Biographies#
Wendy Osserman#
One piece stands out particularly, a solo that joins dance to stand-up comedy, containing the artist’s utterly savory soliloquy and as much physicality as you could wish for.
It is as if Lou Reed had been a choreographer.
- ICI Montreal
Osserman’s work reflects the inner worlds of the dancers and herself. She takes the political personally, at times with some humor that is the flip side of anxiety. Together with dancers she has investigated subjects such as trilobytes, octopuses and 3D printing in movement. Osserman celebrates the strangeness of being alive and relishes a collaborative process involving improvisation, writing, reading and drawing. She conveys the struggle to comprehend current events and history, seeing the personal with the political.
Growing up in NYC, Osserman began ballet at the Ballet Russes School in Carnegie Hall, modern dance at the 92nd St Y with Muriel Mannings; then, with Martha Graham, José Limòn, Betty Jones, Valerie Bettis, Daniel Nagrin and Helen Tamiris. Osserman studied jazz, Flamenco and African dance as well as acting and mime. In 1964 She received a B.A. in Theater from Smith College and later an M.A. from the Gallatin School within N.Y.U. She studied choreography with Martha Myers, Louis Horst. Anna Sokolow, Bessie Schonberg and Robert Ellis Dunn.
Osserman appeared as a soloist with Kei Takei, Frances Alenikoff, Alice Condodina and Valerie Bettis, The Hellenic Chorodrama, S.I.T.U. in Paris and London and in festivals she created on the island of Paros, Greece. She formed Wendy Osserman Dance Company in 1976. The company has toured and performed mostly in New York City in venues including the Delacorte Theater with the New York Dance Festival in 1979, Symphony Space, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church, Joyce Soho and Theater for the New City. Osserman was featured in Dancing Divas at La MaMa, in Women in Dance at 92Y: History in the Making Anniversary Special. Her works include eighteen evening-length pieces and many commissioned works. Commissions included Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy which the Company performed at Baryshnikov Art Center, some commissioned by Zuzka Kurtz, others at the Chelsea Art Museum where WODC was in residence for four years. Wendy received the Lawrence S. Epstein Choreography Award in 1991 and the 2004 Gallatin Arts Festival Award. She taught dance at the New School, Rutgers University, College of Staten Island CUNY, and in numerous public and private schools. Osserman performed and choreographed for ten Annual John Lennon Tributes produced by Joe Raiola at the Theatre Within. She studied acting with Joe Raiola and Authentic Movement with Nancy Zendora.
“Osserman may be inspired by current events, but she’s a timeless rather than topical artist, and perhaps that’s why she has lasted so long.”
- Leigh Witchel, dancelog.nyc
Cori Kresge (Current)#
“Ms. Kresge has advanced from highly impressive to extraordinary…she whips across the space with an amazing combination of absolute control and reckless speed. There’s a cheekiness to how poised she is in seemingly impossible balances, how at ease in high-torsion co-ordinations of limbs.”
- The New York Times
Cori Kresge is a NY based dance artist, writer, bodyworker, and teacher. She graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in dance and has been a member of the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group, José Navas/Compagnie Flak, and Stephen Petronio Company. Kresge collaborates and performs with various artists including Rashaun Mitchell+Silas Riener, Rebecca Lazier, Sally Silvers, Ellen Cornfield, Xavier Cha, Esmé Boyce, Sarah Skaggs, Bill Young, Liz Magic Laser, School for Poetic Computation, and filmmakers Zuzka Kurtz, Alla Kovgan, and Charles Atlas. She won the 2019 No, Dear/Small Anchor Press chapbook contest for her debut poetry collection, isn’t devotion. Her second collection of poems, Combustion Suite, is dedicated to the choreography of Wendy Osserman; published by Bored Wolves, 2023. She teaches dance at various institutions and is a certified Zero Balancing bodyworker and licensed massage therapist. She has danced with Wendy Osserman Dance Company since 2003.
Emily Vetsch#
A dancer, puppeteer, director & choreographer, Emily Vetsch hails from Sun Valley, Idaho. She studied dance at Ballet Idaho, NCSA, and SUNY Purchase (BFA). In addition to WODC, Vetsch has had the pleasure of working with Labyrinth Dance Theater, The Hudson Vagabond Puppets, Jeff Davis Dance, The Marcos Duran Performance Group, NYC Children’s Theater, No. 11 Productions, Cori Kresge, Abby Payne, Cuddle Magic, Tai Dang, and Michael Weiner among other talented people and organizations. She directs Glitter Kitty Theater, est. 2011. Her company is routinely presented by Crystal Field of Theater for the New City, for various productions ranging from annual TNC community festivals to GKT’s own three-week festival of Arts, Music & Theater. She is a seasoned dancer with Wendy Osserman.
Lauren Ferguson#
Lauren Ferguson earned her BFA at the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase and performed as a guest with Merce Cunningham’s Repertory Understudy Group. She has danced in works by David Gordon, Bill Young, Cori Kresge, and Esme Boyce, among others. Ferguson appeared in The Public Theater’s Shakespeare In The Park Production of All’s Well That Ends Well. She is a licensed massage therapist, holistic nutrition graduate, and mom. Lauren has enjoyed dancing with Wendy Osserman Dance Company!
Skip La Plante (Always)#
Skip La Plante serves as musical director, composer, and musician for Wendy Osserman Dance Company. He has composed for over 100 modern dance and theater presentations including collaborating with Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard on Tongues/Savage Love. In 1975 he co-founded Music for Homemade Instruments, an ensemble dedicated to creating and composing for new and unusual instruments, often made from trash and other found objects. One of New York City’s leading microtonalists, La Plante has built instruments and composed for alternative tuning systems such as Harry Partch’s 43 pitch per octave tuning. With the ensemble Bash The Trash, La Plante has shown hundreds of thousands of students how and why musical instruments sound as they do. As a teaching artist at New York City’s Materials for the Arts, he has received donations from corporations and makes the items available to other teachers and artists. He has explored both non-western music — living in Indonesia for two years to study musical performance and gamelan building — and music in the European tradition, working with Milton Babbitt as his college thesis advisor. La Plante spends considerable time backpacking and has mined that experience for compositional ideas. He has collaborated with Wendy Osserman Dance Company for more than a dozen years.
Vanessa Walter#
Vanessa Walters is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, director, filmmaker, and performer. Her multimedia project Ripening has been featured at Lincoln Center, Tribeca Film Festival, Triskelion Arts, NADA Art Fair/Art Basel, Triskelion Arts, and FLICfest Dance Festival, amongst others. Ripening explores our emotional and psychological relationships with Time, and the wonder and cruelty it wreaks. Walters was lead choreographer/dancer for Fischerspooner for 11 years and toured with Gogol Bordello for 2 years. She also collaborates with artist/director Marcel Dzama and is the show choreographer for TruTV’s “At Home with Amy Sedaris.” Walters is a 2020 Harkness Foundation for Dance Grantee for Ripening.