Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Erin Thompson Season 1 Episode 5

Erin Thompson's performance career began as a member of the
Minnesota Dance Theatre in 1970. She was with that company for
ten years, performing in such venues as Northrop Auditorium,
O'Shaughnessy Auditorium and the The State Theater in the Twin
Cities, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts and in
Spoleto, Italy. She danced for a year in Montreal with jazz
choreographer Peter Georges, formerly of Les Ballets Jazz, before
moving in 1981 to New York City.


Ms. Thompson's ten years in NYC were spent in the post-modern
companies of Nina Wiener, formerly with Twyla Tharp Dance, and
world renowned African American choreographer Bebe Miller. She
danced on many stages in NYC including Dance Theater Workshop and
the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where she performed with Nina
Wiener and Dancers in the prestigious Next Wave Festival. She
toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe, performing in
Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati,
London, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam, Groningen, Glasgow, Heraclion
and many other cities and regions.


Since moving back to Minneapolis in 1990, Ms. Thompson
performed for two years with the Zenon Dance Company, including
works by Danny Buraczeski, Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, Joe Goode,
and David Dorfman. In 1993 she and her husband Byron Richard
launched their own dance company, 45 Chartreuse, performing at
the Walker Arts Center, Studio 6A and Old Arizona Studios in
Minneapolis and on tour in Minnesota. She has had several pieces
choreographed specifically for her, including work by Jan Erkert,
Shapiro and Smith, Mathew Janzceski, Cathy Young and Judith
Howard with performances at the Southern Theater and Bedlam
Theater in Minneapolis.


In her position as Rehearsal Director for Nina Wiener and
Dancers, Ms. Thompson led residency projects and taught repertory
at the London Contemporary Dance Theater, the National Ballet of
the Netherlands, the Boston Ballet, and in Anchorage, Los
Angeles, Cincinnati, and Groningen, Holland. She has also reset
Bebe Miller's work on Zenon Dance Company in Minneapolis.


As a dance educator, Ms.Thompson taught ballet, pointe work
and contemporary dance technique at the Minnesota Dance Theatre
from 1975-1980. Her modern dance teaching over the last 3 decades
includes teaching at P.S.122 in NYC, Studio Dance Tanz in Osaka,
Japan, and classes at dance companies and Universities around the
world while on tour. Here in Minneapolis she has taught for
twenty years at the University of Minnesota Department of Theatre
Arts and Dance and at Zenon Dance Company and School, as well as
many guest teaching stints around Minnesota and the midwest. In
2008 Erin was invited to teach and perform at the Art of Movement
Festival in Yaroslavl, Russia. Her advanced professional level
modern dance classes at Zenon Dance School have been a mainstay
of the Twin Cities dance community and have fostered a couple of
generations of versatile and proficient dancers and teachers.


Ms. Thompson received a New York Dance and Performance award,
“Bessie”, in 1986 for her performance in Nina Wiener's Enclosed
Time at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. She
received choreography fellowships along with her husband, Byron
Richard, from the McKnight Foundation in 1993, and the National
Endowment for the Arts in 1994 and 1996. In 2008, she received a
Sage Award for Outstanding Dance Educator. Ms. Thompson has
served on numerous dance panels and currently serves as Board
President of Young Dance. In 2012 her choreography was performed
by Young Dance and at the St. Paul Conservatory of Performing
Artists.