Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Carl Flink- Season 5, Episode 70

Carl Flink is the founder and artistic director of Black Label
Movement (Minneapolis, MN) and the Nadine Jette Sween Professor
of Dance and Director of Dance at the University of Minnesota –
Twin Cities. Featured in Dance Magazine's January 2014 issue,
Flink’s dancemaking is noted for its intense athleticism and
physical risk taking, compositional intelligence and humanistic
themes as a contemporary choreographer for both concert dance and
theater.  


His commissions and invited presentations include the American
Dance Festival (Durham, NC), Bates Dance Festival (Lewiston, ME),
The Minnesota Orchestra, VocalEssence (Minneapolis, MN), MADCO
(St. Louis, MO), University of Florida Performing Arts
(Gainesville, FL), Same Planet Different World (Chicago, IL),
Urbanity Dance (Boston, MA), The Cowles Center for Dance
(Minneapolis, MN), University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT),
Company C (San Francisco, CA), James Sewell Ballet (Minneapolis,
MN). His work has been set on dance programs across the United
States, such as Stanford University, University of Illinois,
University of Iowa, Brigham Young University, University of North
Texas, Mount Holyoke College and Utah Valley State University.
 


Flink has garnered significant recognition for his innovative
collaborations with scientific researchers through his Moving
Cell Project with University of Minnesota biomedical engineer
David Odde and the creation of multiple embodied TED talks. The
Moving Cell’s Bodystorming System, a rapid modeling technique
using human bodies and choreographic strategies, has been
highlighted by Science Magazine, Dance Magazine, Twin Cities
Public Television’s Minnesota Original and TPT TV Takeoverand TED
Talks for TEDx Brussels and TEDMED 2013 (Washington D.C.). They
have presented Bodystorming at research centers such as the
Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA and the National
Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India. His
pathbreaking 2011 TEDx Brussels Talk A Modest Proposal: Dance v.
Powerpoint co-created with ScienceMagazine writer and chemist
John Bohannon offered the innovative idea of how dance artists
and scientists could collaborate to the mutual benefit of their
research and communication. He has created three other TED Talks
including Let’s Talk About Sex for the 2012 TED: Full Spectrum
(Long Beach, CA) and most recently A Dream of Touch When Touch is
Gone for the 2020 TEDx Minneapolis.   


 As a director and choreographer for Theater, Flink is noted
for his edgy and aggressive movement approach in awarding winning
productions for nationally recognized organizations like The
Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis, MN) and Theatre Latté Da
(Minneapolis, MN), as well as his critically acclaimed immersive
theater productions of Woyzeck and Swede Hollow Ghost Sonata with
fellow Twin Cities theater artists Luverne Seifert and Darcey
Engen.  


 Flink's awards include the UMN CLA 2020 Dean's Medal, two
2016 Regional Emmy Award nominations, 2015 Twin Cities
StarTribune Best of MN, a 2014 MN Dance Community Sage Award,
2008 and 2012 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Choreography, and
2010 and 2012 MN Ivey Awards.  The Twin Cities Public
Television Minnesota Original 2012 Episode featuring Flink’s A
Duet for Wreck received a 2012 regional Emmy Award for
Outstanding Performance.    

During the 1990s, Flink was a long-time member and soloist for
the Limón Dance Company in NYC where he also performed with
Creach/Koester Men Dancing, Janis Brenner & Dancers, Paul
Taylor and others. He holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School JD, a
University of Minnesota Political Science and Women Studies B.A.
summa cum laude and was a Farmers’ Legal Action Group, Inc.
attorney (St. Paul, MN) from 2001-2004.  He continues to
work on his most important collaborative project raising his th