…the Choreographer

Originally from Colorado, Elizabeth Dishman began choreographing professionally in 1996 and founded Coriolis Dance Inc., a non-profit modern dance company, in 2001 in Atlanta, GA.  She has presented 13 full-length productions in Atlanta and New York, most recently presenting RIBS (2008)—an evening-length exploration of identity, community and self-revelation—to enthusiastic audiences in both cities.  She is a founding member of The Nerve Series, a collaborative dance movement aiming to push the boundaries of contemporary dance in Atlanta by fostering members’ sense of risk and innovation in the context of artistic community.  She has received numerous grants and fellowships in support of her work, and her choreography has been presented in many adjudicated or invitation-based showcase events.  Elizabeth earned her BA in Voice Performance from Emory University (1995), and her MFA in Choreography from The Ohio State University (2000).  She has been choreographing in New York since 2005 and is delighted to be a part of such a diverse and stimulating arts environment.

Over the last decade, Elizabeth has become known for presenting keenly crafted and emotionally resonant modern dance works that probe and cajole the human experience. Crafting the body’s pulsing, swooping, rebounding rhythms into a rigorous physical counterpoint, her dances search out layered elements of the human experience that play across a wide emotional spectrum.  Offering a robust dedication to both form and expression, she delves into the comic, poignant, and often messy splays of humanity, while maintaining a staunch commitment to aesthetic form and pure visual interest. She has recently developed a fondness for props and sets, and loves using humor as a means to wheedle under the audience’s skepticism, longing through her aesthetic efforts to speak and listen to the deep, protected places of her viewer’s psyche.  Seeking intersections between the abstract and theatrical, the universal and deeply personal, Elizabeth brings to bear a dynamic movement lexicon that has been described by Dance Magazine, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Creative Loafing critics as “quirky, athletic”, “remarkably intelligent”, and “multi-faceted”.  Named “Best Atlanta Dance Company 2005” by Creative Loafing’s Critic’s Pick, Coriolis’ recent evening-length work, FALLING, was first on the Loaf’s  “Top Dance Performances of 2005.”

…the Company

Coriolis Dance Inc. is a professional modern dance company dedicated to the creation of dances that interface, challenge, and delight.  The company’s name references the Coriolis Effect—a physics term describing how the paths of moving objects tend to curve due to the earth’s rotation, so that air and water circle to the left in Idaho and to the right in Chile.  Artistic Director Elizabeth Dishman adopted this name because it describes her bent toward spiraling movements that flow through space and the dancer’s body.  It also represents her interest in the turning experiences and emotions that intermingle in the circling currents of our world.

Founded in Atlanta in 2001, Coriolis was named “Best Dance Company of 2005” by Atlanta’s Creative Loafing, and a recent project, FALLING, was honored as Creative Loafing’s Top Dance Performance of 2005.  The company recently moved north and made its New York City debut in RIBS (2008), an evening-length work considering identity, community and the circular idea that we must know who we are in order to share ourselves with others, but only in earnest community can we realize our truest selves.

In addition to the creation and presentation of original modern dance works, Coriolis is committed to cultivating a wide public audience, educating those unversed in this art form, while stimulating and satisfying seasoned dance aficionados. Included in this mission is a desire to strengthen both sides of the arts mechanism, building a more deeply informed, enthusiastic audience base through educational efforts and artist-audience interaction, and working to foster greater solidarity and communication among dance professionals by creating opportunities for joint projects and supportive dialogue.