Renée Wadleigh
Professor
Renée Wadleigh, Professor and Thesis Advisor, was a NYC-based dancer, choreographer, and teacher for nearly 30 years. She danced with the Paul Taylor Company, among others, and taught at the Taylor School. She was faculty at Adelphi University and Cornell University, taught her own classes in NYC, and in guest positions across the US and abroad. In NYC Wadleigh received Choreographers Fellowship Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1985, 1986, 1988. In Illinois, she received Illinois Arts Council funding in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2005, and served as Company Grant panelist 1997 to 1999. Wadleigh has choreographed 40 new works at the U of I since 1991, set dances on university and professional companies in the US and abroad, performed Yvonne Rainer's masterwork, Trio A, and performed in her own works in 2010 and 2011 as part of the department’s February Dance at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Wadleigh served as juror at the University of Utah’s Screendance Festival 2004, organized and co-hosted the first ever DOGS conference (Directors of Graduate Studies) at the U of U in 2006, and she presented a paper at ADF Screendance Conference 2006. Wadleigh’s work has been performed in numerous venues in Chicago, most recently Fitting Pieces was premiered at the Dance Center Columbia College as part of a 3 week residency. In 2008 Wadleigh received an FAA Creative Research Award to attend the ImPulsTanz Festival in Vienna, Austria. Wadleigh was invited to teach and create a new work at the Contemporary Dance Festival in Quito, Ecuador in Fall 2011 and will be honored as an original member of Paul Taylor’s Aureole at the 50th year celebration held at the Koch Theatre Lincoln Center, in NYC, March 2012.
