Gabrielle Lansner & Company, History: 1997 - present

gabrielle lansner & company has been exploring the intersection of dance, theater and film, garnering critical acclaim from New York City press for all of their innovative productions since 1997. The company creates emotionally complex and layered works that delve into the heart and psyche. Using the elements of dance, gesture, text and music,we turn fiction and nonfiction into emotionally evocative and psychologically charged performance works and films.

In 2009, gabrielle lansner & company turned to filmmaking, producing four short narrative movement films. DAD, wishing..., the birch grove and The Stronger have screened worldwide at festivals including the Cannes Short Film Corner, IN THE PALACE FF in Varna, Bulgaria, Glow Dance Festival in Hereford England, Newport Beach FF, and locally at Visionfest NYC and NewFilmmakers at Anthology Film Archives. Their first film DAD ( 2010) won the Award of Merit for Experimental Film from the Accolade Competition in La Jolla, CA. Their film, THE STRONGER (2012), premiered at the Cannes Short Film Corner, and susbsequently screened at over two dozen festivals worldwide. The company's most recent film, I AM NOT OK, is screening at film festivals worldwide.

Since 1997 the company has performed to critical acclaim in New York City and Canada. The work has been produced in NYC at The Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons, The Duke on 42nd Street, Walkerspace, HERE, New York Theater Workshop, The Joyce Soho, The Ohio Theater, The 92nd Street Y, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and the Harborfront Centre in Toronto. In New York City the company has also been invited to perform at The American Living Room Festival, Culturemart,and the Dancenow Festival.

The company’s varied explorations include delving into the lives of Holocaust victims in the literary works of Bertolt Brecht and Cynthia Ozick, exploring adolescent yearning in Carson McCullers’ “The Member of the Wedding”, examining the nature of forgiveness in the work “Salt Chocolate”, and celebrating the life of pop icon Tina Turner.

Lansner works in close collaboration with her performers to develop and create the work: embracing their individuality, their physical idiosyncrasies, and their willingness to explore their own emotional lives as it relates to the characters they portray. Mining her own and her performers’ experiences and psyches to create work that is honest: from the heart, stirring the heart.

The company has received grants from The Harkness Foundation for Dance, The Puffin Foundation, the Alvin and Louise Myerberg Family Foundation, the Altria Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Dance on Camera Association.