints imposed on the students’ artistic proposals. Students working within any number of live performance traditions are as welcome in this course as those seeking to transgress orthodox conventions. While all of the works will engage in some way with embodied action, student proposals need not fall neatly into a traditional notion of what constitutes dance. The cultivation of open discourse across traditional disciplinary artistic boundaries, both in the process of developing the works and in the context of presentation to the public, is a central goal of the course. The faculty members leading this course have roots in dance practice but also have practiced expansive definitions of dance within their own creative work. This course will culminate in performances of the works toward the end of the semester in a shared program with all enrolled students and within the context of winter and spring time-based art events. Performances of the works will take place in the Bessie Schönberg Dance Theatre or elsewhere on campus in the case of site-specific work.